National Railroad Museum-Our Frugal Fun Day

Today the kids and I ventured to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay.  Wyatt is currently obsessed with trains and the girls kept saying, "this is awesome, this is awesome."  The kids earned free passes to the museum through the summer reading program at the library.  Wyatt ended up being free anyway so we were able to pay it forward and gave our extra free pass to the family behind us.  The kids had so much fun.  There really are so many amazing things to take advantage of right in our backyard. 

 Mommy started the morning with a free iced coffee from McDonalds!  

It tastes so much better when it's free;)

Selfie on the train ride!

 The girls weren't quite sure about the smell on the trains (they smelled old).  Grace walked into one train and said, "eww, this smells like Uncle Doug!" 

 Like caged animals

 Snow plow for the railroad tracks

 Mr. Conductor

 There were some beautiful flowers outside the museum!

 Ready for our train ride!

 My favorite picture of the day I think:)

 Dining car

 Mail car

 This lookout tower looks out over the Fox River in Green Bay.  All 3 kids walked all the way to the top and back down!  Every time I looked back at Wyatt on the way down, he told me, "I comin' mama!" 

 The view from the top of the lookout tower! Beautiful!

 

 

From the Railroad museum we headed to Pizza Hut to use the kid's free personal pan pizzas they had also gotten from the summer reading program.  When we got there the server said we might as well hold onto them because kids eat free for the lunch buffet.  We all had their lunch buffet for under $9!  It was such a fun, frugal, day!  We went and used a bunch of coupons/discount cards I had in my purse and got some killer deals.  The kids got to have their fun and so did mommy:)

3 Years in Heaven

Today marks 3 years since our angel baby went to heaven.  Yesterday was a hard day.  As crazy as it sounds, it's like my body knows every year and  I just woke up sad.  Today was a better day.  I got lots of sweet hugs from my Wyatt, like he knew his mama could use them.  I will never fully understand why our baby left our family too soon, but I do know that God sent my precious Wyatt when we needed him the most. 

We love you angel baby and not a day goes by that I don't think of you. 

 

Anniversary Camping Weekend

Dave and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on July 30th.  I was spoiled and Dave went all out.  I woke up to this sign, that I absolutely LOVE, that Dave had made (by my brother) for me.  It has the license plates of all the states that have some meaning to us (minus New Mexico I guess:) I also noticed right away that he was wearing his wedding ring.  Since he lost so much weight, his ring has not fit him for quite sometime.  He knew it bothered me that he didn't wear it anymore so he had it resized and was wearing it the morning of our anniversary.  He gave me a gift certificate for a pedicure and a note not to worry about dinner that night.  He had the kids all lined out to go to my brother and sis-in-laws house so we could enjoy dinner at the golf course his Grandpa Reed loved to play at.  It was a beautiful night and we enjoyed dinner and drinks on the patio and even managed to be there on B1G1 night, what a deal!  It was such a great day!

 

We had decided that we would go on a solo camping trip for the weekend following our anniversary.  Dave's parents took the kids for the weekend (thank you Jim & Vicki!!) and we had THE.BEST.TIME.  Saturday was one of the best days I've had in a long time.  We went out for breakfast, went to a craft show, found an awesome rummage sale, did some biking, swimming, and went out for a nice dinner and drinks.  It was a perfect day. 

 I made us a strawberry pie (over the campfire!) for our dessert on Friday night.  We even brought vanilla ice cream to go over the warm pie.  It was amazing. 

 Saturday morning we did some biking and took in some breathtaking views.  We met another couple coming down the trail as we were going up and the girl said it was "underwhelming,"  we disagreed. 

 At the bottom of slippery rock enjoying a drink. 

 Friday night dinner; steak, potatoes, garlic bread, and garden fresh cucumber salad.  Who says campfire food has to be boring?

 Slippery Rock.  We never did go down because there was always people around and we didn't want to make fools of ourselves:)

Out for dinner on Saturday night.  So good!

 There was lots of relaxing going on and I did quite a bit of reading while Dave tended the fire. 

 

It's Been a While-Picture Overload

I'm so sad that it's less than a month until the kids go back to school.  As usual, I'm not sure where our summer has gone.  We've managed to keep plenty busy though.  In July, we babysat a little girl who was in Grace's 4K class and her little sister; they were with us 3 days a week for the month.  Here's a little more of what we've been up to...

I took all the kiddos to the zoo one of the days we babysat.  Everyone had a good time, minus another seagull encounter during our picnic before going into the zoo:)

We've enjoyed our Thursday story time at the coffee shop with cousins Hannah and Hattie.  Wyatt has taken many naps in many different places at Grandma's house. 

 The kids had a lemonade stand at Grandma and Grandpa's house and did pretty well despite losing interest fairly quickly:)

 We made pizzas and slime one day, separately of course!

And we had fun at Kidz Town in Green Bay one afternoon.

The kids did lots of playing; Barbies, doll house, little people, animals, babies, and just about anything else you can think of!