Coming to a Close

Summer is quickly coming to a close. Tyler starts school this Tuesday. Danielle starts school next Tuesday. We fit as much as we could into our last week of summer. Actually, we packed a lot into our entire summer. I had a good time. Hopefully the kids would say the same.

This week we enjoyed our last day at the pool. Grandma C went swimming with us. Despite a few sprinkles late in the afternoon, we had a lot of fun.

We visited my great-aunt Mary on her 98th birthday!

Danielle's kindergarten orientation was also this week. She has the same teacher Tyler had, which is what we wanted. There are 20 kids in her class, including her, and there are also 2 sets of twins. A neighborhood friend and a boy from her tball team are also in her class.

Thursday night we drove up north to a hotel and met Grandma & Grandpa R. The kids enjoyed playing in the pool that evening. Friday morning we all drove up to PIB. Ron and I haven't been there since before the kids were born! We had a really good day. The kids laughed a lot, the weather was perfect, and we made lots of happy memories.
























Saturday night we pitched the tent in the backyard and camped out. We had a little fire, made s'mores, and told "scary" ghost stories (at Danielle's request). The stories were funny and the s'mores were yummy - a good combination. We played a couple games of Uno by lantern light in the tent before calling it a night. I'd like to say we all slept peacefully under the stars until morning, but it didn't exactly work that way. Ron and I are not as young as we were the last time we camped, plus I've been battling a cold, it was freezing out, and the tent was wet with dew. (Sounds a little like whining, doesn't it?) Around 2:30 in the morning we declared our camping trip over and carried the kids inside. Danielle was perfectly content to finish her night in a sleeping bag on our floor. Tyler, however, was still scowling about it this morning. Oh well, every adventure can't have a perfect ending...but we were really close with most of this summer's adventures.

And here is a caterpillar update because I know everyone is wondering. HA!

Danielle's painted lady caterpillars are all in the chrysalis stage. She had 11 caterpillars but one didn't completely form its chrysalis, so she's hoping to have 10 butterflies in about a week.

Our 2 monarch caterpillars are getting bigger every day!