It's soccer time...

It's fall, and fall around here mean soccer season.  This year Juliana's team is the Comets and her team color is Blue.  Steve is one of the assistant coaches.  It's great to see her play this year.  Last year was her first year playing and I think she was intimidated by the bigger girls (it's grade 3-6) and she was just trying to learn the game.  This year she is putting everything into the game, and is definitely not afraid of the bigger girls.  Her team has won two of the first three games so far this season.

Tyler's team this year is the Lightening.  He is wearing a white shirt (not so fun to clean) with red trim.  Steve is his head coach and his team has also been winning their games.  He is smaller then most kids on the team, but he is sneaky and can sneak right past some of the bigger players.  

Another first day...

I can't believe it, my kids are back at school!  Why does summer go so fast and winter so slow.  I live for the hot summer days, kids running through the sprinkler in the backyard, all the windows open in the house...  but alas, school is back in session and my kids were excited about it.

Tyler is in second grade, and is very happy with his teacher and class.  He wanted to wear all black on the first day (like a hip hop guy), but he didn't have black shorts and it was too hot to wear pants so we settled on dark blue.

Juliana started fourth grade and has a super fun and energetic teacher this year.  Our elementary school only goes up to fourth grade, so this will be her last year there and then she's off to middle school!  We won't think about that right now, we'll just enjoy watching her be the "big kid" on campus.

Our summer getaway.

We waited until last minute before deciding where to go on our summer getaway this year.  It's not completely unusual for us to wait to plan a trip or to pack (that is definitely something that is always last minute for me).  If it's something that can wait, then it definitely will!  Anyway, we decided to try something new this year, even though the kids were really pushing to go back to Hershey Park.  We've heard so many nice things about the Lake George, Saratoga Springs area in New York that we decided to give it a try.  And let me tell you, it was only a 2.5 hour drive from us (which made it a fabulous destination right there), but it was beautiful!  Our first day we checked into our hotel in Saratoga and went to Saratoga Springs Park.  They have gigantic public pools and waterslides.  I didn't bring my camera in, but it was a great time for all of us.  Juliana especially loved the waterslides, unfortunately for Tyler he was too short to go on them.  That night we went to downtown Saratoga Springs, it was very pretty and clean.  My brother has called it a grown up Sesame Street and I can see why.

We went back to the hotel and the kids went swimming (more about that in a bit).  The next day we went to Six Flags Great Escape.  It was a really fun and not too crowded as we had on and off sprinkles.  The Water Park which would normally be really crowded was quite empty and the kids got to go down the waterslides over and over (Tyler was big enough for these).  Then we headed to the lazy river which was super long and tons of fun, we went around a couple of times and although we were chilly, it was a fantastic family activity.  The end of the day the storm really moved in and we were drenched, but it was still a great day.

                      

Our final day we planned on spending the day at Lake George Beach.  The morning started off beautiful and we packed our beach things and headed towards the lake.  For some reason Steve thought it would be fun to drive around the lake.  I am not sure if you've ever seen how large the lake is, but it's impossible to drive around.  After an hour of driving over a mountain Steve finally believed me and turned around.  By the time we got to the Lake it began to sprinkle, I figured what's a couple of rain drops.  Well about two seconds after we stepped on the beach it began to downpour and thunder, and lightening.  Those three things do not make for a good beach day.  So we packed up the car and went to lunch.  After lunch the skies cleared and we headed back to the beach, and this time the sun came out and we had a wonderful afternoon relaxing on the lake.

The kids spent every night swimming in the pool, they both became great swimmers this summer, which is so exciting and makes for a much more relaxed and fun time at the water for Steve and I.

Even with the kids occasional complaining, the bed time battles, the momentary grumpy parents, the car sicknesses, and the bad weather we still had a great trip and built more memories for all of us, and that's what vacationing is all about!