Shaw Park Tree Top Playground Opening

On Saturday we attended the opening of Shaw Park's Tree Top Playground opening. This is another accessible playground that our friends (the Blakemores/Unlimited Play) helped to create. They gave out those cute stuffed monkeys, had free food, a balloon man, and lots of snacks.

Kathryn's Fall Party

Friday was Kathryn's Fall Party in Miss Reside's class. We had pizza, played games, made ghost suckers, and gave the kids a fun goody bag.

Kathryn at the ghost-sucker making station.

Kathryn making her witches brew. This was the game that I was in charge of. The kids had to use the straw to suck up the paper cut-outs and drop them in the cauldron.

Kathryn getting ready to play hot pumpkin!

Mikus Family Farm

Thursday was an early release day for Kathryn, so we went to Mikus Family Farm to enjoy their fall activities. The girls played in pools of corn, wheat, and soybeans. Reagan loved wiggling her fingers in it! The girls also had fun in the hay bale maze. It is one you have to crawl through and has a roof on it. They were afraid of it last year, but they really had fun in it this year. Kathryn had me time her, and she made it through in 24 seconds! We bought some mini-pumpkins and a beautiful mum for our front porch.

Kathryn's 6th Birthday party

We had Kathryn's 6th birthday party on Saturday. It was rainbow-themed with a rainbow balloon arch, rainbow cupcakes, and a rainbow crown.

Her birthday posse. We had 6 friends from school, 3 friends from church, 1 neighbor, and 1 sister attend. We played penny drop, hula-hoop toss, and had a treasure hunt to find a pinata in the shape of a pot of gold!

Awww...such a sweet girl.

Modeling one of her favorite presents. (Thanks Gaby!) The hair dryer really blows air! I also completed her name tag with her name and picture, so she'd be official.

Puerto Rico - 4

On Saturday we got up and went back to El Yunque National Park to hike down to La Mina Falls. Luckily, we beat the crowd and were able to enjoy the falls with only a few other people. The water was super chilly, but I did get in! As we were leaving, a big group of teenagers and a wedding party were on their way down. We saw 5 or 6 people slip on the steps and on the rocks as we were packing up to leave.

Puerto Rico - 3

Friday was kind of a rainy day, so we took the back road all the way to Old San Juan. It took us about an hour, but we enjoyed driving along the coast and through small towns. We visited the Castillo San Felipe del Morro and enjoyed imagingin what like was like when it was occupied. After that we walked around Old San Juan, did a little shopping, and ate dinner at a sandwich shop called El Meson.

Puerto Rico - 2

On Thursday we took the ferry out to an island named Culebra, to spend the day on Playa Flamenco. The ferry is only $4.50 roundtrip and took about an hour each way!

Isn't it beautiful!? We stopped and bought lunch in town before we took a taxi to the north side of the island. We ate, then snorkeled a little bit. The water was so nice and clear. The beach was pretty empty also, so it was nice to not be crowded.

Here I am feaux-snorkeling for the benefit of my kids. I thought they'd think it was funny. I'm probably in 1 foot of water!

Puerto Rico - 1

For our 10th wedding anniversary, we took a vacation to Puerto Rico! Luckily, Mike's mom (Karen) volunteers once a year to come and watch our girls so that we can get away by ourselves.

This is the view from our hotel balcony. We arrived on Tuesday (9/28) and spent the afternoon checking in and driving around the local area to see what we could see. We ate dinner at Richie's and shared a chicken mofongo with garlic sauce. We enjoyed it a lot. Since plantains look kind of like bananas, I really expected it to taste a little bit like a banana, but it actually tasted more like a potato to me.

On Wednesday, we hiked all the way to the top of the mountain in El Yunque National Forest. We hiked for about 3 hours. Here I am being silly on the top of one of the peaks.

That is the Eastern coast of Puerto Rico in the background.

We hiked to the top of the peak on the left.

Kathryn's Photo Shoot

I took these pictures of Kathryn for her 6th birthday invitation. I ended up using the last one.

Renaud Spirit Center Fair

On Saturday, September 25th, the Renaud Spirit Center had a free-day with games, crafts, vendors, and free admission to the facility. I thought it would be fun to take the girls swimming (indoors) so we went. The girls had fun sliding down the inflateables, and painting pumpkins. We did try to go swimming, but after we had been in the water about 2 minutes (yes, two), some kid threw up in the pool and we had to get out. So disappointing! They told us that they would shock the pool and that we could get back in after 30 minutes, but we just couldn't handle the thought! So, we went and got Frostys from Wendy's, because they can fix most anything. I am glad we went though, because I entered a raffle while we were there and I won a $50 gift certificate to a local running store! Yippee!

I'm so proud of my girls for hugging this raccoon.