Welcome back!

You probably thought that we'd fallen off the face of the earth since the last post was in MAY and it's now the end of August!  Whoops... to re-cap, the kids finished Kindergarten and 1st grade, we had summer, and they've just finished the first 3 days of 1st grade and 2nd grade.  I guess you want some pictures or something too??  Ok ok... here we go!

Here is the last day of school in June - Kate's last day of Kindergarten and Brett's last day of 1st grade

Just as a reminder, here is the same duo on the first day of school... crazy, huh?!

They had quite a few parties that they were invited to that afternoon - this one as at the house of one of Kate's school friends.  I think it's safe to say they had a great time celebrating!

 

Next up was Race for the Cure - I've done it for several years now.  I'm sure I've posted about why I do it every year, so you can scroll back to June of some previous years, but I'll skip that for today.  Kate decided she wanted to go with me this year.  I knew she wouldn't walk the whole thing, plus it's really crowded, so I knew that a stroller was the way to go with her!  She did great!  Parker came too, and he did great as well!

 (side note: there is actually a cute Instagram pic of Parker at the race, with a race bib, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it on here because it's not my instagram account.

Next up on our summer re-cap is IBM softball.  I can't tell you how many nights I've spent on these fields the last several years.  This summer was our last one as Todd just took a new job at Cisco last week!  Crazy, I know!  It seems like the end of an era, but hopefully not the end of some truly meaningful friendships, in particular with this sweet family.

The older girls watching the dads play softball

The moms entertaining the younger ones, mostly out of harms' way

Brett and Finn playing with light sabres??

And he's off!

Todd coming in to score

Kater potater before she lost all of her front teeth a few weeks later

Kids trying to hide from the adults so they didn't have to leave and say goodbye - so sweet!

Next up: July 4th!  Some good friends of ours invited us to go hang out with them at their neighborhood festivities.  They had the country club open, driving range was open, bounce houses up, cornhole, etc.  It was awesome.  Because so many of the kids' friends live over there, they both knew a ton of kids from school, so they took off until it got dark.  We were able to socialize - it was fantastic!  The fire works were just ok, but the company made up for it.  The following night, we went down to Holly Springs with my family to check out the fireworks at the farm.  There were a TON of people and it was super crowded, but the fireworks were amazing!  It was the kind where you could lay back on the blanket and they were right over your head - definitely cool.  Even the kids (who were complaining that fireworks are boring) were completely entertained.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was Kate's 6th birthday.  We invited 10 of her friends to Wine & Design in Wake Forest where they painted owls.  Kate's Kindergarten teacher loved owls, and now, so does Kate!  The owls turned out super-cute and the girls were concentrating so hard - it was a great party!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VBS was the week of Kate's birthday.  I taught 2nd grade for two days, but not Brett's class :)  Look hard at the pictures below.  Can you spot our kids?!

 

 

 

 

The day after VBS finished, we headed to the beach with my family.  It was awesome, and we have a ton of pictures, but that's for another post!  We came home for a couple weeks, then headed back to the same beach with some friends.  We came home in time for Todd to start his new job and for us to wrap up the summer and get ready for school.  More pictures on all of that to come :)