Trip to the Statue of Liberty

We have been talking about taking the kids to the Statue of Liberty for over a year, particularly since Austin took a special interest in it last summer. When we looked into visiting, the reserved tickets into the crown were booked already into October, so we opted to visit Liberty Island & just go up into the pedestal.  Our friends Delaney & Sawyer and their parents joined us on the adventure.

We moved car seats and drove to Liberty State Park with all 5 kids in the van.

Picnic lunch at Liberty State Park before boarding the ferry.

Manhattan in the background

On the ferry to Ellis & Liberty Island

There she is!

Inside the pedestal museum

Up, up the stairs!

View from the pedestal

Back down

This progression makes me giggle.

Patrick looked for this and asked me to take his photo in it. He knew it was the only monument for the National Association of Corrosion Engineers.

Smoothies help raise everyone's blood sugar!

Waiting on the ferry again

Colleen finally fell asleep.

Austin and I did a detour for a bathroom visit once we had returned to NJ. We took the long route through the old Liberty Park train station.

Shortly after getting home, the boys left for a baseball game event through our church. 

While the boys were gone, the girls had a 'fancy dinner', including fine china and fancy name tags.

While we were cleaning up Sunday breakfast, the kids had a dance party.

On Sunday, we took our friends to Duke Farms. I know we have gone here 1-2x every week. It really is one of my most favorite places, and I'm so glad we've been able to enjoy it with our friends and family.

It's monarch butterfly season!

We let Colleen out for the last little to walk. She is holding an apple.

Just before our friends left, the girls asked to play Pie Face.

As our friends were about to leave, Amelia called me over - her first tooth had fallen out!

(You can see the permanent tooth had already come up quite a bit behind the gap.)

Colleen's 1st Time Painting & Classic Car Night

Some fun activities at home this week. One of Amelia's kiwi crates was to build an arcade claw. We decorated the box and filled it with toys to pretend, as the crate suggested.

Then we made up our own fun games with the claw.

Painting - we started by painting these legos.

Colleen's first experience with finger paint

We ended with fun face painting.

If you've spent enough time listening to me describe our summer, you would have heard about our current obsession with Sparkle Stories. They are awesome and have been worth the $15 monthly subscription at this point. In one of the stories, "blueberry grunt" was mentioned as a treat. The kids asked if we could make it too; I looked it up online, found a recipe, and made the treat for dinner.

She'll climb anything at this point...

Fun at the neighborhood park

Posing with these monstrous mushrooms on our way home from the park.

We met our friends, Craig & Grace, for a walk at Duke Farms. We took a new-to-us path to the Orchid House. Amelia made sure everyone remembered the "fragrant orchid" signs.

Climbing a tree like brother and sister

Amelia read to Tank again. He surprised us all by hopping into a chair.

Finally finished!

Weekly library trip - Colleen now climbs up to participate in coloring.

She helps herself to the building toys when I'm distracted.

And makes a dash for the computer

Amelia's storytime included playing this awesome game, Hullabaloo. This kids were all over the room while playing the game.

One of the rewards for reading so many days was having your photo on the screens with a book you won. Austin declined having his photo taken.

They went out to check the library garden.

We finally made it to a classic car night in the local downtown. We ate pizza at our favorite place to eat outside and watch the cars and motorcycles.

Obviously enjoying her meal

With Mommy's favorite green truck