Fall is here

Friends

The calendar says that fall is here, and we've seen our first snowfall (though it didn't stick), so it's way past time for another catch-up blog posting.

Since last time, we've been sick. Every one of us has had this nasty cold that settles in the chest and makes you miserable. It's been going on for a month now,but I'm hoping it's on the decline.


We went camping again in August, and then over labor day weekend for a total of three trips this year. Each time, it got a little easier, more relaxed and more fun, so this is a trend we'll keep up. The kids were deeply envious of mom and dad's camelbaks, so by the last trip, we all had one, and were able to go on a really nice "moderate skill level" hike. So, sure it took 3 hours to go 1.6 miles, but it was fun.

We also took a weekend morning and drove up to a stocked trout pond. Daniel thought it was good fun to cast out his line and reel it back in - a 4-year-old doesn't really have the patience or attention span needed to catch something, but he enjoyed that dad did, and we cooked up the trout as a snack.


















The other big event in August was that Grandma Babe moved to Denver from Houston. Anida flew down to Texas, and they drove the moving truck up here. Daniel got a kick out of "driving" the truck, and thought it was great fun to help Babe move into her new apartment. We're already reaping the benefits of having her here, from more time with the kids to a recently-instituted "date night" on Fridays (yay!).

Daniel has pretty much been living on his bicycle since the last posting - his favorite activity is to "Play Police" which involves riding his bike in circles around the cul-de-sac while chasing someone else - preferably an adult on another bike. Rachel has inherited Daniel's tricycle and recently figured out how to pedal, so she's mobile too.

















School has started for both kids this fall - Daniel is in the preschool class three days a week, and Rachel is in playschool two days a week. The schedule is such that every week there's one day for Daniel and Anida, one for Rachel and Anida and one for just Anida... This seems to be working out out well. Both kids are also enrolled in the 'natics (gymnastics) class once a week, and Rachel in particular thinks that the chance to bounce, climb, balance and skip is just about the best thing in the world.


Here's Rachel on her first day of school. By coincidence, her class is almost all girls, which is exposing her to the girly-girl phenomenon for the first time. While her classmates were playing with the dolls, she beelined it over to the cars and trucks.

Rachel's language skills have blossomed in the last couple of weeks, and while her pronounciation of R and L is still frequently a W (Cherry becomes Chewwy, etc) she's easy to understand most of the time. This week marked a step forward in that she'd been trying to get Anida and Daniel to understand something she was saying, and when they just didn't get it, she switched words to get her point across, so she's grasped the concept of a synonym.


There have been lots of fun activities in the last month. We took the kids to see "Up" at an actual movie theatre, and had dinner at Casa Bonita (of South Park fame)- though the dinner is certainly less memorable than the cliffdivers, puppet show, magician, etc. We tried miniature golf again, and Daniel did much better this time, at least when he was focused.

This will be the year for ski lessons for Daniel, though I certainly hope to have another blog posting before that's a reality.

Love,
ADRE.