Snapshots

The kids love to play in Photo Booth.  I have so very many pictures of the kids making funny faces...

 Waiting for the bus...

It was raining on our walk home from the bus stop...

Kindergarten

At the beginning of this summer I couldn't stomach the thought of Ava going to Kindergarten.  I'm not sure why.  I guess I was viewing it as the beginning of the end.  Right now she still likes us and she believes that we know stuff.  School is exhausting and there are so many pressures.  Ugh.  Yeah, yeah, it's super fun and you get to make friends and learn stuff but that doesn't gloss over the other side, the evil side.  Part of my hesitation revolves around my ability to accept the fact that she's just getting older.  Kindergarten is a right of passage.  I wasn't ready for it...until our summer came to an end.  Suddenly, it was OK.  Just like that.  Boom.  OK.  Ava was ready and so was I.  What a relief!  It was super exciting to pack her backpack, make her lunch and put her on the bus.  Actually, we missed the bus on the first day :-/  It was fifteen minutes early so everyone missed it.

Onto the pictures...

Walking to the bus stop...

We missed the bus so we delivered Ava to school on the first day.  Here she is standing in line with her class waiting to go to her classroom.  

After school we met up with one of her best friends for a treat!  They're not going to the same school so they had a lot of catching up to do over some frozen yogurt...

Here she is getting on the bus on her 2nd day...

Today starts Ava's second week of school.  She enjoyed her first week up until Friday which is when the exhaustion set in.  We weathered a few monumental meltdowns over the weekend and tried to get her caught up on sleep.  She was ready for school again this morning!  So far, so good.

Labor Day

We had a fun Labor Day weekend because we had some fun company!

Look at this picture.  Can you guess who stayed with us for a few days?

 YEP!  Aspen!  Hooray!

She still does this, btw...

 We kept her pretty busy going for walks, throwing the ball and swimming.

 She's as cute as ever :-)

 And she still does this, too...

 Aspen Hug!

 Ready, set, GO!

 Linc liked throwing the ball for Aspen...

Our favorite Aunt Zsa Zsa also visited!  The two rug rats kept her pretty busy ;-)

Busch Gardens

Sometimes I feel like we live at Busch Gardens.  I'm not complaining.  It's lovely, after all.  After a couple days without power, courtesy of Irene, we escaped to BG because they had power...somehow.

It was an exciting trip because Linc tried a few new things:

Lincoln climbed into a dinosaur egg (w/ some help)...

He tried to climb the ropes with Honey, but then changed his mind...

Ava and her BFF had fun on the ropes...

I convinced Linc to try the ropes again and HE DID IT!

Once you get to the top of the rope climb the kids get to go down a long and fun slide while the parents take the stairs.  At least, that's how it's supposed to work.  Linc has done the slide several times before but he wasn't feeling it this time.  He got a third of the way down and started to panic.  I had to rescue him.  It's a small slide and it's sticky so you have to work your way down.  It was rather uncomfortable but I was happy to rescue my boy.  Next time I'll give him the choice of the slide OR the stairs...

 He quickly forgot about the slide as soon as he hopped onto the Merry-Go-Round.  Merry-Go-Rounds make everything better!

 Lincoln waiting in line for his FIRST time on the BIG swings!

 FIRST time on the BIG swings!

(Not too many pictures of Ava because she was busy running around with her BFF)

Come on, Irene...

We got hit with our first hurricane of the season - Hurricane Irene.  Pretty much the entire east coast was slammed by Irene/tropical storm.  We lost power for a few days and my poor parents are still without power.  Turns out it gets really hot with air conditioning.  I feel for the people who don't have power yet.  There was a lot of damage done around town so we're thankful that we walked away unscathed.   

Anyway, this is how we passed our time during/after Irene...

Louis takes on Irene...

 Louis took on Irene...

 We got bored sitting in the house all day...

 Puzzles!

 Hide-and-Seek...

 The morning after was beautiful!

 Tree limb in Honey & Papa's yard (the worst of the damage)...

 The big helper using his "big muscles" to clean up...

It was quite a week!  First a 5.9 magnitude earthquake and then a Hurricane.  Glad we're all OK.  Apparently, Mother Nature is in a bit of a mood...

Daddy Time

Have I mentioned how glad I am that we're done with that MBA business?  It's nice that Chris can join in on the weekend family fun...

Deer on the trail!

Busted

Mmhmm...

Busted.