Talan's First Day of School

Talan started his second year of preschool at Grace United.  He loves school so he was very excited about his first day.

Kevin was able to schedule a site visit for that morning so he could be home to join us in dropping Talan off. 

New year, new classroom....

And new teachers!  This is Mrs. Judy.  He has one other teacher, Mrs. Dee Dee.

A giant kiss goodbye and he was ready for us to go.

He's getting to be such a big boy!

Reese's First Day of School

Hard to believe but Reese is already into her 3rd grade year at school.  She was excited to find out that her teacher would be Mrs. Hosko and although we were all sad to say goodbye to the summer, she was excited to get started with school. 

I love looking back at the photos from years previous.  She grows and changes so much in 365 days.

Even though they fought like cats and dogs all summer long, Talan was very sad to see Reese go.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long to see her again because we followed the bus so that we could wait with her to walk into the school.

After school Talan was front and center at the bus stop, anxious to see his sister.

He wasn't the only one anxious to see her.  We all were.  She had a great first day and is so excited about this year.

Summer Recap

This summer flew by.  In addition to having no working computer, I also had little time.  We stayed busy, busy, busy.  It would take hours to recap everything but here are the Cliff's Notes.  

We started our summer with our favorite race, the Warrior Dash.  Once again, it was an absolute blast running through the mud, sliding, climbing, and jumping over fire to get through the 5K. 

We spent a lot of time at Chicago Fire games.  To date we have only missed one home game this season.  The kids haven't been with us to every game because sometimes game night = date night.

We spent nearly every day of the week at the local pool.  They have a huge sand area where Talan liked to hang out.  Reese spent 80% of her pool time going up and down the slide.

A few weeks into Summer vacation the kids and I packed up and drove to Tennessee to spend some time at Nana & Papa's house.  It was so relaxing to be out in the country.

Back at home we took in a couple of outdoor festivals.

At the end of July we were so excited to have visitors.  Erica, Diane, and Josh flew into town for the Chicago Rock -n- Roll half marathon.  While they were here we had to share our love of soccer games with them.

The next day was the race.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.....but I DID IT!  Kevin and I both finished the race and I was able to do it much faster than I had anticipated.  A bucket list item check off.  Thank goodness I don't ever have to do it again!

Two days after the race, Kevin and I took off on a trip to Vegas to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.  The kids stayed with my parents in Tennessee and then drove with them to Florida while we were gone.  We had a great week relaxing by the pool and playing video poker. 

We had long enough to come home to do laundry and repack before it was off to Florida to reunite with the kids.  As always, we had a great time in Florida visiting with friends and family and soaking up the Florida sunshine.

None of us were happy to come back home but Kevin had to get back to work after 2 weeks off so we didn't have a choice.  Once home we packed as much family fun as we could into the two weeks before school started again.

We went to the zoo

And to Six Flags

And of course another Fire game

Lots of great times - already looking forward to next summer!