I was able to capture a rare moment with Stephen, his new excavator, dump truck, and dump truck birthday cake yesterday. He had fun with family turning 4. As you can see, Elisabeth was trying her best to distract him from his pose, but he stayed with us just long enough to let the shutter close. Construction-themed birthday treats helped make it a special day!

The biggest activity of the summer for the kids was riding bikes. We have a rather large driveway and a lot of lights, so the kids were able to keep riding into the late afternoon. Here is Hannah taking one more loop around the yard after sunset.

We were able to make a visit to the Madison zoo on one of the very last decent days of the season. Grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, and cousins were all able to join with us. The animals were great, but one of the best features (according to the kids) was the playground, and most importantly, the slides.

If you look closely here, you can see that the kids are having a horseback ride on daddy. This is a routine thing we go through around here, though they are all getting heavy enough to make it almost impossible for me to give a ride for very long. I’ll probably miss it when I can’t do it any more.

Today, Sarah asked to play with “engines.” So we brought down all the Thomas the Tank Engine tracks and trains for a little afternoon fun. She seemed to enjoy herself very much and refrained from eating the tracks…most of the time.

We take a lot of walks. On this particular evening, Hannah and I were on the boardwalk near the river downtown. She had to stop and have a picture with the dog statue.

The game goes like this: Daddy chips the ball to Stephen who tries to kick it back in mid-air. He is successful a good percentage of the time, but always makes a crazy face. The ball is so soft, it hardly warrants this kind of wince!