I Scream, You Scream...

When I think back to my last week of summer before school started each year, I don't remember doing anything super exciting or special to send the summer out with style.  We just spent as much time as we could playing because we knew we have severely limited play time once school started.  Well, I guess you could say that we had a bit more play time than usual this week as it was our last week of summer - Thomas starts school tomorrow.  1st grade.  Yep, we are officially entering the "take your lunch to school" phase of life.  Since he only had half day kindergarten last year, he never had to bring a lunch, so this will be new for all of us.  I asked him today what he was most excited about for his first day of 1st grade.  He said, "I'm SO excited to eat lunch at school and have recess and meet new kids in my class.  It'll be ALOT of fun!"  He's pretty enthusiastic about it.  Well, everything except having to wake up early to catch the bus, but hopefully he'll get used to it after a few days or so.  I'll post pics of his first day in next week's post.  As I was saying earlier, our last week of summer was pretty eventful.  We started off the week with a trip to the "beach" - it's actually just a lake with a beachy area, but for central Ohio, it doesn't get any beachier than that.  Of course I didn't snap any pics the whole time we were there but rest assured we had a good time with lots of friends.

Next we went to the Velvet ice cream factory in Utica, OH.  We went on a "tour" which consisted of learning about the history of the company from a video, learning about the history of the building from a teen-aged kid, and then looking through a window at the factory workers making ice cream (but not really seeing much).  Even though the tour wasn't all that stimulating, the ice cream was delicious!  The factory is in a great location with a playground and a pond with ducks and geese to feed and, of course, so many different flavors of ice cream it's really hard to choose just one.

Some friends of ours have a tradition to have an ice cream day on the last day of summer break where their kids get to eat ice cream all day long.  Awesome, right?!  Well, this year they invited us to come and partake of the goodness, so my kids got a significant amount of ice cream two days in a row.  They thought they had died and gone to heaven!  Of course, I still made them eat real food...I'm not as "cool" as other moms who let their kids eat ice cream all day. ;-)

Saturday was the crowning jewel of the last week of summer.  We went with some friends to the All Ohio Balloon Festival in Marysville, OH (just down the road from where Eddie works).  We watched close to 30 (I think) hot air balloons launch and we chatted and had fun hangin' with our friends.  It was a lot of fun but it made for some very dirty and very tired boys afterward.  But it was worth it!

Oh, and as a side note, some of you have commented on my glasses.  Yes, I did get new ones.  My "little" brother, the optometrist, hooked me up with some great looking glasses at a very reasonable price.  It's great having family with connections!  Thanks for your compliments.  I love my new glasses too!