They Grow Up So Fast: Catching Up (end of July to Labor Day)

Um, sorry. I've been a leeeetle busy and realize that I haven't blogged since our trip this summer. In July. And it's now almost the middle of November. So, my excuses are: school started, soccer started, Eric's dad had a double bypass in late September, Eric's brother got married in mid October ... And while we're at it, how about if I blame Common Core (it's a popular thing to blame these days, so why shouldn't I?). So, I guess that explains it. I hope.

So, as I type, I'm not even sure how or where to start. I suppose I'll do a bit of a summary of the past few months, mostly with pictures, as I hate to not fill you in chronologically.

One of the first things that happened after returning from our trip was reuniting with Lydia. We missed Lydia; she's like another member of our family. So, it was good to fix that.

Not long after we returned, a big thing happened in our family ... we bought a car! Yes, after driving my '01 Accord for 14 1/2 years, we bought a new car for me to drive (and the funny thing is that we kept the Accord and sold the 5 year old Civic, partly because the Civic had better resale value and partly because of the Accord's sentimental value). It's a Toyota Venza, and it is pretty. We brought the kids along for the car buying process. I remember doing that when my parents bought their first new car of my life, their '89 Camry, so I thought it'd be good for them to experience the process.

We got to the beach once with the Peters crew (minus dads).

Carter was pretty happy getting to hang out with Evan, a 10th grader.

We got to see Ashlynn's friend, Julia, star as the Tin Man in a kids production of The Wizard of Oz. So cute!

We hadn't seen our friends, the Mountains, very much this past summer, so Katie and I took the kids bowling. They were all pretty awful at it so we used the bumpers and even the ramp thing. They had a pretty fun time, despite their lack of bowling talent.

Carter liked helping keep the new car clean.

Ashlynn earned some money watering our neighbor's yard until the house finished escrow.

The kids came to my school one day to help set up the classroom (it takes way more than one day to set it up, by the way).

Star Wars was a frequent theme of the summer. Carter finally agreed to watch the movies, which brought joy to Eric.

One evening we went walking with our friends, Meril and Julia. We saw more deer along that walk than we saw during our entire time back East, including our days in places like Vermont.

Just before school started for me, we slipped in a trip to Knott's Berry Farm with our friends, the Mountains. Our kids really have fun together and are similarly matched with concerns about rides being too scary.

The crew on the Calico Mine Train ride

Log ride

We'll need to do a retake of this one in a few years

Ready to get wet!

Katie and I got the wettest!

Eric and the ladies

The day before my first day of school (we started on August 10th!!!!!!), Carter and I joined Cub Scouts for an outing to the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood to see Inside Out. It was the first time at the theater for both of us. I managed to get totally sick from the train ride down, so Eric was our hero and picked us up from Hollywood so we didn't have to take the train back home.

School start. Apparently I didn't take any smiley faced photos of that day.

The kids had fun being creative in their usual random ways. They played dress up with various items from Ashlynn's and Carter's rooms.

It was a hot summer so there were a few trips out for ice cream and frozen yogurt.

On the kids' last day before school started, we drove down to Chinatown (nope, I wasn't about to take the train) for lunch at Yang Chow.

On the drive home we stopped at Galco's Soda Pop Shop in Highland Park. Wow! That place has every soda you might imagine!

Oh, and old style candy. Yep, they're displayed in produce cases.

August 19th was the kids' first day of school. Carter had his first day of second grade, and Ashlynn had her first day of fifth grade, which is the final year at Mayflower. Ashlynn didn't feel well that morning and threw up. We assumed it was nerves, so she went and made it through the day. Poor kid came home after, took a nap, and woke with a fever. Oops, guess she was sick. She missed the second day of school. Not the best start to the year, but things smoothed out after a few days.

I asked them to reproduce the shot I have of them from like Ashlynn's first grade year.

A big group of second grade kids we know ended up in another class, but Carter still ended up with the friends he probably knows best and the longest (both since their older siblings were 5), Mackenzie and Josiah. They got Ms. Stube, who is full of energy, patience, and fun.

Ashlynn will spend another year without her BFF Lydia, which is probably a good thing since they act like goofballs when they are together.

You can see Ashlynn was not feeling well. Fortunately Lydia did not catch her bug after their big first day of school hug.

We also managed to get some after school shots with our friends, the Lees. It's fun to go through this school thing together with them! The boys are together for the third year in a row. The girls were in the same classes for K, 1st and 3rd grades and will be going to middle school together next year.