Fountains Part 2: Soaking wet and loving it!

And then...he went for it! In church clothes and all, with no swim diaper to speak of (because I was expecting his initial hesitation) he started tearing through the water at his usual speed. It was SO much fun for us to watch!
The sky was the limit. He watched other kids and got some great ideas, like standing directly on top of the fountain and waiting for it to shoot him in the face with water. Sometimes he got lucky and just barely avoided getting drenched, and other times he was fully sloshed with water.
We love this picture! He is loving the water and could care less that his clothes are sopping wet, clinging to his little body.

Even his monkey hat got soaked. What a fun time!

Testing out the waters, literally...

One of the greatest inventions by city planners are the fountains that are literally springing up everywhere these days. In these pictures, we took Gavin to the Orchard (a newish shopping area near our house) on Father's Day. This was his second visit to the fountains this summer, and the first time we went he was super hesitant, which was not the way I expected our active, adventurous son to be in this fun, chaotic, wet environment.
At the beginning of his second trip he was still a bit tentative about the whole deal.
He kept a pretty safe distance from the water and only held out his hands at first.
We could see him warming up, though, as you'll note by the smile on his face!

He was generally fascinated by the unpredictable timing of these fountains. When was the water going to pop up? How close could he get before it did?

Kansas trip...

We went out to Norton, Kansas, for a weekend to visit with Brent's extended family. Every year for the past several Brent's mom and one of her sisters have planned really fun family reunions. This year was called the Amazing Race, and we were put in multi-generational teams and given clues that gave us tasks to complete in record time. Here were the highlights I can remember off hand: riding down to the pier of the lake on whatever bikes we could find, swimming/inner tubing out to this booey (would someone please help me with the proper spelling of this word!) and back, hiking to a lost frisbee golf course flag and of course the ever- challenging "counting-the-number-of-shingles-on-the-east-side-of-Grandma's-old-house" task that a couple of us had to re-do, embarrassingly enough. It was so much fun! Our team ended up tying with another team for first place!!! Go Team Red!


Brent's mom, Pam, and Aunt Randa were wonderful to watch the kids during the second part of the Amazing Race. Grandparent daycare was in full effect and was extra helpful, allowing Team Red a nice advantage in the second half of the competition. Gavin spent most of the time running around looking at ants, checking out all the surrounding dirt at the lake, playing with Aunt Randa's "Thomas the Train" collection and chasing around all of his older "cousins."

Here's Bob (Grandpa Topping) with Gavin's cousin, Madison.
It was a great (though short) trip, and we are thankful that Gavin not only traveled well, but slept well also. We were also thankful for the great 80 degree weather, which was a nice contrast from the typical mid-90's with unruly humidity that we usually experience in Kansas summers.

Truck Days in Louisville

These were all a part of "Truck Days" at Louisville, where they had a huge parking lot full of all kinds of trucks and trailers and emergency vehicles. There were kids everywhere...running, screaming, crying. It was absolute mayhem: it was a kid's dream. Above Gavin is closely inspecting the inner workings of a backhoe scoop. You will also notice his new orange monkey hat that Dad (writer) purchased after he was tired of his son's collection of less manly-looking hats.


Gavin's fascination with all-things-truck has been very apparent for many months now. Driving around town he is always eyeing what's driving around or parked by the side of the road. Front loaders, mail trucks, trash trucks, campers, school buses, motorcycles, and more!

Here, Gavin is checking out the inside of a front loader scoop. It took him a while to warm up to the idea of going inside these giant trucks, but eventually he was hard to pry away from them when it was time to go get lunch. What a great event for a city to put on!