Firsts

It's been a few weeks of firsts around here, thought I would post a few pics of them (I'm trying to be better at lugging the camera around!)

Our first camp-out of the season (and maybe last):

We went up to Tony Grove, an amazingly beautiful place. It wasn't until someone asked if the leaves were changing yet that I realized there were only tall beautiful pines everywhere. With keeping track of 3 kids I didn't get to soak it in as much as I would have liked, but loved it any way. We were going to do the tent thing, but luckily we have some awesome neighbors that hooked us up with a very nice trailer. Nothing like a little home on wheels. We went with several families in the neighborhood, so the kids were loving it. There was a fun little lake that we spent the day canoeing, kayaking, fishing and hanging out on shore. It was nice to have a little end of summer fun.

Andrew spent forever "casting" his fishing pole with his friend Wil even though it didn't have a hook on it. I guess the casting is the fun part?

Here's a little slimy creature that the kids found (a water snake!) They played with the poor thing until it was probably near death, but I certainly did not care if there was one less snake slithering around.


Andrew's first soccer game of the season:

Go Green Dragons!!

After we had reserved our camp spots we found out that Andrew's game was at 10:30am the morning that we would be coming home. So, after a very not restful night of sleep, we got up early and raced back home for his game. We showed up just in time, but we were smelling a little like a camp fire and in need of a shower. Luckily some of the other boys on the team were camping with us, so we weren't alone. Andrew's loving this year of soccer because all of his little neighborhood buddies are on his team. His friend's dad is the coach and Justin's kind of the unofficial assistant coach, when he can be around.

Andrew's first day of Kindergarten!!!


Wow, I had thought a lot about this big day. It was crazy to think it finally had come. I was worried that I might tear up (I had previously just thinking about it), but I made it completely dry-eyed. What probably helped was Andrew was soooo excited. His normal 3 bowls of cereal was cut short to one and he was just ready to bolt out of the door. Being a first time mom of a kindergartener, I followed others and jumped in my car to follow him to school. Of course he made it just fine (I'm not sure what I thought might happen). He gave me the wave good bye (again) and he was off. His comment about his bus ride was that he had a hard time finding a seatbelt-- that's my little cautious Andrew. When I met him at the bus stop coming home his first response was "mom we're going to paint tomorrow" Phew-- I was relieved to find out he wanted to go back tomorrow.

Andrew's best buds before they got on the bus

Good-bye!

Good-bye, again!

Ashlee's first day of Preschool:


Ashlee's first day seemed harder for me than Andrew's. Maybe it was the quiet house or something, but how can Ashlee be old enough for preschool. Time is REALLY flying. Ashlee has been looking forward to school since the beginning of last year. Every time I picked up Andrew we would have the same conversation: "I go to school too mom?" and then I would reply, "next year when you are bigger". She then would say appeased, but slightly disappointed, "ok". So, when Andrew was getting ready for his first day, Ashlee was nearly devasted when I told her she had 2 more days. She kept saying "I bigger now, I bigger now mom". She couldn't grasp the concept of 2 days. I'm sure to her 2 days could be 2 years. But, we finally made it to the first day. I got her all settled sitting down reading her book and was about to leave when she gave me the panic look of are you really leaving me, but then she must have remember how much she's been looking forward to this day and was just fine.


It's bitter sweet to see them grow up. I have been worried this summer that I hadn't prepared them enough for the big world of school, but luckily I've realized that they don't have to know everything for the first day. We've got a lot of time ahead of us to keep plugging away and hopefully there's a little, or a lot of help from above to fill in the cracks.