We simply cannot believe that summer vacation has come to an end and school is starting again! It literally feels like two weeks ago that I was anticipating high school graduation and how in the world we were really going to get Seth out west in time to start college. The last three months have completely flown by! I thought I would share just a few things that we crammed into our summer before the start of school. Steve and I got our vacation out of the way early with our quick trip out west. Right after we got back Brooke left for a week long high adventure camp called Outdoor Odyssey where she learned skills to help her become a mentor for disadvantaged kids for the school year and for another week of camp with these at risk youth. The very next week she and Kelsey went to Girls' Camp for a week. Soon after that Jacob went to Zion's Camp for a week while Brooke went to many basketball tournaments and games. July was relatively calm and I really enjoyed just being with the kids. Then August came in like a whirlwind with Brooke attending her second full week of Outdoor Odyssey where she camped with her kids - it turned out to be a trying week for her and she realized how much she loves her family and her own siblings aren't really as annoying as they may seem sometimes. Then Jake started football camp, Kelsey volleyball camp and Brooke soccer camp and the Somerset County Fair, which is very time consuming. So, anyway, we tried to fit in some fun stuff before school started and I thought I'd post some of those pictures:

A couple of weeks ago we got a coupon in the mail for six free tickets to an amusement/water park about 80 minutes away, so Steve took the day off and we took Grandma Snyder and we went to DelGrosso's Amusement Park. We started out on the Wiggly Worm.... we had a blast!

Then, Grandma Snyder and I took Jacob, Gideon and Savanna to the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time, but we wondered if the animals were fed sleepy juice because lots of the big animals were sleeping when we went by them.

The kids love the county fair! They just can't wait for it to get here and are sad when it's over. Their pigs didn't win any big awards this year, but they did get some ribbons and the kids did a great job showing them. So, here are my country bumpkins!