A Bit of Business Advice:

Choose your advertising medium carefully. We see this sign often as we are driving on the highway, and I finally got a picture of it. The word that is falling down is "sheds." Maybe they didn't actually build the "shed" behind the sign, but who's to know?

School Days are Here

We just jumped right into the elementary school scene this fall with Dillon starting first grade. I felt slightly unprepared, having not been able to do a kindergarten year first.

But away we went to Dillon's first day anyway. He was running the whole way from the car to his classroom, stopping only once or twice to see if we were still coming. Halle was following closely behind waving and greeting all the people she knew from the neighborhood, proud to be escorting her brother.
Halle was of course very upset that she wasn't starting school this year with him. I played up her preschool as much as I could, but even now it still comes up that she doesn't get to go to Dillon's school yet.

She has what I call the "Jolene syndrome." My younger sister firmly believed that she was just as old as I was and therefore could do whatever I got to do, despite the two years in age difference. Halle is the same way and just figures if it's important enough for Dillon, it's important for her too. There's no way she's gonna get left behind if she can help it.

We are very excited for both of them. Their teachers are great and we look forward to all kinds of new adventures this year.

A Fishy Experience

One of the days I was recovering, Halle and I headed down to hang out at Grandma's and Grandpa's for the day. Abbie and Nick were there so we decided to take them to the parking lot across the street to let them ride their trikes while we rested in the shade.
Then Papa and Uncle Ryan came home and showed the kids the fish they caught while they were camping.

The girls watched them clean the fish, and as usual were very dramatic about it. (the clarity isn't as great since it was on my cell phone)

Halle couldn't really stop herself from watching despite the grossness. She was incredibly curious.
She wanted to help Uncle Ryan but didn't really want to hold the fish, so he let her hold the hose.

She was eventually curious enough to touch it and there were so many questions I got to answer.

A Day at the River

This summer has been a busy one for us. Every weekend has been filled with hanging out with family and plenty of fun stuff to do.

My sister came with her husband and daughter for a week from Arizona to enjoy some cooler weather. Here is a picture of the grandkids together. It's the only one we could get with Katie looking at the camera. She kept bolting away, so we have a few interesting expressions on the other kids faces - but they're all looking. What an accomplishment.There was a kids art festival at the river a few weeks ago, so we decided to go check it out. Here they are painting tiles that we "forgot" to bring home with us. They had globbed so much paint on them, I just didn't see a plausible way for transport.
They also made bracelets.

No, Dillon is not drinking gutter water with a straw - though you sometimes have to wonder. They were blowing their boats down the "river."

But Home Depot had the more exciting boat projects with hammer and nails and orange aprons. As you can see, an exciting project equals parents assembly required. Hey, I didn't want them smashing my fingers while I was holding their nails.
Since we had already walked half way around, we figured we might as well keep going. We found a car show further down the trail. Dillon's look of fright comes from the real boat races that were going on in the real river. He didn't like the noise as they came close.