Last Trip of Summer

For Labor Day weekend, Katie and I drove up to see

Shelly and Drew and the kids.

Heidi had some commitments at home, so

that's where she stayed.

Here are a few pictures of the trip:

We drove up on Friday night, after I got off of work.

On Saturday, Drew took Katie to a Penn State

football game for her birthday.

Here are Isabelle, Katie, Drew and Aubree all decked-out

in their Penn State T-shirts.

Katie turns 16 in a few weeks and she

wanted to go to a college football game.

(She was probably interested in the tight-ends).

Before the game. They got there early so they could

get some good seats in the student section.

They ended up in the third row, between

the 15 and 20 yard-line. Sure beats being

in the nose-bleed section where

the players all look like ants.

It really wasn't a close game at all.

Penn State played Youngstown State of Ohio

for the first game of the season.

A crowd shot, with the cheerleaders too.

(All the football game pictures were

stolen from Katie- thanks!)

While Drew and Katie were at the football game,

and more importantly, Aubree down for a nap,

Shelly broke out the computer for Isabelle to play with.

This is an older Macintosh computer that I gave

to Shelly for her kindergarten class when

she taught school a few years ago.

Isabelle is pretty good at moving the computer mouse

around and clicking on the things she wants to select.

I have given Shelly a lot of our old games that Katie used

around that age, and she got some from Drew's mom,

who runs a day-care facility where we live.

When Aubree woke up from her nap, we took a

walk to downtown Boalsburg. It is a pretty small

place, but real nice with some neat old homes.

We stopped here at this old cabin on

the main street for information.

I don't know why the headstones are here,

unless they are early Halloween decorations.

Just off the main street of town is the 'Spider Park'.

They call it that because of this climbing contraption.

Isabelle loves to climb this and swing in

the ropes. She spent quite a lot of time

climbing around in this.

Aubree going down the slide.

She really liked this.

And of course Isabelle likes the slide too.

Isabelle waving from the top of the slide.

Isabelle likes being the big sister and pushing

her little sister Aubree in the baby swing.

Aubree likes showing her tongue

whenever you try to take her picture.

Who did she learn that from?

On the other side of the park are two churches

and this old graveyard. The graves closest to the

churches are the oldest. Some of the headstones

are so old that it is hard to read the information

chiseled onto them.

Boalsburg is a little town next door to State College,

where Penn State is. Boalsburg's claim to fame is

being the birthplace of Memorial Day.

This is a monument to the people that promoted

Memorial Day. The plaque says:

The Birthplace of Memorial Day

Boalsburg, PA

October 1864

Lorann Jacobs, Sculptor.

Another view of the monument with Shelly

and the girls. The statues are almost life-size.

This plaque tells a little history of the events

that led up to Memorial Day. It also list names

of people involved in promoting Memorial Day.

You can see the monument in the background.

We also went to the local museum that is located

in a restored home built in 1825.

The museum was mostly full of stuffed

animals and dolls. There was a room made to

look like an old-time school room.

Isabelle liked sitting at the desk and

checking out the pencil box.

While we all went to the Peach Festival

in our town back in August.

(See the Peach Festival section under

"Whole Lotta Summer Stuff"blog.)

The Home Depot booth was giving

out birdhouse kits for kids to make.

So one of the days we were there, Katie

helped Isabelle put it together and paint it.

Here is a picture of Isabelle hammering

the on the front of the birdhouse.

The birdhouse is all built and now

Isabelle is painting it.

The shirt that Katie is wearing is

one that she recently tie-dyed.

One night, Drew cooked us all dinner

on his new barbeque that he got

on his birthday. Dinner was real yummy!

Ah, the master-chef basting with

his secret sauce.

As you can see, their back deck opens

up into the woods and a creek

somewhere below.

Just a random picture of the girls

sitting on the stairs.

Aubree loves her rice.

A close-up picture of Aubree

eating and wearing her rice.

Katie had to get into the action by

wearing dish-soap suds on her face

while helping with the dinner dishes.

On Labor Day we went on a family picnic with

people from Drew and Shelly's ward.

Here is a picture of Katie talking with some friends

that she actually met in July in New York when we

were in the Hill Cumorah Pageant.

They were in it too and their parents had the

assignment of being the campground hosts.

Small world.

Isabelle jumping out of the picture.

I liked this picture anyway because

of her hair all over the place.

Going down the little slide.

Aubree playing in the playground

at the picnic.

Shelly and Aubree at the picnic.

We sat on Shelly's T-shirt quilt to eat lunch.

Heidi made this quilt for Shelly years ago.

It is made from Shelly's favorite T-shirts.

Well, that's it. The end of a long, hot and busy

summer. Time to get back into the grind

become busy with other things.

We still have our kitchen to tile, and hopefully

the weather will keep cool so we can start that.

The End