Summer's Last Hurrah

Our last summer weekend began with my mom's wedding and continued with a whole lot of fun!  We said goodbye to our family at a brunch Sunday morning and headed up to Lake Erie for 3 days.

This is my sister Mandy and I--not dressed up for my mom's wedding you can see that we're so different from one another, yet I love her inside and out and am so proud of the woman she's become!!

Since we had two cars down at the wedding, we rode separately up to the lake.  Sienna wanted to road trip with Mama--I think she misses me during the day now that she's a kindergartner, and I think the day and a half I was at my mom's before she arrived also made her miss me :)  Okay, okay, and she also knew she could talk me into stopping for a pack of bubblegum, haha!

Once at the lake we were greeted by our friends Sean and Mandy and their sons from out of state.  They came in for the weekend and spent a night with us.  The kids swam and played so well together and we enjoyed catching up all day and into the evening.

On Monday morning we all got ready to swim and then realized it was a bit chilly for swimming!  The kiddos didn't mind one bit though.  In fact, Bristol was REALLY into swimming--jumping in by herself and with her sisters which was so adorable.  Just one month ago Bristol was afraid of being in the water without being held or being on very shallow steps, so jumping independently is such huge progress for her!

After swimming, some of the children decided to take jetski rides with their daddies.  Our friend Sean took his son and then Scott took Jaden and Bristol for rides.  It was Bristol's first time and she proudly came off the jetski exclaiming that she'd taken a fun ride!

We had Mexican for lunch with our friends and then they had to get on the road towards home.  We all relaxed for awhile and then decided to finish off the day at Cedar Point!  Even Scott's dad joined us and everyone enjoyed a few favorite rides.  We've had passes to the amusement park all summer and the girls love to go up to ride often.  Their favorites are the scrambler, bumper cars, ferris wheel and of course all of the little cars and helicopters that go around in a circle.

As we stood in line for the ferris wheel, we saw a blimp circling the entire park with a minion on it!  Since we live near the Goodyear Blimp's main hanger, it's not uncommon for us to see a blimp in the sky.  But a blimp with a minion...priceless :)

Scott and his dad had to return home Monday night to get ready for a full day at the office Tuesday, but since the big girls had an extra day off school we stayed another night at the lake and packed in even more fun.

We started off the morning at the "African Wildlife Safari."  I have to put that in quotations because it's nothing like Africa--ha!  The girls love seeing the animals all come up to the car though and this time Jaden was brave enough to feed them!

Unfortunately, we didn't make it far with our cup of food because one of the larger deer snatched it right out of Jaden's hand!  Smart little booger!  We still had a great time driving through.  Bristol would tell you the drive through was terrifying since Jaden was leaning over her to feed some of the animals out her window, but she liked it as long as her window was shut!

After our safari morning, we headed straight towards the movie theater and saw the movie Planes.  It was a really cute show and all three girls were so good.  They were excited because they basically got to have popcorn and lemonade for lunch--a special treat for my sweeties.  If it helps them to sit still and be quiet so that they don't disturb the other families at the movies, they can have all the lemonade and popcorn they want :)

After the movie we headed home to get ready for back to school this morning.  I don't know how we could have made this weekend any better--it was truly the perfect last hurrah of summer!