First Day of School

Here were the girls on the first day of school. Don't they look so studious? Maddie didn't feel like she needed her picture taken. Or maybe I just didn't have it together at that moment of the day. She leaves the house now at 5:45. I get up to make sure she gets something to eat at 5:30. I'm kinda liking the new routine, but I don't think she is yet.

Homemade Crackers

If you've ever seen my family with a box of Cheesitz you must have been around for a rare 2-3 hours right after I bought them. That's really about how long it takes for my girls to devour an entire box of this delicous treat. And if you've ever had them in your house while my girls happened to be there, I'm sorry. Surely I now owe you a box of crackers. So, given that I can't seem to keep them stocked I thought that perhaps I would try to make some myself. After doing a quick search I came across a cracker recipe that I thought would be great. I substituted some of the flour for cheese powder and this is what I came up with. They really were pretty good. Of course, they do NOT compare to the real thing, but were a tasty treat all-in-all. Good news: I thought it was a success. Bad news: I ate them all because noone else did.

"Our" Pool

We are so lucky to have moved into a house that has the neighborhood pool essentially in our backyard. I have to say we DID take full advantage of that this summer. It was nice to be able to look out the window and see if the pool was crowded or empty (which it often was), or see if any of our friends were swimming, or if our favorite lifegaurds were working, or just to watch for fun. Lauren and Ellie really improved their swimming this summer. Ellie can now swim the entire length of the pool. It's really amazing. The resulting bonus is that Ellie is no longer worried about getting water in her ears while in the tub (a problem that has been driving me crazy for years now).
Richard likes to point out that we were there for the closing this year. Yes, indeed, our family (and only our family) was swimming up to the very last possible moment before the close of the season. We'll see you again next year New Friend.

A Day at the Morton Arboretum

On a couple of our last days in Plainfield we decided to try to take advantage of our membership at the Morton Arboretum. It truly is a wonderful place to enjoy nature. There are children's play areas, hiking trails, picnic areas, paved walking paths, and a guided tour via shuttle bus which we took. I wish we had gone there more. But I seem to be the only one who feels that way as you can tell by the overenthusiatic expressions on the lovely faces of my children.

Summer of Family

Summer

Here are a few of the things we did this summer.
To be brief, we enjoyed:
*seeing all of our relatives
*hanging out with cousins for a long time
*playing with snakes
*boating and water-skiing (BTW-my bruise healed nicely after about 2 weeks)
*playing at the water park with cousins
*quick trip to Sacramento
*biking around Monterey Bay with Ellie
*lodging steps away from the Pacific shore (I recommend the Best Western Beach Resort)
*eating at Macaroni Grill while being entertained by my opera singing friend
*4-wheeling with Grandpa
*eating food from the garden

Did I miss anything? Probably. Please leave it in the comment section if you remember something I didn't. It was great to see most of you.

My family

I'll try to catch up on our summer activities now.

About 4 days after our move, we loaded up whatever belongings we had been able to find so far, left a house full of unpacked boxes, and headed to Utah for our much anticipated family reunion/50th anniversary for my parents.
Highlights included:
-yummy food
-singing with my family
-rope making (thank you Royce)
-candy launcher (thank you Logan)
-horseback riding (thank you Charlie)
-playing with cousins
-being all together since I don't know when

I wish we could do it again soon.

P.S. my photos are limited to whatever I could grab from other's blogs, facebook, etc. I was without camera the entire trip, but found it carefully packed in the backpack I was going to take, but decided at the last minute not to, along with my phone charger and a few other things that would have been nice to have. Darn.