Here we go again...  Sartell - St. Stephen School District opened their doors for the Prose Family grades 4, 3, and 1. While I just can't say how much I love our 90 second commute, I really do miss being able to attend Open House for the Ninja and the Gnome.  But, Andy always does a wonderful job meeting teachers, and completing the obligatory Open House Scavenger Hunt.  (And, he's totally the hot-single Dad, bringing his kids to the classroom and all the SAHMs bat their eyelashes and smile as he holds Harper's hand and eases Bennett's nerves...)

We all dressed to impress, and like my Mama always says, my classroom was ready to welcome my new 22 favorite 3rd graders.  This may just be the best year ... yet...

It's a sad sad day in Morningstar.  The pool was scrubbed, sanitized, doused with talcum powder, and folded up.

 This is the official end of summer for us, and we are ready to swap swimming and sunscreen for school and routine.

When it's your bestie's birthday, and you decide to extend your sleepover one extra night, and you take the Littles to the zoo and there is a seal show

and a butterfly garden,

 flamingos and a giant zipline,

then and have a cocktail lunch, take a nap where everyone actually sleeps during the day, and then get the floor seats to the Dixie Chicks??!!!

 Say what?!?!? Hands down, best day every. And sweet Thelma - I love you and hope you had the happiest birthday because I certainly did.  I promise I will never ever ever in the history of forevers mock Matt's obsession with Craigslist ever again.

As summer winds down, we are preparing for school to start - but the fun is not over yet!  Next up, the annual ProJac State Fair Extravaganza!!!  Omgosh, this is a weekend we all look forward to, and this one was even better because Grampy decided to join us for Friday - which just happened to be Prince Day - so we all dressed in our purple garb.

Knowing that Harper would not be able to hang for 12 hours at the fair, we dropped her off at Albert, picked up Matteo and slugged our way to a parking spot near the fairgrounds.  I spend the afternoon with the boys - walking the grounds, people watching, craft beer drinking, eating, catching the lumberjack show, eating, camera bombing the local news broadcast, eating, and checking out the biggest pig - and did I mention we there was some eating?

Grampy left around 5pm, and AP, Tbone and the girls joined us, for the second shift.  The next 6 hours included some repeats (like the craft beer and eating) but also included rides and rides and games and rides!

The kids were incredible, and we even got to see the fireworks on the trek home around 11pm.

 Seriously - impressive.