Our Summer Reading Goal and Lake Compounce

This summer to get the kids excited about reading our family had a summer reading goal. Our goal was to read at least 8000 pages. If we met the goal we would go on a special family outing. Well, we not only met the goal but we exceeded it! We read 8972 pages all together and everyone in the family contributed to our goal! I made a log that we posted on the fridge for everyone to record their pages. They listed the date, the book they read, their name and the total number of pages. It was awesome to see everyone get excited about reading! For our outing we took the kids to Lake Compounce and had a lot of fun there. I think this is definitely something we should incorporate into our summers every year!

Here are some picture from our fun day:

Kate on the motorcycles.

Daredevil Josh.

Jake and Forest ready to take off.

Audrey and Robb.
Kate on the Carousel...one of her favorite rides.Kate and Robb.

Forest, Josh, and Audrey after riding on the Revolution, a very spinny, twisty ride.

Jake and me on the Revolution.

All of us...well, except Robb and Kate

The kids after the Zoomerang...

a rollercoaster that goes backwards and upside down in places!!!

Kate on the Catepillar train. Another favorite of hers.

Going on a ghost hunt.

Kate and Jake.

Audrey and Kate.

I love this picture of my crew.

Wipeout!

Josh and Forest.

Kate going on the kiddie roller coaster for the first time!

And we're back to the motorcycles!

We all went camping!

We got to go camping all together this summer. Since Robb and I have been married, this is the first time we've all-all 7 of us-have been camping together. Robb has taken the boys on several father/son camp outs but this is the first one for all of us. AND this was Kate's first time camping ever! We all helped set up camp, we roasted hot dogs, we hung out in the tent together, we roasted marshmallows and made smores, AND we got to go to the beach! Although we got poured on during the night, we had a great time. Seriously. We got so much rain in that one night, I thought we might need to build an ark. Poor Jake was planning on sleeping in his own one person tent but once it started raining so hard he decided to sleep in the big tent. Good thing, too, because come morning his tent was filled with water. We were able to stay dry in the big tent. Luckily, after a night of a lot of rain the next day was beautiful!

The big tent

Jake with his tent...before the rainfall.

The best camping group ever!

Jake and silly Audrey

Jake

Kate

Audrey, I think (hee hee).

What a fun group!

Forest

Robb and I...yes, I'm DRENCHED!

Josh and Forest checking out the rain coming down.

Audrey, Josh, and Forest

These sisters love each other!

Kate all snuggly in her sleeping bag. Notice her friend beside her.

Josh just chilling.

Let's Get Wet!

What do you do when it's really, really hot and humid on a summer day in Burlington, Connecticut? We get wet and not just wet, but SOAKING WET! We had a lot of fun doing just that recently. Check out the kids on our slip 'n slide:

Where the Wild Things Are

We went to a really cool wildlife place not to far from our house. It's called Action Wildlife Foundation and it's a 116 acre animal preserve with lots of different animals to see. We walked/drove through the park and I took lots of pictures (as you will see with the following slideshow). This is actually our second trip to this place and the kids had a blast BOTH times. It was so much fun!

Dinosaur State Park

This past week we traveled back to the age of dinosaurs! We took a trip to the Dinosaur State Park. It is one of the largest dinosaur track sites in North America. Underneath a geodesic dome, you find a huge display of early Jurassic fossil tracks that were made 200 million years ago. We got to walk right through these tracks (over a bridge, of course). It was really very cool. Here are some of the creatures that were with me:

Brontosaurus Forest and his friend, Triceratops Audrey

We'll call this one Little Yellow (A.K.A. Kate).

Here are some of the tracks on display.

Our family on our way through the preserved floodplain covered with tracks.
Don't worry about that guy in the background. He didn't hurt us!

In addition to the dinosaur track exhibits, there are dioramas of Triassic and Jurassic environments, collections of fossils, and short little shows to watch about different elements of dinosaur life. There was also a room with dinosaur puppets, books, and puzzles. For any of you who have spent a lot of time with Kate, you know that she LOVES doing puzzles. So, we did a few all about dinosaurs.

Kate and I puzzling.

Smiling at the camera.

We got to check out a collection of really cool fossils and rocks. There were quite a few names I actually recognized from way back when I was in junior high/high school and even some names of rocks I recognized from my Geology class a few semesters ago.

Forest and Audrey looking at the fossils.

Forest with a Trilobite.

Audrey and Grandma (Robb's mom).

Outside the museum area there are a couple miles of mature trails and picnic areas. We ate a picnic lunch and got to enjoy the nice weather outside.

Beautiful Audrey

Forest and Robb

Taking a break

The Dinosaur Park was really neat to visit. It was awesome to see the tracks that were discovered over 50 years ago. It makes you wonder what it was like living on the earth back then.