the future...

The kids have been focusing on careers at school and Lucy just brought home the following paper:

When I grow up, I want to be a dog groomer. I know it is very, very hard work to become a dog groomer. I will finish school to the twelfth grade. Then I want to go to Cambridge University.

Brendan has informed us that he would like to be a Lego engineer in charge of coming up with new designs for Lego kits. He thinks he needs to live in San Diego, close to the much dreamed of Lego Land.

Happy Halloween!

new addition

For the past year, Lucy has been dreaming of owning her very own dog. Pet care books have come home from the library, every dog walking by has been exclaimed over and Petfinder.com has been visited religiously. In short, she wore us down...




Olive is almost 8 weeks old and is (so far!) a sweet girl.

first day of school

I have been apprehensive about this day since school let out last summer. My two babies in full day elementary school with kids who might bully them and teachers who might not really understand them. I have gone through this the last couple of years with Lucy and sending both kids off for the day seemed daunting. I expected to be teary and down most of the day, and I did well up watching Lucy walk Bren down the hall to his classroom and at a random moment while making "welcome home" cookies this afternoon. Mostly, though, I've surprised myself by being excited. The kids met their teachers yesterday and as we checked out the classrooms and ran into friends, I started to catch their enthusiasm. I have been checking their daily schedules all day and feel like I can smell the newly sharpened pencils and hot lunches, and hear kids playing on the playground and shoes squeaking in the gym. I can't wait to hear about their adventures.

Kids are now home and are beat but looking forward to going back tomorrow, which must be a good sign. Brendan's favorite part was "knocking down the blocks with Carson during Free Explosion time" (supposed to be Exploration...explosion which might be more accurate). Lucy is thrilled to have her best friend in her class again.

oregon trip

After anticipating our trip for most of the summer (and spring), it seemed to go by much too quickly. It felt nice to be "home" and we loved cooling off for a couple of weeks.

Treasure hunt with Grandpa Scott in Creswell:

Buried gold coins!:
Lucy and Grace playing dress up:
Brendan and cousin Gabe:
Chillin' with Aunt Bethy at Grandpa Ron's:
Tractor rides with Grandpa Ron:

At the zoo with Aunt Bethy & Daniel:
Gabe's 3rd Birthday party:

Reading with Aunt Shannon, Roxy & Uma. We were around a lot of dogs on this trip and our already dog-crazed little girl is now on a mission to get a pet of her own...Jon and I have started frequenting the local shelter websites:

Our last couple days at the beach with Nana:
Climbing the dune in Pacific City--Lucy was amazingly fast and the rest of us tried to keep up:


School starts up tomorrow and our summer is truly over, although not the weather...we're currently on day 64 of 100+ degrees this summer! Yeck!

birthdays and bats

Grandma Phyllis and Grandpa Steve came for their first visit to Austin over 4th of July weekend. It's a hot time of the year to visit Central Texas (I think it was over 100 every day they were here), but we managed to mostly stay in air conditioning and had a good time.

There was a neighborhood parade on the 4th. Brendan wasn't interested in the idea of decorating his bike and choose to watch; Lucy and her friend quickly gave up riding their scooters and Jon finished out the route.


The kids were excited to take a ride around the block in the old fire truck, which topped out at about 7 m/h:

We took Phyllis and Steve on a bat-watching cruise; it was pretty warm, but still enjoyable.

Austin has the largest urban bat colony in N. America with around 1.5 million bats living in the cracks of the Congress Street Bridge; they take off to hunt (get the mosquitos!!) at sunset:
Brendan's 5th Birthday. He's currently a little obsessed with Star Wars and Legos or any combination of the two:
Cool Lego carrying case from Grandma:



Instead of having a big party, Bren wanted to take his friend Julian to Chuck E. Cheese. A little chaotic, but way less so than having a house full of 5 year-old boys.

sweet molly malone

The kids had a world music camp this week at the school where Lucy takes piano lessons. Here's an excerpt from their end-of-the-week concert:





One of our children definitely enjoys performing more than the other...