Fall

Fall has been fun up here in Cleveland. We have picked and picked and picked grapes and apples. We love all the local farms here and some of our favorites are Eddies and Pattersons. We got family pictures along with the boys pictures. Here are some of our favorites.....Our kids are growing too fast. To the Left: Poor kid his parents are making him take his 1 yr old pictures.  I love this because I see this everyday!

My three favorite people!  This was an easy shot because both boys love being with dad.

This little cutie finally decided he would cooperate and smile for a few pictures.  I was getting a little nervous!

Both boys were done by this time.  However E behaved and cheesed a smile for us.  T was just trying to get out of my arms as fast as possible.  I think we were even missing a shoe at this point. However it turned out and I loved it....

During the summer was E's birthday and I can't believe he turned 3...We got pictures done for him......this is a "I am going to pretend what I am looking at is super interesting so I totally don't hear my mom and the photographer calling my name."  But the photographer was amazing and she took some pictures anyway and they turned out great.

 Well we are kept busy with Drew's work and the two boys who keep me hoping every second they are awake.  We are having a wonderful adventure up here...One of my favorite conversations with E one day was "mom where do we live again?"  "Ohio"  "O' Ohio I love Ohio"  we are far from family but have great friends and a great ward family that make up for it.

What we have been up to

I cannot believe summer is over and fall is here.  The colors on the tree's are beautiful.  During the summer I thought I would have blogged more but we got busy and I got way sidetracked!  So here is an update of what we did:
Niagra Falls x2
Palmyra, Hill Cumorah Pageant
Gettysburg and Antietum
Put in Bay (an island on Lake Erie)
Amish Country ( more times than I enjoyed actually)
Camping, Camping and more Camping
Fishing Yum!  The fish are really good here
"The Beach" Hahaha I mean Lake Erie but hey it's so big it seems like an ocean
Kayaking (the whole families favorite sport)
BBQ's and tons of Picnic's
Hiking (yes there is hiking here in Ohio)
And so many other fun things with friends and family.  My Grandma, aunt, my parents and my sister all came out this summer and we had a ton of fun! 
Some downers:
Both boys had chicken pox (wasn't that bad actually of course they got it at different times so that took 3 weeks out of our summer)
Car accident (yes we got hit from behind, we all went to the hospital and our poor car was totaled
:( but we did find a good van that was comparable to what we lost)

Sulfur Springs, Boys and Other Stuff

Here is where we had our wonderful dutch oven dinner at Sulfur Springs.  Drew doesn't get a ton of time off and he got to pick what we were doing since his next little break from work is mid July when we go to NY. This year he had Memorial Day and he wanted to go check out Sulfur Springs and do a dutch oven dinner.  We met part of our ward there and had a great time.

 E wiped out (literally) in the mud. You should of seen his back side!

 Everything was so beautiful and green, it seems like E is far away but he really wasn't.  Yes he is the little blue speck in the trees.  As you can see they were huge.  While Drew was getting things going we took a little hike.

 Whatever these things are called.  We found one and E being the boy he is picked it up and carried it around for awhile.  He then let it go back to his home in the wild. Right now his favorite thing to do is kill the monster and I mean monster ants we have.  I will post a picture of them soon.  He always tells me "Don't worry mommy I will get it." He then runs to the bathroom, gets some toilet paper and grabs the ant and flushes it down the toilet for me.  Good thing for E or else when Drew would get home there would be glasses all over my floor trapping them.  Talmage also loves the disgusting ants, they are so big he can chase them around the floor while he crawls.  One day I heard him laughing and I looked and he was crawling super fast trying to catch the ant with his hands (which I didn't know at the time) I walked over and gross there it was trying to get away!

 One of the many waterfalls in the springs you hike down.  There were gorgeous ones down the river a little bit.  I should have taken my camera but when we hiked down I left it in the car so it wouldn't get ruined.  We are going back soon and this time I am taking it!

 All down the springs it was about a foot deep, in some places more but rock is on the bottom the whole way.  Honestly one of the coolest places I have ever been too.  We saw snakes and caught salamanders, and crawdad's. I thought yuck but I was warned with boys you do get tougher.  E loved it and of course picked everything up.  It didn't help that Drew helped and was just as excited about everything;)

 Daddy and E's first camping trip!  It's our wards turn to mow the John Johnson farm since its in the Kirtland Stake.  Drew's parents were here during the father-n-son's camping trip so they didn't go but Drew thought he needed to go to this one (good idea since he's the EQ President and in charge of it) so him and E are going to crash the daddy daughter campout this weekend and pitch in.  They both where excited to go camping and they should have a ton of fun. E kept asking if his best buddy Luke was going to be there.  We told him sorry I don't think this time, he then said "okay what about Madeleine?" Sadly she is not going to be there either.

 The only picture that worked out, and they all look so serious! I promise they were happy.

 Random pictures of the boys! T at the park trying to get his hat off.

 After a nap for T and E playing with him.

 That night we planted out garden.  T is thinking about heading over there and if I loaded all my pictures you would have seen his path to the next picture of no clothes and finally in the garden.

 Yes, I undressed him and he climbed on in.

 Ate the dirt, and enjoyed it!

 Crawled around our yard.

 Helped E

 E planting garlic....He really got into the garden too!

Both helping daddy!

Bang visit and more pictures!

The Grandparent Bangs came to visit and we had such a fun time.  Here is what we did.

 Day 1: Went to the Cleveland Zoo, it was so fun and big.  We did not even get to see most of it!

 After the zoo we were all hungry and tired but not too tired to check out Little Italy! Yes cobblestone streets and true Italians and true Italian restaurants/dessert shops.  We went a little overboard but it was so fun and worth it.  We went to dinner, this picture is in a italian bakery and we even stopped by an italian ice-cream shop on the way back to the car. EEK the only thing is we did take our desserts from the bakery home to have for the rest of the weekend.

 Day 2:  Day out with Thomas!  In Cuyohoga Valley National Park.  This was fun, almost too fun for E.  We got pictures in front of Thomas, E wanted to know where James, Percy, Hiro and everyone else was and yes he asked me why Thomas wasn't talking!  I told him it was because we weren't on the magic island of Sodor!

 Good old Thomas, I used to be annoyed by him, but thanks to him we have very clean language in the Bang home, my child says "Buff my Buffers" when he gets mad.  "Then there was trouble" when there is trouble, "Don't worry it was an accident" (mostly over everything bad that happens in my home like berries on my carpet ect) and other things Thomas says. If you don't know what I am talking about watch an episode and you will.  We have even gotten to the point of knowing all the songs and now we don't only sing them but we sing them fast and faster,faster,faster (again from Thomas) O' if you were wondering I do like him now.

'

 E wanted James for his sticker, he was still a little upset over not seeing him in real life.

 After the Thomas adventure we went and had a picnic in a meadow, E found some friends and he loved playing in the grass. 

 So did T.  Just wait for the pictures of planting our garden.  I will have to say if he was mineral deficient he is no longer.  I think he ate enough dirt and rocks and whatever else is in mulch and soil but don't worry it was Organic!

 By the meadow is a little stream we hiked up.  We skipped rocks, this is a picture of E and me making our skipping rock faces.

 E loved it, and he loved the rocks he collected.  If you don't know we have a collection.  Everywhere we go my purse quickly gets filled with cool rocks from E.  I did  not know where this came from, I just thought it was a boy thing, which I still think it is very common with children (to collect rocks) but Drew's grandmother loves rocks and has a collection all over her house.  It's pretty cool.  She has lived in Fiji and Hawaii and she has some amazing rocks, so I am down with the choice of collection. You never do know where life will take you!

This random house is not the house we live in.  This is the house my father in law lived in when he was 14.  Yes he found it from memory, we just had to get him to the highschool.  This was pretty cool for him and for us to see. He never thought he would be back in Cleveland but here he is........He was able to go meet the owners and they were sweet enough to take him on a tour and show him what the house looks like now.