Glenn is loving school, although he's not as excited about going to school in the mornings as he was last year. Kindergarten is hard work! We love his teacher, and he's doing very well.

Here's some pictures from the end of August:
Alexander likes to play with his trains or cars on the couch. He'll just move them back and forth for a long time.


I found the folded clothes dumped out and the boys sitting in the basket watching tv together.


Alexander watching Big Bird, kicking his legs


Bob gave Glenn his old iPod. Here he's chilling, listening to kid music.

We went to CT this past weekend for my brother's wedding. We first went to the Connecticut Science Center, which is a really nice museum. We went with my parents and my sister, Lisa.










The wedding was held at Julie's parents' house on a pond. The weather was really perfect. We had a great time, and the bride and groom were beaming!




Green Acres Pose


Daddy eats worms


Lisa and Alexander examining a worm

First Day of Kindergarten

Today was Glenn's first day of kindergarten, and as promised, I have pictures below. He was a little nervous last night, and went between excited and nervous this morning. But when we got to school, he said in his most excited voice, "I'm going to have so much fun today!" He had a wonderful day. I got a lot of stories from him about his day, which is more than I got all year last year. He's really progressed with his speech. He told me how they went to the cafeteria to pretend to eat lunch. I don't think they wanted to overwhelm them on the first day, so they just practiced, then ate in their classroom. They had half go today, and the other half go tomorrow, so he'll go back on Wednesday. He can't wait to go back. Tomorrow, we're going to get some stuff to dip in chocolate; probably strawberries and pretzels. He'll enjoy doing that.

A Wonderful Summer

We really had a wonderful summer. We went to the beach almost once a week. We had Bob's parents and three of our nephews visit for a week. We went to the beach with them. Bob took them to see his office near St. Petersburg and they visited with family out there. We really enjoyed their visit. We went to the FL Museum of Natural History and really enjoyed the Butterfly Garden. I started teaching a public health class for Kaplan University. It's been a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it. It just doesn't leave me much time for myself because I'm working when I normally would have time to do whatever I want to do (when the boys are in bed).

We went to Nebraska to visit my grandmother and uncles. My Uncle Gale, who lives in WA, flew out to meet us there and my other Uncle Byron lives in NE just down the road from my grandmother. We always enjoy the visit. Bob couldn't go because he's busy with work, but my parents traveled with the boys and I. I got my grandmother's famous recipe for Danish pastry. I tried making some this weekend. It was fun and tasty. I enjoyed discussing how to make it with my grandmother. She enjoyed it, too.

While in NE, we went to Cody park, which has a diesel engine and steam engine and cars. I got some great photos on the trains.














This was at Cody park.


There's shack behind my grandmother's house. I got some cute pics of the boys on the steps. They are holding some dandelions.








We also went walking around the farm and found some sunflowers. We picked some for Grammy (what the boys call my grandmother).






And now we are back home. We went to the pool a couple times this week and Glenn is finally starting to swim underwater by himself. Next year we'll put him back in swim lessons. Alexander will, too. He loves the water. We did all our school shopping and Glenn got to meet his teacher and see his new classroom on Friday. He didn't want to leave the classroom. I finally convinced him to leave by saying he'll get to spend all day there on Monday. I'll have more pictures of that this week. And the other news is Alexander is very interested in potty training. I'm not ready, but he is, so wish us luck.

Alexander's 2nd Birthday

Alexander had such a great birthday. On his birthday, we went to a bookstore and got us all some books. Then we went to a little boutique toy store. It had toys out to play with all over the store and the boys loved it. Then we went to lunch with my parents. And we had cupcakes at a local cupcakery. They even gave us a candle for Alexander's cupcake. They were delicious! He had waffles with fruit and whip cream for supper. It was a great day! The next morning we opened presents because Daddy was stuck at work and didn't get home in time (sad he missed the day's festivities). Yesterday, we had a few families and my parents over for a birthday party. They colored pictures of Elmo, danced, made animal sounds, and found bugs with their new bug collecting kits (fake bugs, of course). Alexander is fascinated by bugs, so I thought this was a perfect activity for his party. We had breakfast for dinner for the party since that's what Alexander could eat all day. Everyone loved it. Here are some pictures from the week:

























Alexander reading to Lamb

I guess it’s about time I update our blog since so much has been going on the past month. We did buy the home medical equipment repair business, so Bob has been in the St. Pete area all week, every week. He comes home once during the week and on weekends. It’s about 3 1/2 hours away. It’s been a bit tough on Glenn; he misses his daddy (I miss him, too). Things are going well. He’s getting it to work more efficiently, and then he has hired someone to do marketing to grow the business.

I have been hired by Kaplan University to teach online health sciences courses at the undergraduate college level. I finished my training and am just waiting for them to assign me a course to teach.

Glenn has finished preschool! He’s actually in summer school for about 6 weeks, 3 days a week. But that’s just because he’s doing so well, they wanted to make sure he retained what he learned during the school year and set him up for success for kindergarten. He started today and is riding the bus to and from school since it’s further away than his usual school. He was so excited about going on the bus this morning. Hopefully he feels the same way after a couple of weeks because he’s on the bus for almost an hour both ways.

Last week, we stayed in Orlando so that we could see Bob every day. We had a fun weekend with him, and then he went to work every day, and drove back every night (about an hour and a half commute). Glenn even went to work with him on Friday. Apparently he had a lot of fun with the paper hole puncher! The boys and I went to Sea World a couple of mornings. It was too hot and we got too tired to stay longer than that. We went to the whale and dolphin show both days because Glenn loved it (I was impressed, too) and Glenn’s afraid of Elmo (the other show in the mornings). Otherwise, we didn’t do a whole lot because the boys and I had summer colds. I even lost my voice completely for a whole day. The boys thought it was funny, and it was difficult getting their attention since they couldn’t hear me. We did get in some fun pool time. There were a lot of pools to choose from where we stayed. And they had a fun nature walk where we saw birds, a snake and raccoon.

On Sunday, we went to the beach for Father’s Day. It was a beautiful beach day. This is our first real trip to the beach this year (the other time was just to take pictures in the early evening and then we left). Our friends have introduced us to a more private beach that is great for shell hunting. We even found a starfish, but threw it back in the water because it was still alive.

We’re looking forward to my parents coming down next week. They’ll be staying the summer in their future snow bird house, which is around the corner from us. We’re also looking forward to many more trips to the beach and pool. We’ve been enjoying lots of cucumbers from our garden and my parents’ garden. We’ve also had some strawberries, squash, peas, and green beans. I also have a very nice herb garden and love cooking with fresh herbs. We have more veggies that aren’t quite ready yet to harvest, but look forward to eating them, too.

When I wrote this in the morning, I was being attacked by a horse as I sat on the floor of the play room. Alexander was tapping me on the shoulder with his horse on a stick (sounds weird, but you know what I mean). He’s so goofy.

Alexander wearing his daddy's boots


Glenn was awarded the "friendliest student" by his class. He also was given a friendship award and reading award.