2nd Grade

A few minutes ago I sent my girls off to second grade. They were excited, and I am not lying when I say that I was excited too. I know I should be sad that they are growing up so fast, but I know all that they will be learning, and how much they will become more of who they are. Does that make any sense. It's exciting. In a few minutes I am off to my first day of school as well. This year I am working with the first grade again. It will be fun, challenging, and there will be days that I wish I could stay in bed. Here are some pics of the girls, sorry none of myself, but I really haven't changed much. And since you will wonder, yes it really is cool enough to wear a jacket. When they come home, it won't be but this morning when they left it was 54 degrees. Crazy August weather.

Juliana

Kathryn

Hiking

On Friday the 13th Steve took work off and we started the day off with a little hike. We have been meaning to do it since we moved back, but just now got to it. We hiked up to the "Y". It's a short 1 mile hike, but it is steep, and I mean steep. I was proud of the girls for sticking with it, and if we are being honest I was proud of myself for sticking to it. Once we got to the top, the views were worth it. Here are some pics.

At the begging all smiles.

Juliana, Steve, Kathryn

At one of the switch backs where we stopped

to catch a breath. Meg, Jules, Kath, Steve

Looking up

The view from the top was spectacular.

All smiles at the top. This wasn't quite how happy

they were on some of the really steep parts.

Two Stories

In one day two very different episodes took place at the Nordstrom house. In the morning of Wednesday the 11th, we had gone to run some errands. We were just about to pull into the driveway. Kathryn said, "Mom"

I said, "What"

"My tooth just came out."

She had been chewing gum, and her second front tooth just came out in the gum. Pretty funny, and a very non-traumatic way to loose a tooth.
The next episode came just before bed time. The girls were in their pajamas and were supposed to be getting in bed. I had gone out to put water on a tree. Steve came out to turn the water on, and so the girls followed. Now some background. At the end of the last school year, the girls planted little seed in cups and brought them home. Only one of the four seeds lived. Juliana's Sunflower grew and against all odds, which included not getting watered all the time. Well it got big enough to transplant and put outside in a pot. We put the pot on the back porch. As the sunflower grew, it started to grow out and then up to follow the afternoon sun as long as it could. So first it grew towards the pot side, and then it grew up. Anyways on this particular day, it had just bloomed it's first little full flower. So Juliana was out on the porch, suddenly I heard Steve say, "You just broke it." I turns out she thought she could pull it and set it straight. She tried and snapped the sunflower right at the base. Once she realized what had happened she was heart broken. It was very sad. She thought that I would be upset with her, but I just felt bad for her. She learned the hard way that you can't bend plants, or at least not most plants. Just minutes after it was broken, I took pictures. It was already starting to wilt.

Harvesting

With the end of summer comes the fun part of the garden, harvesting. Starting with the peas (which I forgot to take pictures of) then onions and peppers. On sunday we picked an ear of corn as well. When the girls and I went out and dug up all the onions I did get pictures. It's a lot of fun to see the very literal fruits of our labors. We are looking forward to out beans, potatoes, a few carrots, and tomatoes.

One week latter

I was about to go to bed when I realized that I have not posted in a while, and I needed to add at least one thing. Although we have had a fabulous summer, I am not going to write about that right now, maybe another time. I forgot to post that Juliana lost another tooth exactly a week after her sister. So that have matching smile again for a while at least. Here is a picture, and yes it's a hair cut picture, so if I find the time I'll throw up some more pictures of all of our adventures.