Wrapping up August & Back to School

 After getting back from Alabama, we had about two weeks left before school started! We made an effort to get in any last minute summer break requests including...tie dye!

A pre-game clinic with the Chicago Red Stars women's soccer team for Jade, followed by the game for us all!

An afternoon at Funtopia, of course.

....and a day at Cypress Cove Waterpark.

Jade had her middle school orientation! We got to join later in the day to walk her schedule and set up her locker!

The girls also got manicures before the first day of school!

Of course the weather on the morning of the first day of school was pouring rain, so things didn't go quite as planned! Nonetheless, the girls both had great first days. I ended up snapping some pics after school once the sun had come out!

4th Grade for Jemma this year, with teacher Mrs. Wenkel! She has a lot of her best friends in her class, so she's really excited about that!

First day of MIDDLE SCHOOL (6th grade) for Jade! She is super excited to have a locker, rotate to different classes with different teachers, have the option to buy ice cream at lunch and ride her bike to school!

Our neighbor made these shirts for them in 2019, look how much they've grown! 

Jemma (Kindergarten - 4th grade)

Jade (2nd Grade - 6th grade)

Just a short week of school to kick things off (2 days) followed by back to back weekends of soccer tournaments for Jade! The girls won their first tournament and should have been in the finals in the second tournament (long story) but due to a scoring technicality they placed 3rd. Shout out to Grammy, Grampy and Aunt Mar for braving the heat to come cheer on Jade!

Summer Roadtrip - Orange Beach, AL

 This year's summer trip was tied into a surprise for Nate's dad! He will be celebrating his 80th birthday later this year, so his mom thought it would be fun for us to surprise him on vacation somewhere! We decided on meeting up in Orange Beach, AL. Nate's mom and dad had already been traveling prior to arriving in AL, so we made our way down separately to surprise him!  

We split the 14 hour drive between two days, so we could make some stops! The first day, we powered straight through to Nashville, TN arriving just around lunch time! We had lunch at Ole Red and enjoyed listening to some live music while we ate!

After lunch we made our way over to the Country Music Hall of Fame! We made sure not to miss any of the Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen exhibits, as those were most interesting to us! :)

We continued on our way that evening and stopped for the night in Cullman, AL.

The next day we made two random stops on our way to Orange Beach. First was Peach Park in Clanton, AL. We walked around the grounds and tried a peach and some fresh roasted pecans. Both were delicious.

  

Our second stop was the MOOseum in Montgomery, AL where we learned all about Alabama's beef cattle industry! I found it pretty interesting that in total about 98% of the cow is used for various things. I didn't realize parts of cattle are also used in products such as crayons, glue, marshmallows, Band-Aids, etc. :)

Next stop, Orange Beach! We surprised Nate's dad in the parking lot of the condo building! He was super surprised and had no speculation that we were coming! :)

We got settled into the condo, enjoyed the view and then headed to dinner at Moe's Original BBQ followed by a round of mini golf!

The next morning we woke up early and headed to the marina for a dolphin cruise! It was extremely hot and humid out, but the dolphins put on a great show making the temperatures somewhat bearable!

Afterward we had lunch at GT's on the Bay. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but the view from inside and the food were incredible. My favorite meal of the trip were these blackened tuna tacos and sweet potato fries!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach and a quick swim in the pool before calling it a day! 

We got cleaned up and ordered in pizza for dinner! We ventured out later that evening for dessert at Dairy Queen!

The next day we spent all morning in the pool, and then headed to the beach after lunch!

That evening we had dinner at The Hangout in Gulf Shores and then went to The Track for Go-Karts! The Hangout was quite the experience! ;)

On our last full day we started out at the beach and finished up by the pool!

Our final dinner was at Coastal, which was absolutely beautiful. We did some souvenir shopping after and got ice cream at Del's.

When we got back to the condo, Nate and I were able to sneak out for a walk on the beach!

We said goodbye to Nate's mom and dad and left after breakfast with the goal of getting as far as possible on our first day of driving. Our stops included BUC-EE's (a gigantic gas station and country store), Culver's and the Hillbilly Garden and Toyland (eclectic junk art). We got a eaten alive by mosquitos but enjoyed our private tour by the owner himself! :) 

We stopped for the night in Paducah, KY and made only one non food/gas stop on the final leg of the trip. After a quick stop in Metropolis, IL we powered the rest of the way home in time for Jemma to go to gymnastics and Jade to go to soccer practice!

We somehow ended up on the back roads and enjoyed a peaceful end to our drive! What an amazing week! Thankful for another safe and memorable road trip with my favorite people!