August

After the crazy rollercoaster the month of July was, we've really been enjoying opportunities to get together and spend some low-key time socializing with family and friends. We've had Lem's cousins' girls over for a BBQ and got to host my cousin Danny and his wife and three girls shortly after their move up here from California. It's really fun to see our girls playing with all the little "cousin girls" and them all just fitting right in with each other without any effort at all. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and watch and let yourself be reminded of the joys of the simplified life of young ones-no cliques, no discrimination, no social struggles, just acceptance. We got to have a few visits with our friend Alaina when she was home visiting from Portland. We eve shared some of the raspberries we've been picking at Nanny and Papa's with her.

Ella's been enjoying dressing up and playing with her big sister. She's pretty entertaining to watch her engaged in dramatic play either with Sycely or on her own with toys, dolls and figures. Sycely is always such a great sport to share her things with Ella and include her in whatever she's playing or performing. Sycely also finally decided that she wants to ride her bike. When we got it for her this spring she broke into tears telling me that kindof bike was for 5 year olds and she wasn't 5 yet. I guess now that she's 5 she's ready for bike fun. The girls had one last end of summer sleepover with Nanny and Papa and that kicked off our back to school season.

Bonnie and I got to go on a girls night with Cousin-in-law Amandam, Cousin Jesse's girlfriend Rachel and Ian's girlfriend Kathryn. We shared some fabulous Moose's Tooth pizza and followed up with dessert and tea. It was such a nice time of girly bonding and I just love the girls in our family to pieces! Bonnie also finally made the leap and retired from Dimond this year so we got to celebrate her big transition with a deck party with all the Dimond crew. She's so far enjoying the work (and the flexibility) of being Ian's paralegal.

August hasn't been all lazy days and socializing, though. It's back to school time which means, tennis and school started back up for Lem. This year, he's added Student Government to his activities so work began on that even before school with a working retreat with the Student Government students. They got the year off to a great start and got a really good jump on planning their activities and giving direction to their year.

Back to School time was doubly exciting around here this year with Sycely starting Kindergarten. We got her registered and got all her school supplies, including the colored pencils and gym shoes. We didn't find out the our zone exemption was approved until a week after registration, but we were able to go to her school's ice cream social and meet her teacher and tour her classroom and walk around the school a little. Kindergarten starts a week after the other grades here so the teachers can meet one-on-one with their students. During this time they're able to talk with the parents as well as do an assessment to see where the kids are at cognitively and socially. I'm thrilled with Sycely's teacher (no easy feat with my background) and am so thankful that he background is in early childhood and that she has great value for play and development based learning. I'm confident that Sycely is going to thrive this year and that her love of learning is going to be supported and developed. I'm really grateful that I can feel that way about her entering school.

We also encountered 32 straight days of rain-yep almost as many as Noah, so when the sun made an appearance for 8 days straight we took advantage of it best we could. We were wrapping up the end of Sycely's summer so our last day before school started we headed to Bouncin' Bears and had lunch picnic style along Campbell Creek. The girls had fun playing a the playground and tossing rocks and just watching the baby fish swim around. Turns, out, the August sun, was in fact a fluke and the pouring started up again when the fair started...so, back to normal, I guess.