Come to find out, we do have pictures of Rachel’s first days at school. Here she is exploring her new preschool room at Open House:
Here she’s on her way to the first full day:
Oh, and there were pictures of our family trip to Elitch Gardens (the local amusement park):
Friends
We’ve had a couple of fun weeks, just settling into the fall routine.
Rachel started her pre-school (sorry, no pictures of that), and is loving her new teachers. She goes twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays, and then on Tuesdays she’s been taking nastics (that would be gymnastics) and going to the library for story time. We regularly have 20+ library books at home, and both kids have their own library cards, so that’s a good thing.
The picture is from a little backyard BBQ we had on Labor Day. Nothing too fancy, just Harrison, Carly and Eli bringing their parents over for the afternoon. This was also our first attempt at a pure “kids table” and it worked out pretty well. We also went over to Grandma Babe’s place on Labor Day weekend for one last dip before they closed the pool.
The “Big” update since last time has got to be that we flew down to Texas the Friday after labor day to return to the Hyatt at Lost Pines. You may remember that we had so much fun there in April with the Pasta family that we decided then and there to return for another visit with them.
The resort really caters to families, with a nice kids-depth pool and beach, a water slide and a lazy river that you can float around in a tube. Bikes to borrow, Disney movies outside at night and of course – S’mores every evening at their firepits. We spent a lot of time in and around the pools.
Daniel mastered snorkeling on this trip – a skill that we think he’ll really enjoy when we return to Thailand later this year. He was zooming all over the pool with his head submerged. Rachel is getting pretty close to swimming unassisted – she was bouncing off the bottom of the pool and occasionally planing out.
Of course Sean (and his parents) was there as well, and it was fun to see them picking up the playing effortlessly. We went into Austin on a couple of occasions for dinner, and also in an attempt to see the bats (world’s largest urban colony), but the yahoos at the “bat hotline” had listed the wrong bat time.
All in all – just a great little vacation. Not so far away that you use up the weekend getting there and a great time with good friends once you’re there.
Daniel's still having a good time at school. He took class photos, did a couple of show-and-tells and has gotten into a good routine. We’ve has our first encounter with the “fad” of the year – silly bandz. Suddenly Daniel “had to have some” and was willing to spend his own money to get a few, so he’s part of the in-crowd again…
Swim lessons started today, and both kids had GREAT first lessons. None of the hesitation or fear of a new teacher we’ve seen before. The practice throughout the summer has really helped, and Daniel even got moved to a private class when it was clear he was outswimming the other kid.
And finally – we went to Miller farms yesterday and picked potatoes, onions, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, beans, beets, basil, dill, kohlrabi, leeks, celery, pumpkins and probably a couple of other things. Probably about 100 lbs of produce we have to do something with. Kids had fun picking for a while, but it was probably a little too much, so they enjoyed getting to play a little after. In previous years, we’ve gone in October to pick pumpkins and only the root vegetables were any good, so this was a nice change. I might have a picture on my cellphone, but that’ll have to wait.
Until next time.
Love, ADRE.
