goodness me...

It's been six months since the last posting. A lot has happened. In October Lynn (TX) and I (MN & CA) traveled quite a bit. (Un)fortunately they were on separate trips. So we had some tag team parenting to do, with the help of our beloved Luzma, or "bela" as the girls call her, which is short for abuela. On my trip out to California, we found out that Luzma was resigning as our nanny, because she wanted to look after younger kids, babies. We were distraught, and still are to a lesser degree. She is family to us. More on this in a bit.

So when I got home, grammy and grampy were there visiting us on their annual migration southward to Florida. The girls sure enjoyed spending time with them. Their visit coincided with Claire being the star student of the week. This meant we had to provide healthy snacks for her entire class for the week. I think we got duped.

This Halloween marked the 3rd straight month that Claire got all green dots for behavior at school. And off we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. To the right is a photo of Laura and her lady bug costume. The girls went to 20 houses or so and then we went on a hay ride. When we got home, Lynn quickly hid their candy. We still have about 75% of it.

Laura also started gymnastic class. I took her one week and participated in the class activities and my knee hasn't been the same since. She has really blossomed. She listens to the teacher and tries to do everything the teacher tells her. Why doesn't she listen to us?

And finally for the big new for November, Laura has started school. Yes, with Luzma leaving at the end of the year, we decided to put Laura in school - the same one as Claire's. We hired a new nanny who will shadow Luzma for a couple of days to learn the ropes. And she will have the girls in the afternoons. We were a little worried about how Laura would do in school and whether she would get any green dots. Well at the risk of putting the cart before the horse, she's been at school for 3 days now and has 3 green dots!!! To the left is a picture of Laura on her first day of school. On the first day, Claire's teacher took Claire and let her peek in on Laura's class to make sure Laura was doing OK. The teachers say she is fitting in just fine.

Finally, last Saturday Santa came to our neighborhood to visit the kids and we all went. Here are some photos of the girls and Mr and Mrs. Claus. The girls want this for Christmas.

Another month gone by...

I remember when we first had Claire, everyone told us to enjoy her while she is little because they grow up so fast. Part of me couldn't wait til she was done with breastfeeding and diapers. Now she's in school, excelling in everything. And Laura (not that we should compare them) is probably ahead of where Claire was  when Claire was her age. They bring us such joy.

Lynn is in Texas for 5 days, leaving me to run the household with help from my trusty assistants, Luzma and Magen. Unfortunately Marlene, the house cleaner, is coming on Monday, so I need to tidy up the house on Sunday. If there is one area the girls do not excel in, it is in picking up after themselves. This was inherited from both Lynn and me.

So with another month done, Claire earned all green dots (for good behavior) at school and we took her to Dairy Queen again. Claire's teacher called us at home last week to tell us that Claire is an absolute angel and all of the teachers just adore her. We will buy Laura a 100 acre equestrian farm replete with horses when she gets all green dots for the month. How can someone so cute and adorable spend so much time in time-out?

A couple of weekends ago, we spent two days in the North Georgia mountains (hills) with the Docka's. We went apple picking, fishing, had a camp fire, made smores, went to a pumpkin patch and took a hay ride. We were exhausted on Sunday afternoon. You can see some photos of our adventures here.

in the meantime, here is a video of Claire singing tonight. You may need to turn up the volume a little.  

Always with us

On Friday, Lynn and I flew to Seattle to attend Keely's memorial service. Sure there were tears, but there was more laughter. There were about 100 people in attendance, including some people we hadn't seen in years. For those in attendance, Keely was our collective conscious. Several people mentioned WWKS/D bracelets were needed. Keely only met our girls 3-4 times, but she loved them dearly. So when she is not busy tapping us on the shoulder questioning our decisions, she will be looking out for the girls. We love you Keely (and you too Andy).

Farewell Rooster

Tomorrow (Sept. 10) we are sending Rooster to join Caesar in the big playground in the sky. He is 16 years old and is suffering from kidney failure. He has lost a lot of weight and his back legs are starting to fail. It seems just like yesterday when Lynn (unannounced) brought him home to our apartment in Tucson, as a friend for Caesar to play with and he promptly ran under the couch and hid. Lynn called him a chicken and I immediately responded "I'm not a chicken, I'm a rooster". The rest is history. With Caesar out of the picture for the last 3 years, Rooster had really blossomed. The girls loved to pet him, and he let them, even if they were a little rough. Laura doesn't understand what's happening, but Claire does. She knows that Rooster will be with Caesar and Auntie Kiki (Keely), who was allergic to cats. So, I'll take the kids to school and to Luzma's and Lynn will take Rooster to the vets. We will have him cremated and he will join Caesar's ashes on the mantle. I do want that $1000 titanium pin in his leg from the time he broke his leg though. Of course, Claire wants to get another cat. But the notion was quickly trumped by our desire to get our carpets professionally steam cleaned. We love you Rooster.

Our Angel

Our angel is back. Yes, Luzma returned this past Tuesday and the girls were sooooo excited to see her. It had been nearly 6 weeks - though at times it felt a lot longer - since we had seen Luzma. She was in the UK visiting her daughter and son-in-law. Claire finished week 3 of school and thus far has a perfect behavior record. Each day the students get evaluated on their behaviour and if they are good, they get a green dot in their calendar. Claire has received only green dots. Lynn said if she get a whole month of green dots, she will take Claire to Dairy Queen. I told Claire to hold out for more. Frankly, I am not sure who will be more disappointed if Claire does not get a green dot, Claire or Lynn. Here is a photo of Claire dressed up as an angel for angel day at school. Again, this is the handiwork of Lynn.

The past 3 weeks have been an adjustment for all of us. This getting up at 7am to get the girls ready and then take them to school and Luzma's is for the birds. And to think we have 15 more years of this. Thank goodness for weekends, when it's family time. Today we went to my hockey team's party. The girls went swimming with the kids of my teammates and we had hamburgers and beer. The girls came home and crashed.

Last weekend we did face/head/arm painting. Lynn is pretty creative, as you can see from the photo. Anyway, here are some new photos of the girls to tide you over until the next posting.

First day at school!

Yes, Monday was Claire's first official day at school at St. Michael the Archangel. She is in the bunny class. We got up early, ate a good breakfast, made her a healthy lunch and the four of us drove to school to drop her off. Admittedly, it was more emotional than I thought it would be. Our little girl who was barely the size of my shoe, who used to sleep on my chest, is now in school. Well, she had a great day at school and when I asked her what she did at school, she said "stuff". Yup, she's my girl!

Day 2 was not quite as smooth as day 1. I woke up and from a horizontal position, peered outside the window, believing I possessed the ability to deduce the time by the amount of ambient light outside. I figured it was about 6:30am. Plenty of time before we had to leave for school at 8:20am. But, I thought it better check the clock just in case. So much for that supposed ability. It was 8am and we had to get the kids dressed, fed and lunch made in 20 minutes. We made it out the door by 8:27am. After hitting every traffic light which turned red as we approached, I dropped Claire off at 8:55am with time to spare. I could have slept another 5 minutes.

Back from Maine

We just had two great trips this summer. As noted in the previous posting we traveled to British Columbia to visit my family. The trip to Kamloops was a long day for the girls - 16 hours in total which include 2 plane ride (5.5 hours) and a 5 hour drive to Kamloops from Vancouver. When we arrived we went to my friends Mike and Sue's place for dinner at 6pm, which was 9pm for the girls. they were such good little troopers. We spent the next 5 days visiting with Lola, Uncle Paul, Auntie Taya and Theo. The three cousins had a great time together whether it was at the water park or at the playground. Claire even went to 2 of Auntie Taya's soccer games and one of Uncle Paul's hockey games, where she got a puck. We also spent time with 2nd cousins Sam and Alex, and their parents Pam (my cousin) and Andrew.

Andrew and I even went on treasure hunt one evening. Here is Andrew at ground zero, the mother load. Spending all of this quality time with family, made us realize how lucky we are, especially the girls.

Lynn had to leave a couple of days early to go to Vancouver for work, which meant I was in charge (ok, it was really Auntie Taya and Lola) of the girls. Nobody broke any bones or furniture so I guess I did alright.

On Thursday, we caravan-ed down to Vancouver to spend a couple of days with my dad. It was his first time to see Laura in the flesh. We had a great time walking along the sea wall, going to the Science Center and just hanging out at the hotel because it rained a lot. It was too bad our time was so short because we had such a great time before you knew it we were on a plane heading back to Atlanta. Anyway, here are some photos from this trip.

We had enough time to do the laundry and repack before we were on a plane heading to Maine to spend time with Lynn's family. Grammy, Grampy and Uncle Larry were already there. The four of us shared a large bedroom and the girls had their own beds, but Laura would not fall asleep - she was such a stinker. Every night was a 2-3 hour battle to get her to go to sleep, or at least keep quiet.

We spent time at the beach with 2nd cousin Brennan and parents Mark (Lynn's cousin) and Erin. Lynn got sun burned pretty good. We had lobster 3 times and fortunately for us, neither girl liked it. We also took the girls to the fair to go on carnival rides. Laura was finally tall enough to go on several rides this year - she had a blast. The girls also met 2nd cousin Genevieve who was visiting from China with Uncle Jon and Aunt Xia Li. I know they won't remember any of this, but hopefully this blog will serve as a document recording their lives from day 1 onward. Anyway, we spent 8 days in Maine and we are now back in Atlanta. Here are some Maine photos.