#3-Attend a Festival

The Kite Festival in Kenosha is one of our favorite things to do at the beginning of summer down by the lake.  Jon has taken Jack the last few years and I've always had to work, but this year I got to go.  It was so neat.  There's professional kite fliers, which I didn't even know existed, and they do kite routines set to music.  It's amazing and awesome at the same time!  Very cool to see.  They also have huge kites that they put into the air but unfortunately this years wind wasn't cut out for it so none of them got off the ground.  The kite send off is neat though.  At 12 noon they have everyone who brought a kite send it in the air.  It's really neat to see so many kites against the great scenery of the beautiful lakeshore.  This event is totally free which is another great plus.  One of the many reasons I love Kenosha, for it's lakeshore, and free festivals!  This year our good friends Brett and Bridget Heimstead joined us and we had so much fun with them.  Here are some pictures from our day.

Us under our new umbrella/tent.  So happy we go this.  We've used it a lot already.  I think we had at least 5 people stop and ask us where we got it!  Apparently it's a hot commodity!

Bentley and Bridget

This was one of the big ones they tried to get up in the air for quite some time before they gave up.  I was disappointed since I had never seen them before.  But there's always next year.

Brett, Bridget and my boys

Wearing  mommy's shades!

Brett and Jack. Cute picture minus the Cubs T-Shirt!  I'm really going to  need to talk with Bridget about her husbands choice in clothing!  :)  J/K, it was really fun to have them along!

Bucket List Item #2....The Library!

Another item on our list was a visit to the library.  We love going to our library.  They always have a lot going on for kids and best of all it's always FREE!  At the beginning of June, (yes I know I'm late getting this posted!), they had a kick off to summer event.  There was arts and crafts and fun activities for the kids.  But best of all, Curious George was there!  Jackson's favorite is still Curious George so we knew for sure that we were going to take the boys.  The day before we were supposed to go I had a schedule change at work so I wasn't able to go so Jon took the boys by himself.  We also had 3 other friends of ours go with their children and I guess everyone had a good time.  Jack was so excited to tell me about meeting Curious George.  Although he kept asking me where the man with the yellow hat was.  He was very concerned that Curious George was there all alone!

Jackson made some art projects there as well.  I believe this was supposed to be a book mark!

He gave George a high five!

I'm sure there will be more fun times at the library this summer!

Caitlen

Garden

This year we decided to try our hand at gardening.  It's been something I've wanted to do for quite some time but we have very little yard space.  A former teacher at Warren that Jon stays in touch with was generous enough to let us use his garden.  He's retired and his wife and him only plant a few tomato plants so they said we could have the rest of the garden.  We've learned a lot from them as well about gardening and what works best.  They've been a great help and we're very fortunate for their advice and garden space.  Jackson is so excited to see everything growing!  We planted tomatoes, cherry tomatoes (Jackson LOVES tomatoes!), peppers, zucchini, green beans, carrots, and Jon's pick, cantaloupe!  So far everything is doing great EXCEPT the cantaloupe.  We have heard it comes in late but Jon is getting sad.  I hope we see some of them vining soon for his sake!  Here are just a few picks of our garden.  We'll keep you posted on our successes and failures!  Should be interesting since we're rookies.

Jackson painted signs that Jon made so we could tell what veggies were in each row.

They turned out so cute and he had fun painting!

The Racine Zoo

 So our first bucket list adventure....... The Racine Zoo!  It was member appreciation night and it was really fun!  We had never been to any members events before but they provided a free dinner and we got the first peek at the new camels.  Jack was really excited and it was Bentley's first time to the zoo so Jackson had fun showing him around.  There have been more bucket list adventures so stayed tuned!  I'll get them posted soon I promise!

  

The beginning!

Hello Everyone!  So we created a summer bucket list and made a cute little bucket with all of our fun things we'd like to do this summer.  I thought it would be fun to capture all of our summer bucket list adventures on camera and then document them on a blog for our friends and family to see.  My friend does a blog and I love checking it weekly to see her family's adventures and she has inspired me to make my own.  Thanks Laura!

So as we complete our bucket list adventures I will post them on my blog with notes about the day and activities.  I will do my best to keep up with this and hope that people tune in to see what the Van Pay's are up to next!  If this is something that I enjoy along the way and people are looking at it I might continue doing it.  We will have to see.  Stay tuned for our first bucket list pictures coming soon!
Happy Summer!

Here's our Bucket List! Thanks for the idea Pintrest!

Caitlen