Float Flying

Like the night fly, we weren't sure what the weather would be for the float fly. It rained all week, and even in the night on Saturday morning. But the weather at the lake on Saturday lat morning was so beautiful! 

Nora helping Daddy take off. She spent the whole time in the water.

There were some wild clouds around, but fortunately no rain that came over us.

Sweet (wet) girl.

Zeke on the muddy shore.

It was a good flying day. Aaron flew 4 or 5 times, no crashes. The kids loved playing outside, and we had a good hamburger/hot dog lunch. 

Night Flying

The Saturday of the Night Fly, we spent the morning working on finishing Aaron's plane, then around 3:00 a thunderstorm rolled in. Thunder, lightning, cold wind, raining cats and dogs. We were going to run to the grocery store before we headed flying, but we didn't want to go out in the heavy rain, so we stayed home and waited for the notice that the fly was cancelled. But the cancellation email never came, and after consulting the weather radar, we decided that there would probably be people and food at the flying field even if the weather wouldn't let us fly. So we loaded up and headed out. 

About halfway through our drive we drove out of the rain and into the sunshine. When we arrived at the field it was 80+ degrees and sunny. We felt like we had entered another world - no wonder the event wasn't cancelled; the weather was fine here! 

Dinner with melty chocolate chip cookes.

One of my favorite parts of the night fly is watching the sun set. It's easy to get beautiful sunset pictures out here.

Moon rising.

Sun setting.

Lights on and ready to fly.

We brought our glowsticks, but the club was handing them out. There weren't that many kids, so we got several packages!

Right as it got dark, we got a fireworks show. The next town over was having their town celebration, and we had a great view of the fireworks. We were far enough away that the sound was a bit behind the light, but not too much. The kids were so happy to have fireworks. 

Planes flew until about 10 then everyone packed up and went home. We stopped at the grocery store on the way, and the kids were better behaved than ever before. It was kind of a small miracle! We speed shopped, checked out as the store was closing, and then went home to fall into bed. It was a fun night!

Cute Kids of Summer

'Take a picture of me when I jump out of the swing!' 

And amazingly we got one on the first try. Zeke loves this picture.

'I'm king of the shell. mom!'

My sunflower girl. Given that sunflower season is right around her birthday, and therefore sunflowers remind me of Nora, I had to get a picture of the two together.

Summer Sunday. I love this picture.

Swiss Days

Swiss Days this year started with a parade of first graders going to see the Swiss Miss and Children's Chorus perform. Nora and I walked along with them; it was fun!

On Saturday, Zeke rode in the parade with the school,

then barely made it back in time to catch the little Loertscher train to ride the parade again. It was fun for him (and we were lucky it worked out!), but I think next year he will have to choose just one entry. It was tighter than I expected.

Nora had a hard time waiting for it to be the train's turn, but once she got on she was all smiles.

We had a train breakdown at the end of the parade, and some mechanic work right there on the road. Fortunately, it was minor, so just a few minutes later we were on the road again. 

Aaron worked late shifts all weekend, so he was either sleeping or working through all of Swiss Days. It wasn't quite as fun without him, at least for me. 

Nora's Third Birthday Party

Nora greatly anticipated her birthday this year, which is something I wasn't expecting from an almost-three year old. I think it's the Zeke influence in her life....he love love loves birthdays, and he is the one that showed her her birthday on the calendar. She can recognize her name ('It's my N-o-r-a, mom!), so she immediately claimed the whole month of August as hers. One night Zeke and I were talking and I said something about my birthday. Nora corrected me: 'No mom, my birthday, not yours. It's my August!'

Nora has a cousin who is 13 days older, and while we were at her party, Nora asked if she got to open any presents. I explained to her that this was Brielle's party, but her turn was coming later. That satisfied her, and she looked forward even more to her party and presents after that. 

Grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins did a great job picking gifts this year. Nora loves them all and we have had so much fun playing Little People and mermaids and blocks in the past couple of weeks. And she really does love her new clothes from her grandmas, even though she just dumped them in my lap and moved on to other presents at the party.

Draper and Carrie sent a package, and so we have also played a lot of magnetic 'paper' dolls too. 

Mom and Dad got Nora her very own piggy bank. She was with us when we found it, and she picked the color, even though she didn't know we bought it. In this picture she is saying something similar to 'A pig! Oh yeah, from yesterday [two weeks ago].'

Airplane cake. Like Zeke's train cake earlier this year, we have three plane candle holders, so it was meant to be. And she's always been an airplane girl. And she is in love with the movie Planes.

Miss Nora was also excited to blow out her candles. She didn't blow quite hard enough, so she got two of them after several tries. Aaron got the other one.

Mmmm, ice cream and frosting (the cake under the frosting got mostly ignored). And she had to have her planes on her pink plate. 

Nora makes us laugh and gives us lots of cuddles. She says and does the cutest things, and also has a pretty distinctive dirty look. She takes good care of all of us -  her 'mother hen' nurturing side comes out quite often!  Love this little lady so much!