Neighborhood Bandit

Before you scroll down, can you identify this thief sneaking around our neighborhood? You can see his eyes looking at you from around the tree in the center of the picture.

We've seen this raccoon before, but Becky was quick with the camera this morning. We think he lives in another tree at he house next door to this one. Maybe he's scoping out new digs.

Aaron Underwater

We love our waterproof camera, about as much as Aaron loves swimming.

Aaron Flipping Over

Becky took this video during swim lessons today.  We've been trying to get him to flip over for weeks in the pool.  He has a good freestyle stroke, but wouldn't come up for air and keep going.  He would exhaust himself trying to swim as far as he could without taking a breath.  OK for short distances in the pool, but potentially dangerous if trying to swim to safety. His swim teacher, Monica, has been trying to get him to take some forward strokes, flip over into a back float to catch his breath, then flip over to a freestyle stroke again.  She told him to take as long as he needed to catch his breath before flipping back over, which is why you see him staying in that back float for a minute or so, gathering his nerve.  He does even better when he swims back from her to the steps, doing the flip over routine twice.

AAA Fair

We've been members of AAA for almost 15 years now.  The NW Ohio branch throws a party in their parking lot every year to thank its members, entice new ones, and showcase other services and affiliates that come with membership.  We like to stop by for the fun and games for the kids.  This year they had a Spider-man car that the kids thought was pretty cool.

The games were standard carnival games, but they were set up so that kids could get some kind of prize no matter how well they did.  Alex here is trying his best at a ball toss knocking over clown dolls.

Aaron did well at a skeeball-type bowling game.  They had music and food carts so we had a little picnic there and enjoyed the nice early fall day.

Making Goals

Today's Home Depot Kids' Club project was making football goals, just in time for football season.

They came with a template for making paper footballs that could be flicked through the goals.

Ready....Set.....HIKE!

Paper Scout Planes

Becky got the Scouts to make paper airplanes from a pattern book that she found.  They decorated them in the art room and then...

...went outside to the jungle gym to launch them.  They had a blast and it was a great kickoff to the new Bear den.

Pink Ribbon Pins for Komen

Becky and her mom have been crocheting these pink ribbon pins for several weeks now.  They're selling them for $10 and all of the money is going to Komen for the Cure.  If you haven't gotten yours yet, please contact us and we'll get one to you.

July Blog Posts

Though July was as long as months go, I only had 8 posts this month and they are finally completed. There are some good ones here, including the wild animal attack that the boys and I endured and an impromptu rock concert on our front lawn. You can find these and the other 6 posts here.

June Blog Posts

I'm on a roll. I'm caught up with June. Be sure and check out the boys' first home-brew haircut.  Catch up on the rest of June here.  This puts me exactly 2 months behind.  I can almost taste the finish line. Of course, this is a project that is really never finished, but it will still feel good to get completely caught up.  Until I get behind again.

Fulton County Fair 2008

This year's Fulton County Fair was our favorite yet.  Aaron was tall enough that he could ride most of the rides accompanied by Alex, which meant that I didn't need to ride everything and could watch and take pictures from the sidelines.  There were some rides, like the "1001 Nachts" flying carpet ride that Alex is riding here, that were still to big for Aaron, but he was still able to ride some of the smaller kids' rides that Alex wasn't interested in anyway.

They worked together on the bumper cars to strike fear in the hearts of the other drivers, while I watched and tried not to flash forward to thoughts of them driving on real roads someday.

Alex found that this huge burlap sack slide was faster than he remembered, especially when it tossed him up (and then dropped him) on the bumps.  This was one of Aaron's favorite rides though, and he rode it 4 or 5 times.  Thank goodness we went for the unlimited ride pass.

This inflatable obstacle course costs extra, but the kids love it and so we do it every year.  This year, Aaron could tackle all the obstacles and keep up with his brother.

After our ride passes expired we ate fair food and checked out lots of animals - cows, pigs, rabbits, chickens, goats, and sheep to name a few.  The boys really loved watching a sheep get shorn right before judging.  He was unhappily bleating every few seconds which they thought was hilarious, so we moved on.  All in all, our favorite year here so far.

May Blog Posts

May's blog posts are done.  Please be sure and check out Alex getting his Cub Scout Wolf badge.  You can read the rest of the posts here.

April Blog Posts

Now that I have the Disney vacation blogging monkey off my back, I've cranked through the rest of the April blog posts.  Find the hidden cornbread recipe in the Dad & Lad post.  Here's the rest. May, here I come.

Cannonball!

Red Eyed Tree Frog, Jumping in the Pond

This shot of Aaron launching into the pool from the edge, ready to faceplant and then freestyle his way to Becky reminded us of a red-eyed tree frog jumping into a pond.  His swim teacher posted this on their bulletin board at the pool.

New Blog Features

The blogging host I'm using, Blogger, has rolled out some new features that I'm using with the Evans Family Weblog.  I am editing most of the entries with the text editor from their beta blogging service - Blogger in Draft - but the main Blogger service is better at uploading pictures.

There are also some new "gadgets" that I've installed on the right column.  Below the "About Us"  gadget, I've added a box to search the blog, so you can find that elusive post about a horrible combine warning sign. (Note: as of publishing time, I could not actually get this to work to search the blog, though you can use it to search the internet - hopefully it will work by the time you try it).  The results pop up at the top of the page.

Then below the "Blog Archive" that you can use to find posts by date and title, I've added "My Blog List".  It lists my other 4 blogs and Mark's blog, ordered by most recently updated, with the title of the most recent post underneath it. Below that are buttons you can use to easily subscribe to this blog using your favorite blog aggregator (I use Google Reader).  Below that are some other links and the tag list for the posts I've tagged.  Click on any of those and it will take you to all of the posts on that subject that I have tagged.

As always, I welcome your feedback.

Disney Posts Completed

All of the Spring Break Disney posts are completed, about 4+ months late. Links below will take you directly there.

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 1 - Volcano Pool & Ohana

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 2 - Epcot

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 3 - Animal Kingdom and Date Night

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 4 - Boma, Fishing, and La Nouba

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 5 - Magic Kingdom

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 6 - Disney Studios

Disney Vacation 2008 - Day 7 - Missed It/Repeat It Day

First Day of School 2008

Today was their 1st day at school.  We posed for the traditional 1st day shot in front of the tree in the front yard, though this is Aaron's first one of these. Last year, they missed the first day because of Aunt Melinda's funeral.  Here's Alex in 2006 (with Aaron nearby) and 2005 for comparison.  This year's first day was much better than last year's.

Open House

Today we got to bring the kids back to their school for Open House.  It was a chance to meet with their teachers, bring in their school supplies early, and let the kids see their new classroom areas.  Alex is moving up to 3rd grade in the Lower Intermediate Section of the school, which are combined 3rd and 4th grade classes.  His teacher is Mrs. Augustyniak and seems very nice.  This year he'll have to carry around that big green binder with a homework planner in there.

Aaron will be moving up to preschool 5 days a week at the same school.  He'll have Mrs. Choka, the same P-4 teacher that Alex had when he started here.  He liked his new teacher and classroom.  Most of the kids he knows from last year.  He is very proud to be moving up to the big preschool out of the 3 year old building, though he will miss Mrs. Meinecke.

Becky also took this opportunity to recruit for Cub Scouts. She made the posterboard display with pictures of previous scouting activities from last year.

She made Scout popcorn and Alex got in his uniform also to attract 1st through 5th grade boys to the table.  She got lots of people interested in the popcorn (it's quite good) and got several kids interested in looking into Cub Scouts when they start it up in a month or so.  More importantly, she found a parent interested in walking the 1st graders through the Tiger Cub requirements.  She'll make one more appeal in a few weeks at the Parents' Back To School night.

Thank You Nana & Papa

This is the mountain range that Alex drew as a thank you to Nana & Papa for renting the Cascade Cabin in Montana a few weeks ago.  He used the new Crayola True-to-Life crayons with tri-color tips.

Kids Club Family Carnival

The Kids' Club at our gym sponsored a Family Carnival in the gym after swim lessons today.  They had games, crafts, activities, and food set up as a fun thank you to the kids and families that use their facility. Aaron tried his hand at a ring toss game - ring the pop bottle, win the bottle.

Alex clowned around a little...

..and found a spider on his arm.

Aaron made a wacky mask at the craft table.  We all ate hotdogs and popcorn.  The other half of the gym was open, so we played basketball for few minutes before heading home.  We'll look forward to this next year.