Some Summer pics

So I thought I would share some of the photos from our trips this summer. In the middle of July, we went to Rochester for an overnight trip. The first day was spent at the Strong Museum of Play. The kids loved it! I would highly recommend this outing for young kids. Here are a couple of photos of the kids having a blast at the Play museum. Grace delivering the mail at the Clifford exhibit. I swear she could have stayed there all day playing the mail game!

Here are Simon and Grace in one of the funny mirrors. They love these things!

Simon tracing a picture on one of the light boxes.

Simon trying to prove how strong he is and pure of spirit. :)

We spent the night in the hotel and the next day we were off to the Seabreeze Amusement Park. It is the fourth oldest amusement park in the United States. Great little park. For those of you that remember Crystal Beach, it was much like that. The rain held out all day for us and there were hardly any line ups for rides! They also have a water park with water slides, I don't have any pictures of that because I was enjoying them too! :) Paul fell out of his tube on the lazy river though...which had me in tears for weeks! I wish I had a photo of that.

This is the oldest part of the park - the carousel. I loved the architecture of it all and had to get a photo. They had a pipe organ that played the music. Fascinating to me...the kids couldn't care one bit. They just wanted to ride it!

This last picture was at the end of the day. Grace was on the roller coaster and Simon was tuckered out. He wanted me to take a photo of him with this straw in his mouth. You can tell how tired he is.

The following week we were on to Manitoulin island to spend a few days with Paul's Aunt Vi and Uncle Collin. We all had a great time and it was so nice to get away and spend long days on the beach!

Here are Grace and Simon on the Chi-Cheemaun Fairy on the way over to the island.

Grace and Simon having fun on the beach and in the waves - they loved riding the waves...once they got the hang of it!

Random shots around Manitoulin with Paul and the kids:

Manitoulin has a couple of wind turbines on it and you can drive right up to the base of them and read about wind energy. I had read that one of the criticisms of wind turbines is that there is a lot of noise emitted from them. Other than a slight sound of the turning blades they were pretty much silent. It was actually quite calming and I love the gentle look of them as they turn.

From Manitoulin it was on to Sudbury for a visit to Science North. We wanted to take the kids there because it has special meaning to the Backler family. Paul's Grandfather was one of the architects for Science North. How cool is that? Love this photo I was able to get of the architecture inside the building. The bones are from a whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.

And finally, what's a visit to Sudbury without a visit to the giant Nickel? It was two seconds away from a complete downpour so I managed to snap this shot before the rain came pouring down. Love the look on Simon's face as he tries to hold up the Nickel. I would have liked to get a better composed shot but there wasn't enough time.

What a great summer! I had a ton of fun and I think the kids did too!