Summer Wrap-Up

Just wanted to let you all know that we survived the first week of school GLOWINGLY! I had a bit of a heart-stopping moment when their teacher approached my car during drop off on the second day of school. Seriously WHAT could they have done on the first day of school??? As it turns out, she just wanted to know what we call Monahan at home. I suggested she ask Hannah since it had been reported to me the previous evening that she liked being called Monahan. She must have forgotten about that, though, because she came home being called Hannah. Hannah and Elizabeth love school. Lizzie said she's going to get to play the xylophone in music class and Hannah said that gym will be more fun once they play soccor with that high net in the gym (clearly Uncle Dude has been lax in his sports education for them).

I, of course, am doing my part at home by making sure that things are very boring around here. Rob's helping, too, as evidenced by the following picture. Here are the girls doing yard work and Rob NOT doing yard work...

Here are things from another angle. Children working. Dad not working:

:)

I think they will be good and ready for school tomorrow! We had a great weekend, seriously. Yesterday it poured rain for the entire day (starting at 1 a.m. and ending around 9 p.m.) so we went out for coffee and then we watched movies and ate popcorn for the rest of the day. Today there was no sign of the tropical storm (except for lots of downed branches and leaves and our creek being a little bit deeper) and the weather was stunning. We decided to take a drive to find a covered bridge. We found the bridge and here it is. And, yes, those are some Amish people out for a bike ride:

I found some other pictures from the summer that I wanted to share. With all the excitement about the first day of school (well, we were excited, you all probably weren't) I forgot to post our Labor Day picnic picture. We went back to the same playground where we'd spent Memorial Day. We stopped at an Italian place called Two Cousins where they have THE BEST sandwiches. They make the rolls from their pizza dough and they are delish. For those in the area it's on Route 23 in New Holland -- worth the drive!

Hannah worked on her gymnastics skills at the park:Finally, ever since we babysat BeBop (my nephew's bird) Lizzie has been consumed with the desire to have a bird or, if possible, be a bird. Here's a nest she made on the deck. Her blue jay and two ducks found it quite comfy: