Time for school

Labor Day weekend seems like the official end of summer--the warm days aren't necessarily over, but the vacation from school certainly is.

A brief review of summer...

Over Memorial Day we went to Winnipeg, Manitoba. The children wanted to visit a foreign country. It may not be Paris, but the ATMs do spit out money in a different color.


Amy and Mark: Assiniboine Park



Lili and Holden: Assiniboine Park



Jonas and Mark: The Forks



Lili, Miriam, Asher, and Eliza: The Forks

Jonas, turned 2.


Jonas loved his birthday!

 We ate ice cream:

Jonas

Holden turned 11:

We had a picnic at Oxbow:



Mark had a conference in Minocqua, Wisconsin that we came along for:


Miriam, Asher, Holden, Lili, Eliza, and Jonas. The conference hotel had a water park.

The Browns. Minocqua is surrounded with lakes everywhere.

Mark turned 39! Lemon cremes made a perfect cake.

We went mini-golfing.

We hiked along an old railroad route they've turned into a biking and hiking trail.



In August we were lucky enough to go to Kansas City for our Ethan's baptism:


Jayhawks for a day in Lawrence, KS visiting the University of Kansas.

After the baptism with family.

Miriam, Eliza, Lili and cousin Brooke. The cute matching shirts were courtesy of Grandma!

We even made it to the Steele County Fair:

Asher in front of the pig pens.

Once again, our garden produced:

Our carrots have been champions.

Lili with a lily.

We also took lots of swimming lessons, watched TV, read books, and spent hours doing chores. (Most of those hours were complaining about the jobs. The actual work only lasted a few minutes.)
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The school supplies are packed. We are ready for Tuesday morning and another year of school