Catching Up...

The past two months have been a whirlwind of activity for me. I taught a course at Lipscomb in May, two courses in June and a teacher's workshop last week. I was working very long hours each day, so the blog had to fall by the wayside for a time. But now all of my summer activities are over and I finally get to be at home during the day! So here's what we've been up to lately...

Kasha has been inside more since it's been hot. And Kaitlyn loves it. Here is a picture of Kaitlyn "hugging" Kasha. I'm sure Kasha would rather be anywhere else, but she's a patient dog. Sometimes I take pity on her (Kasha) and put her in her crate during the day so that she can have some peace and quiet.

Since our neighborhood doesn't have a pool, we have to improvise. She loves "Hermie" the water caterpillar. Actually, I should say she loves the idea of him. When his arms are flailing and shooting water everywhere, she runs away. It takes lots of coaxing to get her close enough to get wet. But she's laughing the whole time whether she's getting wet or not, so I guess she's having fun.

We had our annual trip to downtown to watch the sunset on the longest day of the year. It's so much more fun now that Kaitlyn can explore. She loves "downtown" and talks about it frequently. Actually anything with tall buildings is "downtown" to her. From the Capitol, she was able to see the trains and explore lots of interesting statues and flowers. Ethan slept most of the time :)

Daddy explaining things to her as she listens intently.

For the 4th of July weekend Jess, Adam and Noah came to visit. Since all of the kids/grandkids were going to be in one place, Mimi and Papa paid us a surprise visit too. Unfortunately rain ruined our plans to see the downtown fireworks, but we caught the tail end of the Brentwood show. For some reason, Ethan (our happy-smiley baby) was in a bad mood most of the day...probably too many people around and getting off schedule. So the attempt to get a picture of all three grandkids did not go well. Noah and Kaitlyn are trying to figure out what's going on with Ethan! Noah, get used to babies crying!!!

Kaitlyn finally had someone to sit on the other side of her glider.

Kaitlyn's one request every single day is to go outside and "Swing high!" Papa was all too happy to oblige. Notice the absolute glee on her face.

We also got to spend some time at a friend's pool during that weekend. There was a kiddie pool that was perfect to get used to water again. She hasn't been swimming since last summer.

I was a little nervous that she would need some time to warm up to the idea of the big pool, but when I took her in, she loved it immediately. So we put on her swim vest and started giving her some informal "lessons." By the end of the afternoon, she was putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles, and she was jumping off the side of the pool into our arms. And she didn't seem bothered at all when her head went under water. Maybe swim lessons are in our future next summer.

More pictures of Ethan coming soon...