Off to another exciting school year!

I cannot believe the summer is over!  But, all things must end and we enjoyed every bit of freedom!  Sam had his last Lowe's project with Uncle Josh. 

 A recent trip to Goodwill netted us some new PJ pants that were a big hit!

 Hit a matinee showing of Angry Birds and loved it!

 And my last day of summer break was spent at the Museum of Science and Industry.  We had a great time and Bamma and Bampa came too!

 The boys all got to participate in a presentation at the tornado exhibit!

We were able to go see the Lego Brick by Brick exhibit, very cool!

 Noah helped out during a demonstration here too!

 Future astronauts!

 Noah had his first day on Wednesday, August 17th.  I had an institute day, so Mike took the day off to take our new third grader to school!  He's going to have a great year with Mrs. VanderVeen!

 Sam got to go meet his teacher Ms. Divyak during Kindergarten meet and greet day.  Bampa took him to see his room and meet some new friends!

 These two enjoyed some last afternoons of playtime before Sam is off to school!

 This weekend offered some gorgeous weather.  Perfect for kites!

 And then today, Monday August 22, was Sam's first day of Kindergarten!

 Some good conversation with the big brother helped calm the nerves!

 Waterbury Elementary gets 2 Rodriguez brothers this year!

 He was anxious, but happy to see some familiar faces from preschool and the neighborhood!

 Off he goes, can't wait to hear his stories when I pick him up at 3:20 today!  Hope it was a great first day for him!

So, we are officially in school!  Excited to see all the learning that happens this year!

August heat, or Olympic fever?

Well, we are wrapping up our summer here.  Noah and I head back to school next week, kindergarten has a later start with Sam beginning the next week and Isaac starts up preschool after Labor Day.  But we have managed to pack in more fun here at the end.  We packed up and headed to Michigan to spend some time with cousins at Diamond Lake.

 Everyone enjoys a good Carpool Karaoke video!

 Early morning do dos with cousins can't be beat!

Noah got to go tubing (and apparently synchronized swimming) with CJ!

 We teach the next generation of spoons players!

 The boys loved all the attention they got from Kate, Addie, Mere-Mere, and CJ!

 Campfire night!  Sam caught his first firefly and was thrilled!

 Can't pass up fun jumping contests!

 It was a great couple days!

 We were sad to leave our cousins, but excited to start the Rio Olympics 2016 opening ceremonies watching!  None of us made it to the end of the ceremony (it was SO late!).

 Noah and I decided to have our own camp out in the backyard complete with tent and smores!

 He loves it, I hate it, we survived!

 Just a couple of cool dudes cooking dinner in their shades!

 Sam was able to shop at Toys R Us thanks to a birthday gift card from Uncle Danny!

 Noah enjoyed his solo sleepover with Bamma and Bampa, complete with Portillo's drive thru while watching Sponge Bob.  He claims he was teaching Bamma how to work the DVD player in her new car, suuuuuure! 

 They drove downtown to try to see the ABC 7 News studio, only to be disappointed by closed shades.  He still had a great time being in the city with his grandparents on his own!

 Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I did camping night 2 with the younger ones.

 Smores are a bit messier with this crowd.

 We sent this picture to Noah to show him what we were up to!

 And Noah returned the favor!

 His final sleepover wish, a vanilla long john donut!  Complete success!

 We prepped some Olympic rings for an upcoming playdate with the Worsts.

 And torches too!

 We had some epic end of summer lightsaber wars!

 And enjoyed a nice empty high school parking lot to race bikes around!

 One last family trip to Oberweis for the summer!

Then we celebrated our last fun Friday of the summer break with an Olympic themed party!  We went up the Palatine to see the Worsts completed home renovation.  The day started with a dramatic parade (or sprint) complete with music and pageantry!

Look at this fine assemblage of athletes!

 Yes, we have a Pinterest problem, we accept it.  Rings (check), torches (check), medals (check), charades (check), geography game (check) and podium (check)!

We had grandmas (god bless Nana Lynn and Bamma!) and neighbors that we summoned with our parade, it was awesome!  Everyone started the day right, with a Kirschbaums smiley face cookie!

 Oh, did I mention the team mom shirts?!  (Harry Potter themed, because let's be honest we could only win events if magic was allowed).

 Everyone got a photo op!

 Team Rodriguez

 Team Worst

And, competing in the event known at "Olympic Baking" we made Monster Cookies.  Nothing breaks in your kitchen with double ovens quite like a recipe that requires 12 eggs, a pound of butter and 18 cups of oatmeal, right!

So, off to school we go.  But we take memories of the most epic summer that was 2016!