1st Day of Kindergarten

Last Wednesday was Annie's first day at High Plains Elementary. We had gone shopping for her school supplies a few weeks ago and she spent about every other day from then on proudly parading around the house with her backpack full of supplies. The closer the big day got, you could tell she was getting a little nervous. Olivia was really nervous once she realized that Annie wouldn't be going to Montessori with her anymore. On Tuesday night they both had a hard time falling asleep, but both were ready to go on Wednesday. Here she is, getting all ready to head out the door. Little did we realize that while I was taking the photo, the cat snuck out and decided to camp out under our big evergreen tree. We couldn't get him to come out for anything, so decided to ditch him. I loaded up the girls and while they were getting buckled in, I checked one more time and the cat was waiting for me to let him in the house.

Once at school, Annie lined up with the other kids outside their classroom door. Annie lined up next to her new good friend, Megan and while all the parents snapped photo after photo...my baby walked into school, as proud as can be.

It's official...my work ate my summer.

It's true. I've been working as a construction engineer on the job where no one can do anything right and it has taken my summer. Even right now, it's Sunday and I'm waiting to receive 2 emails from the project on 2 items they messed up and expect me to figure out how to fix. AYE!
In the meantime, there are only 3 more days until Annie is a fully fledged Kindergartner at High Plains Elementary. She is so so so excited. We met her new teacher Ms. Lyons on Friday at the school ice cream social and she seems really excited to be a new teacher. She just graduated from NCU and this is her first job.

So what have we been up to this summer?

1. The girls both took swim lessons, although I can't say that they learned to swim yet. We are planning on a trip to the pool this afternoon, so I will throw them in and let you know what happens.
2. We spent an awesome week on the beach with Nana, Papa, John, Bonnie, Lily, Justin, Mindi, and our new cat (Mr. Georgie Spankerdoodle Throwie Nicholas Meowsers Meowgi, the Third, Jr.) All I can say about Mr. Meowgi is that he is a very tolerant kitty and loves to torment Bailey, loves to chase plastic things across the floor, loves to curl up with me if I'm laying on the couch, and has a love/hate relationship with both girls.
3. We camped a total of 3 times...once with a dead battery, and the the last time with a visit from a bear. He knocked on our door, but we didn't answer...he left a paw print on the side of our camper.
4. A new IKEA store opened in Denver and the girls and I literally got lost inside for 2 hours last week. Luckily, we found the cafeteria and restored our energy levels with some Swedish meatballs and an apple tart. I don't think we will be going back anytime soon.
5. Annie is this close to learning how to ride her bike without training wheels.

Look for a photo album of our summer appearing on the blog soon. In the meantime, I'm going to try and talk Tim into going to IKEA for lunch...