Last Day of Preschool & Watermelon Girl

Hope everyone is having a great long weekend and enjoying the last few weeks of summer. It has definitely been feeling more like fall here. It rained this afternoon and I made vegetable soup for dinner. I'm not feeling ready for the return of the rain yet!

Aidan's last day of preschool was Friday. We gave his teacher a jar of homemade granola (label and card by Aidan):




Here are two more pictures from the last day of preschool:



I think he is ready for kindergarten. We're talking about it daily and have purchased all of our required supplies. We have our parent-student interview with his teacher on Wednesday, and he goes to school with half the class on Friday. He starts his regular schedule on 9/9. I also teach my first Jazzercise class this Wednesday. Wish me luck!

We got Lauren's bangs trimmed today. Here she is, mid-watermelon feast:





And finally, here is a little video of our darling girl eating watermelon, talking and laughing. Enjoy!

Old Friends

Our wonderful college friends Leslie and Sam, along with their two girls (Ella, 5, and Maren, 1 1/2) visited from California last weekend and we had so much fun with them. They were in town for a family reunion but we got to see them when they weren't occupied with family events. Sunday night, we all went out to a local winery to see a concert put on by Sam's uncle, blues guitarist Roy Rogers from San Francisco. Our friends Megan and Juan and their kids came too, and we all had a blast dancing and running around and enjoying the great music and cooler weather. (We had temperatures over 100 on Saturday and then probably a good 30 degrees cooler on Sunday!)

Ella and Aidan (their birthdays are one day apart) just loved each other. They are both energetic goofballs and just hit it off immediately. It had been a few years since they'd seen each other, and I am now feeling committed to try and get together with them here or there once a year at least! Maren is a sweetie and really liked both Ryan and me. She kept putting up her arms so we would pick her up and carry her around!




Aidan and Ella at the fountains downtown on Saturday.
Maren and me at the fountains.
Lauren takes a break from the fountains to show a dog her stuffed doggie.
Goofykins 1 and 2 at the concert Sunday night.

Blurry picture but I like it anyway...Lauren and Andrew are good buddies. He just turned 3 so he likes it that she is littler than him...he once told his mom that he wanted to be in charge of Lauren. :-)

I did it!

For those who might be checking in, just wanted to let you know that I passed my Jazzercise audition! I'll be in Portland for the weekend now learning a bunch of stuff. More later!

And He's Off...

Aidan learned to ride his bike with no training wheels! We are so impressed (we both think we were at least 6 before we took off our training wheels), and he is so proud of himself. He took to it really fast, maybe because his bike is pretty small--he's had it since before he turned 3. We think maybe he feels more comfortable being closer to the ground. When he's ready, we'll buy him a bigger bike. What a big boy he is these days. He even gives me looks sometimes like he thinks I am a total dork. A preview of what's to come, I guess.

Here are a couple of pictures from the county fair, too. Aidan loved the rides! Maybe next year Lauren will be big enough to go on more of them.