Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend we went camping again at Lake Red Rock. All of the camping spots where we had stayed the past two times were occupied so we ended up staying in an Equestrian campground. It was a little unusual for us. Everybody else had horses and we had a boat! It was fun though...a little more rustic than we had anticated. The other campground had an electric outlet so we brought with our coffee pot for the mornings. Matt ended up taking it to the bathroom to plug in! The weather was great and the kids enjoyed it.

Ben is not actually in the water. He is just on the tube sitting on the seat in the boat. Either way, he was not happy about it. Luckily, once we actually get moving on the boat he falls right asleep.

Sophia agreed to go with me on the tube. I think she had a good time for a little while.

Paolo's Visit

Paolo, a foreign exchange student that lived with my family when I was in the 8th grade, came to visit near the end of August. We spent some time visiting with him in Imogene and got together with the rest of the Maher family. Paolo is now a doctor and has been doing research in Boston for the past year.

Camping August 2009

The last weekend in August we decided to buy a tent and go camping as a family. It went well except during the night it got really cold. Davin had a project for school where he had to take the bear and take pictures with it. Then we had to write in a book about what he did during the weekend.

Davin's First Day of School, August 20th

Davin has been asking when his first day of school will be for several weeks. Finally the night before I told him he needed to start going to bed earlier and he changed his mind so he could stay up later. When the day came he did really good though. He got up early to get dressed and eat breakfast. Then we all dropped him off together in his classroom.

When I picked him up he said his first day was "awesome".

Davin in front of his door.


In front of his cubby.

He sat right down at his desk and started drawing.

I tried to get Sophia to smile at the camera, but no luck!

Our Family Vacation

We wanted to take off a couple of days to spend time with the kids before Davin started school. We decided to stay at home and cousin Olivia came to visit. She did a good job entertaining Davin and Sophia. We did lots of fun stuff around Des Moines and the best part is I didn't have to spend the hours packing and unpacking.

We spent time boating on Lake Red Rock.

This will be one of the few pictures where Sophia is actually looking at the camera.



Mary and Gary came boating with us one day. Mary even went on the tube with me.

Went went to the Science Center of Des Moines for a morning.

Matt had a good time making a paper rocket.

The kids pet a snake.

We went on bike rides to local parks.

Ben spent the first fewdays during vacation with his Great-Grandma Natalie since he had been sick. We didn't think he would enjoy spending whole days stuck on a boat in his life jacket. He came back for the last two days.

Jester Park has a natural playground so we decided to take the kids.

This is a big log the kids could climb through.

Widen "vacation" Clear Lake, IA

These pictures are from the very end of July and beginning of August. I'm extremely behind on adding pictures, but still wanted to include them. It seems like the more I'm off work the less time I have for these types of things. Strange.

The water was a little bit cold on a couple of the days there.