The Big Apple

Landon got this apple from Primary and wanted me to take a picture of his "New York" apple. 

Get it?!?!?!

The "Big Apple!"

Little Shopper

Our local grocery store recently got these little carts for their "customers in training" and Maylie was more than happy to give them a trial run. She looked so cute with all of her little items in her cart and was quite the little helper loading everything onto the cart and putting the bags back into her cart to take back out to the car. I sure do love having my sweet little sidekick during the day!

Sailing Trip

A family in our ward owns a home right on the water near the Chesapeake Bay and invited us to go on a sailing trip with them on Saturday, September 9th. This was their home that literally backs right down to the water. I don't know how you would every get anything done with that view and such fun right outside your door!

Here is Jason and I ready for our sailing excursion. It was a beautiful day and the views were amazing!

We went with another family from our ward who has children of similar ages to our kids which made it even more fun for everyone. Here is Abby with her good friend Hanna.

And Landon with his friend Bridger!

It wasn't really swimming weather (70 degrees) but that didn't stop the kids from jumping on in! We also went kayaking around the pier area and did some exploring near their sandy beach.

A balloon sword fight may have happened too!

The highlight of the day was catching some good ol' Maryland crabs and eating them for dinner. The kids loved catching them with chicken drumsticks and a net and got lessons from Sister Hall on the proper way to eat them.

This was an experience we won't soon forget!!

Another School Year Begins...

Despite having the longest summer we've ever had, somehow the start of school still managed to sneak up on us!

On Monday, September 4th, Jason gave all of the kids Father's blessings to help out with the start of school.

Abby

Landon

Nolan

Maylie did not want to be left out!

September 5th was the first day of school and there was quite a bit of excitement in the air!

Abby is in 6th grade at Western Heights Middle School. It is a magnet school for Arts Integration and she will be specializing in theater. She was nervous (and so was I) but was also super excited about this new adventure in front of her!

Landon is starting 4th grade with Ms. Sneckenberger. He's one of the "big boys" on campus now!

And our little Nolan is in 1st grade with Mrs. Lund. He still wishes we could stay home and play LEGOs all day, but was still excited about going back to school and seeing his friends again!

I took Abby to Middle School but no pictures. She's too old for that!! I did snap a few picture of the boys on their way into Elementary school...

And one picture of Nolan in his classroom before he told me to stop!!

The house is a lot quieter with just Maylie and me at home. I hope these kids have a great school year!!

Hershey World

We promised the kids a trip to Hershey if they read the entire Book of Mormon this summer. Abby and Landon both read the entire book by themselves and Nolan read the Children's version. Time for Hershey Chocolate World then!!

We headed up to Hershey on the last Friday before school started and were able to meet up with Jason's sister Shanna and her family who live in Ohio. While we waited for them to arrive, we took a few pictures around the area inside...

Then each of the kids picked out their favorite chocolate bar that were bigger than their heads!! 

We didn't buy these huge candy bars for them, but we did get to make our very own chocolate bar on one of our chocolate excursions.

Everyone got to choose just what kind of candy bar they wanted and even got to design a label to go with it!

Afterwards we did the free chocolate tour a few times. I could do this tour all the time and never get bored. It is so fun!

We also saw the Hershey 4-D Movie as part of our package too...

We headed to a little park nearby for lunch and then went back to Hershey World for a little more chocolate tasting and souvenir buying. Plus one more free tour too!

We had plans to go to Hershey Park the next day as part of their reward for the Book for Mormon challenge, but we ended up getting season passes to Six Flags in D.C. instead for the same cost as just one day at Hershey Park. We were only able to stay for an hour before they closed the park due to poor weather, but at least with season passes, we know we can come back often!