Summer Fun

Well, I am very behind in blogging, but this time I have a good reason! Our computer broke right after I downloaded a bunch of pictures from the previous weekend and deleted them from the memory card. Paul assures me he can fix the computer and save our pictures, but he hasn't had time yet. I will post those pictures as soon as I can, but I will just give you a brief description of recent activities as a preview.

Last weekend we had some friends over to our house - the first people we have had over since our kitchen remodel and subsequent basement debacle! It felt good to have people over finally! We celebrated some August birthdays with our friends and just had a nice time. The next day we went to Arlington Race Track to watch the horse races. Every year the track has a family day on Sundays and they pick one of those family days to be a free day to Arlington Heights residents. We went last year and had a lot of fun, so we made sure to find the free day again this year and enjoy it all again. Seems like a lot of Arlington Heights residents had the same idea as it was pretty crowded. We also randomly ran into our friends the Glynn's there, who had just had their third baby three days earlier! I was shocked to see them there because I couldn't imagine going anywhere 3 days after having a baby! But then I remembered that with all of my children, I was still in the hospital 3 days after giving birth due to the c-sections and not really fully mobile for two weeks after that, so I guess my experience is slightly skewed. Good for them for getting out of the house with their two younger ones - I am sure it felt great to be away from home for a little bit! And Congratulations again to them! Anyway, all of that weekend fun is captured in pictures that I will get sometime soon hopefully and come back to update.

So what else have we been up to? Well we realized that Ben starts kindergarten in 2 weeks (and Abbey starts preschool shortly thereafter), so our summer is quickly coming to a close. With everything that has happened with our house this summer, and our bout with the flu in June/July, we haven't been able to fully enjoy the summer with easy and carefree days like we did last summer. So, we figured we better make the most of our last two weeks now that everything has calmed down.

Way back in December, Santa Claus brought Juliette a bubble machine and we hadn't ever opened it, so now was the time! The kids loved it and went chasing the bubbles for quite a while.

As expected, Juliette got a huge kick out of this so good thinking Santa!

We have also had lots of dress-up days. The kids love dressing up and do it all the time, so I thought I would capture some of this on camera.

By the way, I will come down into the basement and find Abbey fully dressed like this all on her own...

Then Ben practiced his photography skills and caught this cute one of me and my Juju...

Don't worry, the kids made sure not to leave Chien out...

Cutie pie...

Then one evening we walked to the school around the block and finally flew our kites! Ben has been asking all summer, so he was super excited! He picked up the skill pretty easily and was flying them by himself in no time!

Abbey had a little harder time as she couldn't quite run fast enough to get it going up in the air. Paul helped her a few times though and let her have it once it was up. Here she is running as fast as she can with the kite in the air!

Even Juliette got in a little kite flying!

But before long everyone got tired and it was time to head home...