August 2015

It's awesome to finally be catching up on the blog after a year hiatus.  Here are our August 2015 photos!

 

Back to school!  10th grade and 8th grade! 

 

 

So proud of this kiddo!  He's having a great year! 

 

Thomas's 10th grade photo.  Thank you to April Knox!

 

 We had friends over one Sunday and we all just literally floated in the pool, eating chips and popsicles.  It was awesome.

 

Bailey and Toby joined us on the pool deck.  They get along so well.

 

 

On our way into church one morning.  Love. 

 

Our friends the Therbers came back from Chapel Hill for a weekend.  We loved seeing Sophie, Cora, and mom Kathy.  It was so good to see Kathy who is recovering from breast cancer.  She looked great!!

 

We have a new driver in the house!  Thomas got his learner's permit!

 Here was his first day of driver's ed.

 And my first time as his passenger.  Soooo strange!

 

 

We had a record number of puppy parties in August.

Snickers and Jack came over (along with Lauren, Matthew, and Gigi)!

It was raining so we had an indoor puppy party and it was great.

 

Neighbors came down to play too.

Storm, Pippa, and Bailey (with Lyla, Thomas, and Brennan)

They all get along so well.



 

Pippa LOVED David.

Brennan and Snickers 

Bailey is attending a Good Citizen (AKC training) class.  He takes his training very seriously and is very good in class :)

 

And it was time for Maltipoolooza 2015!

 

Emmersen, Jetta, and Thomas

Caitlyn and Jetta

 

 

We love to have the dogs play together. Jetta is Bailey's half-sister and Maggie is their cousin!

David and Thomas are training for their first half marathon in 2 weeks!

Here they are after their longest run yet - I think this one was 7 miles.

I attended the Philharmonic annual meeting where I am a board member.  Love my time with the Phil.

I call this one "Waiting for Abbie".  His BFF comes down most afternoons to run and play.

 

I also give tours through our Visitors Center - I took this shot just before my architecture tour started.  Very proud of where we live.

 

Did I mention Thomas got a job?!  His first job!

He's working at our local Children's Museum.  It's a great job for him and he's working quite a few hours.  Between school, work, running, Robotics, church, and a social life - he's quite busy.

 

I dropped him off at work one day and Bailey and I had 45 minutes to kill before picking up Brennan.  So we took a walk downtown.

Our church.  Bailey loves to visit because the beautiful ladies in the office always have treats for him. 

 

 

Finally, fun at Schaefer Lake with friends at the end of August.

Cookout, tubing, pontooning, swimming, canoeing, kayaking.

What a great afternoon! 

 

 



July 2015

 

July was awesome as well as June.  Lots of time with friends and family, a trip, and a concert!

 

The boys had their annual physicals, didn't need any shots, and never pass up a sucker.

Jackie and I took the boys and friends to the Hangar (airport restaurant) for breakfast, then headed to Ceraland for a day of fun including archery, swimming, putt-putt, and boating.

 

When Chef Bianca hosts book club, it's an amazing evening!

 

A friend offered me ridiculously low priced tickets to the One Direction concert.

I will thrilled that Sarah Towsley wanted to go with me.  It was so much fun to experience it with a true fan!!  We had a great night at Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play.

 

When we first entered.  We had much better seats.

 

 



 

Thomas took a computer design course in Toronto, so we made a family vacation out of the trip!  We had a ton of fun, but missed Thomas while he was at the University of Toronto all week.

 

Our first night's dinner in London, Ontario. 

 

Unstaged photo below.  This is how they were playing a game together while we waited for our delicious Japanese food.

We said goodbye to Thomas at the University of Toronto.  He had a great week.  

We had a great hotel with a rooftop area that gave us great views of the city.

I had to try the poutine.  It's a Canadian favorite - french fries with beef, gravy, and cheese curds.  Surprisingly good, although very filling!

We took a double decker bus tour that gave us a chance to get off and on at a lot of places we planned to visit.

 

We had lunch at the CN Tower.  The last time I was there was for work when I was expecting Thomas - about 16 years ago!

 

We also took a boat tour of the islands off of Toronto and the harbor.  Great skyline views.

We went to a few museums.  I was anxious to see the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the Henry Moore exhibit since we have a pretty famous Henry Moore here in town.

 

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) was pretty impressive too - natural history.

 



Because of preservation laws in Toronto, no historic building can be modified on the exterior.  So this portion of the building is actually just placed on the historical original building.  Pretty cool.



 

Toronto had a big impact on Brennan.  He could see himself studying there or living there.  He's always liked cosmopolitan cities that we've visited. 

 

Then we were off to Niagara Falls.  I've been wanting to visit for the longest time.  We had a ball.

 

View from our hotel room of the two falls!

 

View inside the hotel room.  Ha.

 

After dinner we thought it was impressive that they had the falls lit up.  Then David said "Bonnie, come look, quick!"  They had fireworks over the falls.  It was incredible.

 

The next day we took the boat tour of the falls.  We saw a full rainbow off the bow of the boat.

And got to see the falls up close.

 

It was awesome, and the only downside was that Thomas wasn't with us. 

I suggested he take his wife on their honeymoon one day (to which he rolled his eyes).

 

Watching the boat tours

 

Playing around with panorama.  That's our hotel in the background.

 

We were so excited that Grandma Nan, Aunt Shelly, Natalie and Danielle got to visit us!

And Uncle Dave one night as well!

 

We spent one day visiting all sorts of places in town.

 

Like the popcorn store that we like so much.

The kids took off one day on a scavenger hunt.

 

But we spent a lot of our time swimming.  Including a diving board contest.

 

Then we headed to Great Wolf Lodge in Cincinnati.

And indoor/outdoor water park that we've only visited in the winter, but it turns out to be great in the summer too!

Wonderful food, lots of swimming and activities for the kids.

A very full and awesome July 2015!