friends, lake & cyclones

I keep seeing these pictures all over Facebook about how Christmas is only like 15 weeks away or something crazy!  I can't even think about that... so I liked this one better!  Let's hang onto summer just a little bit longer!

We had to squeeze in a few more trips to the lake this summer.  It has been just gorgeous weather for boating!

My childhood best friend, Carrie, was back for a family reunion and we loved giving them a boat ride just like we did when we were their age!  (Do you like our little photo bomber in the background? Ha!)

Now this is how you relax!

This picture is so special to me.  Getting together again at the most special place to me, where Carrie and I met when we were Andrew's age (8).  And now our kids getting to play together.  Not many can say they have had a friend for 3 decades!

This was so cute.  Andrew was so excited to have a boy to play with (since most of my friends have girls!) and Eric really only wanted to play with Kerigan- HA!  He likes girls!!  What a flirt.

We went to our favorite place for pizza and Kerigan was so thrilled she got her very own pineapple pizza!  A girl after my own heart.  She ate it all too!

We went to visit Papa's cousin who lives on the lake and the kids loved eating fruit and relaxing while looking at the water.  Could there be a better view??  Not much!

This is how our feet look at the lake... that's the life!

They loved this giant chair!
And if we're not at the lake...

We've loved grilling out and having bonfires with friends!

This is probably one of my favorite things to have going on in the evenings in the summer... friends, bonfire, s'mores and everyone just visiting while the kids play.

I love this sweet family so much!  Angie has about a month before their sweet baby boy is born!  Andrew can't wait to have a boy around... although he said he wishes that "Parker was out of Angie's tummy and that he was 8!"  Ha ha.

We got out the marshmallow shooter and I think the score was Andrew 10- Daddy 0!

Payton and Kerigan wore the swings out!

One evening they invited us to their farm (Angie's parents have a farm outside of town) to go fishing and grill out.

The kids had so much fun and Andrew could not wait to fish!

 Craig and I aren't really fish people- growing up at the lake in the summers, I spent more time using boats for sun tanning and water skiing than fishing- Ha!  But Andrew has really shown an interest!  He loves going with Chad (Angie's husband) and he doesn't mind touching the gross worms or picking up the fish!

He could have done this all night!

Even this girl enjoyed it... but not for as long as her brother!

 Kerigan with her catch of the day!

 She did NOT want to touch it!

Daddy surprised us with tickets to the local theater production of Peter Pan!  We had a couple of friends in the show and it was so much fun!  They kids were so engaged and interested!  It was a fabulous show!

And last on our summer bucket list was a Cy Scavenger hunt!  These statues of Cy are all over Ames (home of the Iowa State Cyclones!) so we grabbed our Cyclone fan friends and made a day of it!

This took a lot of planning and checking out the map to make sure we went in the right order.  I love this kind of thing (and so does Ashley!)  Riding around in the car all day looking for Cy's is totally something I was looking forward to.  The kids were so excited and loved it every time they spotted one.  I made a collage of all our pictures since there were so many!  These were our stops before lunch!

 There are around 5 Cy's right by Ga Ga's house so of course we had to add her house to our list of stops!  It was a good potty break!

Then we had to stop for lunch where there was a Cy- our favorite, Hickory Park!

This place is an Ames staple!  Check out baby Henry- he had to join the fun too!

After lunch and a few more Cy's, we made our way to the beautiful ISU campus.  Of course there are a few Cy's there... so we had to stop at a couple of iconic places, the Memorial Union fountain...  I love this picture of my future Cyclones!

And the campanile!  Legend says that you aren't a true Iowa Stater unless you're kissed under the campanile when it strikes midnight!  We'll let you wonder if I'm a true Iowa Stater or not!  Ha ha.

 These were our stops after lunch!
 There were 3 missing Cy's- one broken, and 2 were getting ready for the Iowa State Fair.  So those are still on our list for sometime when we're in Ames!  Because we have to complete our list!  Most of these were easy to find- we only had a couple of them that we really had to search or ask for directions.  A few of them were inside places so those were the harder ones because they weren't in plain sight outside.  But for me, the challenging ones were the most fun!

 This was our 2nd to last stop, and by now Preston had a headache and the kids were pretty much done.  It was an 8 hour day!  But it was so.much.fun!  Definitely something we had been wanting to do for a long time!

And when we got home... we had some tired little fans!

Go Cyclones!