Gavin and Annah: What We Did on our Summer Vacation

Well after a long and rather shameful (on my part) summer hiatus, the blog is back. Hopefully with some regularity, especially as this is not just for family, but this also amounts to my baby book for the kids. I don't work with real paper, people, only digital.

So now: what my kids did this summer.

Prepare for a lots of pics and catchup.

We had a couple of visits early in the summer to amusement parks. We went to Storyland and Santas Village, and Ryan's sister Val (aka Ma Taunte) joined us for the latter trip. I don't remember those places being quite so great as a kid, but I have to say they were awesome! The kids liked Santas Village a lot. They mostly enjoyed getting their alphabet cards punched by 26 elf statues scattered throughout the park. So maybe instead of spending money on theme parks next summer we can just hide 26 stamps around the house and the kids can collect them all.

Ani didn't want to talk to Santa.

We also spent a long weekend in Bar Harbor, which was great. We went on a harbor educational cruise which was amazingly entertaining, Diver Ed, and Annah kissed a sea cucumber. Lip contact onto slime skin. She also kissed a bullfrog this summer. She likes kissing things. Hopefully she grows out of that!

I also ran in a few races this summer. Mostly 5 K's but also a half marathon. A lot of the races came with fun runs for the kids, and they enjoyed that quite a bit as well. Annah made the digital version of the local paper. That can probably be expected when you run in a tutu and you also come in dead last. But she loved it.

The kids have also been doing karate this summer. They are in the toddler "yellow belt" category. Which you pretty much get just by going. But they love it, and it will be something hopefully they can stick with. See the "belt ceremony" below.

And we went on a tugboat ride! Watch out boats! Look who's got the controls:

We also have some "firsts" to report this summer. Annah got her first haircut. I have to say she absolutely loved it. She was into the hair washing in the special sink and she even got sparkles and ribbons in her hair. She was also the lucky recipient of a lot of hand-me-downs from a neighbor, and she got her first play dress. She wore it for 3 days straight over camp week. She smelled a little ripe when we finally managed to extract her from that polyester monstrosity, but she loves it all the same.

Gavin is also growing up amazingly quickly. He graduated from pre-K, both at the local public school and at his daycare (daycare graduation below), and he is officially a kindergartner. He started last Wednesday, and I managed to not cry until after I dropped him off at school. He is loving it - he has a full curriculum and he actually talks about his day, which is different than he was doing with pre-K, but he asserts that he does not like it as much, but I am pretty sure he will love it.

Yes, this was his expression for the entire time. I think he was a little nervous, though he would never, ever admit that!

So there is a brief summer update. I'll close with some of my favorite pics of the kids from the summer. And keep on me to update! I'll try to get back on track for a while to come...