First Days of School!

We are settling back into the school routine with a week and half of 1st grade under James' belt and Mac just finished up his 3rd day of preschool. No more lazy mornings staying in our pajamas and playing with Legos until at least 10, we are now up before 7, eating breakfast, packing lunches and out the door to Central by 8. Here is James on his first day of school-

Our biker gang of Old Town-Jack, James and Jasper. Mac joins them on his bike about half the time. The first couple of days he opted for the stroller-he is trying to get as many rides in as possible before someone comes along and kicks him out ;)

We are so excited to have our great friends, the Hines, at Central with us this year. Finn is in James' same class and Will is in Kindergarten, so Mac gets to see him everyday before and after school.

James has been enjoying school so far and I think he is going to have another great year. Mac is joining him at Central this year in the 3's preschool. His first day was last Thursday and he was SO excited to get to go to the big school with James.

He has loved the 3 days that he has gone so far and always tells me that his favorite part is the dance party at the end of the day. Mac will also be going to BellaVita one day a week starting after Labor Day, so he will have school 3 mornings a week. That should be fun for him and give me a little bit of one on one time with this baby if he ever decides to come out!

Minnesota

We went to Minnesota at the end of July for a quick trip to see Tim's family. We hadn't been since James was a baby, so it was nice to see some of Katie's side of the family that we don't get to see that often. We spent a day at Grandpa Joe's house and James had equal amounts of love for his pool and talking about history with Grandpa Joe.

 After a couple days in the city, we headed up north to Brainerd and stayed at a resort on Gull Lake called Madden's. It was beautiful and reminded me of the movie, Dirty Dancing. There were tons of activities, cute cabins to stay in, lodges to eat at, games to play, etc. Tim went there every summer growing up and was excited to show us all around. Tim's uncle has a house on the same lake, so we got in plenty of boating time.

 We stayed with Dave and Katie in a private cabin right on the beach, so the boys could play in the sand right in back of our little house. It was perfect!

 Dave, Tim and James went out fishing with a guide one day and James caught 6 bass. He was pretty excited about his good luck!

James, who is always on the lookout for a good story to hear, became obsessed with Paul Bunyon on the trip. This was clearly a must do photo-op at a roadside stop on the drive back to the city.

 On our last day in the city, we met up with 2 of my friends from Semester at Sea with their combined 4 boys and got to catch up while all the little boys swam. A great ending to the trip!

Second Half of Summer Break

I didn't think it was possible, but the second half of summer has flown by even more quickly than the first half did! Some highlights:

Our picnic crew at the last concert in the park of the season.

The highlight of James' summer was the 2 weeks he spent at Rocky Mountain Day Camp at the end of July. He did it with his best friend, Will, and seriously had the time of his life. It was a very traditional summer camp experience. He had a "bunk" he was in with other boys his age and each day they did a variety of activities like archery, rock climbing, soccer, water obstacle courses, craft time, etc. At the end of each day, the whole camp would come together and sing their camp song (in a circle with their arms around each other-adorable), do their camp cheer and counselors would hand out spirit awards to a few campers. James was over.the.moon. when he received his first spirit award. The whole camp pounds on the ground and cheers when a kid gets an award and it is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. I would purposely show up early to pick him up everyday so that I could watch the end of camp assembly.

The second week of camp ended with "Color Wars." The whole camp is divided into Green versus White and once a camper is assigned a color, they are that color for life (as is any of their siblings). The day before Color Wars starts, they do a big reveal to tell all the new campers what color they are.  After their morning assembly, they had a fire drill and when all the kids went out on the field 2 Jeeps, one white and one green, came driving up on the track with a counselor standing in the back with a megaphone yelling the names of the new campers for each team. The kids got to run out and join their team. James was super excited to join the White Team. Here he is ready for day 1 of Color Wars which his team won!

I think it is safe to say James is now a RMDCer for the forseeable future. It was such a great experience for him and he is already looking forward to going back next year. By the end of camp, he had earned 3 spirit awards, which are now one of his most prized posessions. Mac got to do Sunflower Farm camp the second week that James was in camp, which was the only camp he did this summer. He was so excited to have his own camp to go to and had a great time.

 Most days when I went to pick him up, he was filthy dirty, covered in paint and eating a red popsicle. All signs that he had a great day.

He was in a group with Will Hines and Colin and Emmy. He definitely loved being one of the big kids and had a great camp experience. We love Sunflower Farm!

Jenny and Zephyr came out for a few days also at the end of July. Since both boys were in camp, their time together was more limited than I would have liked. But they still had fun together at night when they got to hang out!

Other highlights of the second half of summer: Seeing Planes 2 at the drive in with the Hines-

 Going to Lakeside with the free passes they earned from the library for their summer reading-

Playdates with old friends and lots and lots of kiddos-

 Annual summer HCB island party-

 Ice cream on Pearl Street-

 Carousel of Happiness in Nederland-

I can't believe that school starts on Monday! We had back to school night last night and both boys got to see their classrooms and meet their teachers. My big preschooler and 1st grader!