Starting the summer Bucket List

Thursday night, Evan and I ran to Target and Kohls.  Evan hates shopping with me and usually I wait until Marc is home or if I am just running close by I leave him home and check in with him.  My Mom lives down the street so if I get delayed she will come over.  He requested popcorn from Target so we picked that up.  As we were checking out he saw the display of Coke bottles with names on them. His quest last summer was to find his name.  The closest we found was Evans.  Well today the first bottle I picked up was Evan and then we found a second.  Well we purchased both.  Evan is definitely my child that rarely asks for anything except take out food!  I always ask before I head to the store to see if the kids or Marc want anything special and Evans requests are Cheese-its, goldfish or Wegmans frozen pizzas.  He also picked out a 75% off Sabres hoodie.  We declared the Coke bottles the official kick off to an amazing summer.  Although we still have almost a month of school left.

This morning we headed to Fort Niagara.  The weather was very overcast and Marc was at work.  Evan argued about going and did not want to leave the house this morning.  Luckily as soon as he was in the car his attitude changed.  There is lots of construction going on and we had to take a longer route from our house.  We made a small wrong turn and ended up overlooking the rapids and the powerplant below the falls.  The kids thought this was great and hopped out of the car to follow the stone wall overlooking the gorge.  We watched a jetboat go by with lots of tourists.  We discovered a hiking trail that would take you down to the bottom of the gorge.  We did not have proper footwear on for that.  So I promised to return this summer.

We finally made it to the Fort around 10am and caught the tail end of the informational video.  We entered the Fort and the kids were amazed there were soldiers set up from each era along with their camp and attire.  At 11 there was a special event where they explained each weapon and then shot the weapon.  Evan was in his glory.  He is a huge history buff and is very interested in WW2.  Sara was not impressed.  The even did the Air raid warning and showed the bombs that were dropped all over Europe during the war.  We stayed until around 1:00 and could have stayed much longer if the kids were not so hungry.  There was  a small shop that had a few snacks and burgers but the kids wanted to eat at the Outlet Mall.  We went for lunch and purchased a few things at Oshkosh and headed home.  I asked the kids to rate the day and they both gave it a 9 out of 10.

It was  the perfect morning and we lucked out with the special event day that wasn't to busy.  Next day trip is either the Lockport Locks the Cave of the Winds or Niagara Jetboat.  There is also the Niagara Power Station where you can enter and see overlook the gorge but the kids declined that experience.

First Holy Communion

On Saturday we celebrated Sara's First Holy Communion.  She woke up so excited that today was the day she made her first communion.  She confided it me she wanted to take the wine but didn't want anyone to know.  She later told me she likes the wine.

She made it along with 44 other children, 12 from her school and the rest attend the parish.  Evan was an altar server during the mass.  She truly was a little princess.  We met with a photographer early in the day and she told her its paparazzi time!  I ended up having it catered by a local restaurant which was very reasonable and now we have a ton of leftovers!  No cooking for a few more days.