River Front Park Passes...

River Front Park passes were hands down the best thing I purchased this summer. I was worried that I wasn't going to get my money out of them because we only had the end of July and August to use them. Luckily, we went enough times in August to make them well worth the money! :) We went by ourselves plenty AND we went a lot with friends. I loved that all my friends had passes, so we usually always had buddy's to go with.

This year, Tucker and Taylor tried the roller coaster, and I didn't even have to force it. They went on their own, and actually really liked it. I was a little shocked!

Even though you can't tell from these pictures, after, she was all smiles! :) She looks so calm! I know if that was me on that roller coaster, I wouldn't be looking so calm. I HATE roller coasters, even this kid one, I know because I've been on it many a times with Tucker and I hate every second of it!

Sweet big brother, had her in his arms the whole time...

And, I seriously don't understand the draw to these kinds of rides at all, but they spin and spin and spin and I don't know how they handle it!!! But they love these spinny strawberry's to!

Taylor and her friend, Lily...

One thing we discovered this summer is that this boy LOVES carousels. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen. I would put him and on and he would just immediately start laughing even before the ride began. And once we were going, oh boy, he wouldn't stop laughing and looking all around, and straightening out those little legs with excitement. I, of course, would be standing right next to him the whole time, and usually I was in a state of being right on the edge of vomiting. My motion sickness detectors in me are SO very fragile, almost everything makes me feel like I'm going to vomit. Needless to say, carousels are NOT my favorite. Jackson better be grateful that I was willing to sacrifice for him, because we went time after time after time. And, it was actually worth every second because it made him so happy, and he was so cute about it.

My two big kids, they look SO big in this picture. Makes me sad! :(

So happy to be on again. Right when we would get off, he would point back at the front of the line telling us he wanted to go again. And he would do that over and over and over again. Luckily the big kids would appease him for a while.

The train ride is also a favorite. It's hard to do a lot of times when we're with our friends and in big groups, so we always did it when it was just the 4 of us.

One thing I always loved about going down town was that it always wore this guy out, and he would always sleep really well. Too much partying...

And, really, my one and only reason for wanting to go down so much was for this right here:

And, of course, we had to get it when Jackson was asleep so we didn't have to share!!! :) But shhhh....don't tell him!

Taylor, Ella, Jane and Grace:

I just love all of these cute girlys so much!

Taylor and Ethan on the water bumper cars. My friend, Laura was on bed rest in the hospital all summer pregnant. So, we tried to take her kids for her as much as we could. Poor thing, she was miserable, but she now has a beautiful, healthy baby girl here so I guess it was all worth it.

Cute Ethan. I was trying to get a picture to send her, and I think I got a pretty cute one!

Of course, we had to make a few rounds on the carousel.

And the take off, pure joy!!!

Our one last hurrah was the first weekend in September which also happened to be Pig out in the Park. Thinking back I think that I was pretty crazy to take them that weekend, but I really just wanted some good greasy food. So, off we went! The boys in the roller coaster:

One awesome thing is that inside at the food court they have slushy machines, like 10 different flavors, and I bought cups last year for the kids, and found out this year that those cups are good year to year, so we could come back and fill up anytime for free!!! I like free!

You can't go to Pig out in the park and NOT get a corn on the cob, for some reason at places like this, they are the BEST!

I think that it was at about this point RIGHT HERE that all the kids were DONE for the day. Even though we had gotten some delicious food, a root beer float, that GINORMOUS elephant ear, they were done and I was done!

It's a good thing that these two boys are so dang cute! I just love them both so much!

This has nothing to do with Riverfront park, well, maybe a little, but at the end of the summer, I finally got around to getting to the back of the van to clean it out, and this is what the side cubby hole back by Tucker looked like. From the looks of it, he had a pretty great summer.

And while I do love summer with all of my heart, we were all ready and I was counting down the days for school to start. There's nothing better than a little schedule and routine after a few months of craziness and going, going, going. So, farewell summer, you really treated us well this year.