Summer fun.

I realized that I never shared photos of some of the other fun stuff that we did this summer. And since Sunday is the first day of Fall, I had better get to it.

Lauren really progressed with her swimming skills this summer. For the last several years, I've been freaking out about Lauren learning how to swim because kids in our school district have to take swimming at school beginning in 4th grade. This is most certainly a by product of my our personal horror of having to take swimming at school in 7th grade. She had taken a few swimming lessons over the past two years, but they hadn't really gotten her all that far. Mark has insisted that lessons were worthless, and that she'd learn on her own.

And to my vexation, Mark was right. This summer she boldly jumped into deep water (over and over again), and swam the length of the pool at the hotel where we stayed in Alexandria. She also first experienced the the joy of going down the water slide. I think if we can just convince her not hold her nose, she'll be golden.

 

Some one else also experienced the joys of the water slide this summer. Look at that perfect form!

 

Show off.

 

Of course, no summer would be complete without a trip to Kennywood.

 

It's hard for me to believe that Lauren is now tall enough to ride just about everything in the park. This year, she took her first rides on The Thunderbolt and the Racer.

Here we are together on my all-time favorite ride, the Bayern Kurve!  It's probably the last time she'll be seen with me, well enough actually ride with me.

Here's Mark observing Lauren's form as she chomps down on a delicious funnel cake. And hey people staring off wistfully in the background, no doubt pondering whether they should go with cheese or gravy on their Potato Patch fries - photo bomb much?

Like most kids, when we go to an amusement park Lauren is obsessed with playing games and winning stuffies. We keep telling her that we'll just buy her one from the dollar store, but somehow that's not the same. 

We visited Kennywood on a weekday, so the crowds were all at work. The drawback to this is that there weren't enough people to play the water race game. There was a man and his small son waiting for someone to join, but the game required four people. So Mark took one for the team and paid for a spot.

As you can see by the focused concentration on the faces of the combatants, everyone was in it to win (Take special note of Lauren and the man with his son). Mark blew everyone out of the water (pun intended) because his will to win his little girl a stuffie (Okay it was more his will to cease wasting money on stupid games) won out over any sympathy he felt for the man and his son.

There was an adorable family of ducks swimming in Kennywood Lake that day. Everyone paid more attention to them than the cheesy hip hop dancers performing at the nearby entertainment pavilion.

Whip it good!

I'm sorry to say Lauren that while you may be tall enough to ride most of the rides, you still have to wait a few years before you can grow a mustache.

 

This summer, we also toured many of the area's miniature golf courses. My favorite is at Glenn's Custard. While it isn't the best course (Although as you can see above, the water hazards are pretty cool), Glenn's Custard holds a special place for me. My family has been going there for generations, and I have memories of taking the ride out "to the country" with my grandparents to go get some custard. Oh, and their custard is ridiculously good. They still have the antique custard making machines. I love watching the custard get squeezed out like toothpaste. When we go to Glenn's, it's almost a given that I will get a tin roof sundae because theirs is the absolute best in the world:  chocolate custard, Hershey's syrup, loads and loads of Spanish peanuts, marshmallow sauce, whip cream and a cherry.

Mark's Trans Am once broke down in front of Glenn's. He reminds me about it every time we go.

 

And just because you gotta end strong, here's a baby bunny who hopped out onto the green.

So that's another summer come and gone. October is shaping up to be one busy month, and then it's holiday craziness AGAIN from November to the end of the year. Where did this year go?!