It’s Aunt Kim’s birthday today! And I haven’t posted anything in a month! It has been a little bit of crazy town getting back into school, getting our evening routine, and then I have extra work this year that keeps me busy with my other minutes. But I made time tonight.

We started the new school year with a couple of parties. The first one was thrown by a student I taught last year. It was a birthday party for her, her twin brother, and her triplet friends who were all turning 15 together. The party was held at the family’s summer home on an island in Fox Lake. You had to ride a boat ferry to get to it. The girls got to hang out, play badminton (Ashley got good at this) and tetherball (Kayla was the expert here).

This is hard work.

After a late dinner and some snacks, we took the ferry back to our car.

The next party was sponsored by my district PTO. It was a pool party in Lake Bluff. Free admission to the Lake Bluff pool for a couple of swimming hours, then meeting Kevin at our favorite restaurant for dinner.

The first day of school went mostly well. The school is having issues due to poor planning with the bus routes. It is still not resolved, but a solution is coming. The girls wore their new favorite T’s to school on day 1.

Then Ashley needed something that speaks to her sense of fashion.

That’s her backpack sitting there. Suits her, eh?

Both girls have resumed their music lessons. Ashley has piano once per week and just got moved into the harder book series. Kayla has band during her school day now, 3 days per week and one sectional lesson per week. Both girls have a band lesson once per month – Kayla to keep advancing on clarinet and Ashley to learn flute. I am not sure how long flute will last- she has not been practicing enough to make it worth doing for too much longer. We’ll have her keep trying for a few more months. If she gives it a good effort and decides it’s not for her, then she will quit. The flute we have is a loaner, so we have not really spent much money to let her try this.

Ashley is doing karate and enjoying it. Kayla is going to take a Lego class in November that meets on Saturdays and uses specialized kits to complete a challenge. She is excited for that to start.

Both girls just finished the start of year testing battery. I don’t have official results yet, but Kayla reported a few things to me that are her usual level. She is taking Algebra 1 this year (my subject!), so hopefully it will actually challenge her.

We are also back on the medication coaster with Kayla. We just tried and quit her 4th ADD medication. She tolerated it well enough, but it was having no effect on her focus and attention. We see her doctor tomorrow to figure out what’s next. It’s frustrating because we don’t want her to work so hard to focus.

Kevin is finally almost better. This last round of pneumonia really kicked him hard, and he is only now clearing out the last of the fluid. Everyone else is alright. Kayla had a bug last week but it is gone now.

Things are getting into a pattern now, so hopefully I can update a little more often!

We are home from Arizona and today is our last day before we all go back to work and school. This will be a big post as I will go through our entire last week!

Sat. August 10th:

We began this day with the memorial dedication at the park.

Everybody gathered for a short event to share memories and dedicate a new bench (under the orange tassle blanket) and a new tree in memory of Kayla’s friend Alex. Ashley’s friend (who has moved away) was there.

Here is a photo of the bench reveal, Kayla sitting on it, and then Kayla by the tree.

From there, we went to Milwaukee airport for our flight to AZ.

Dinner and our first night in “Gramma’s house” finished our day.

Sun. August 11:

A day of hanging out with the boys. Aunt Tiffanie had goodie bags for each girl. You can see them sipping from their new water bottles.

We went grocery shopping with Tiffanie and Trevor. We visited all kinds of places, the girls shared frozen Coke with Trevor at Sam’s Club, and we scored some awesome deals at Kohls (thank you 30% off coupon!). The day finished fine, but night was a little bumpy. We had not quite understood exactly how to work the toilet in the trailer, and it was dark and I was tired when I went to bed. At 3:30AM, I woke up to a dreadful smell! Thank goodness that Uncle Bill was able to save us all in the morning with some extra chemicals and airing out the trailer. A few air fresheners finished the job. We learned how to work it properly after that!

Mon. Aug. 12th:

We hung out and played, and did some swimming down at Bailey’s pool. The trailer smelled better by nighttime. We got to experience the night time bath routine. The girls and I had a blast chasing the little streaker Trevor down the hall and past the bathroom door, making Brendan giggle. We talked to Kevin, who let us know he was feeling really lousy and planned to see the doctor tomorrow.

Tues. Aug. 13th:

Zoo Day! We got up super early to get to the zoo when it opened at 7AM and beat the heat.

The kids explored a little gnome treehouse, with its own silly potty!

Monkeys or orangutans? Well, Larry the Cucumber would say “If it doesn’t have a tail it’s not a monkey”. Hmm, no tails…..must mean…orangutans!

The kids played in the splash pad.

Then they went to feed the stingrays. “Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum.”

You hold the fish head like an ice cream cone, put it under the water, and the rays come vacuum it right out of your hand. The girls had a great time! The rest of the evening was more relaxed after the busy morning. We made a batch of cookie dough truffles. Some of the little dough balls never made it to the chocolate coating…they kept getting snitched (and not by my kids!). The rest of the truffles hung out in the fridge and were totally gone by later in the week. I tried to help rock Brendan to sleep tonight. Brendan objected, and I ended up on his “naughty list”. We also talked to Kevin after his doctor appointment. The diagnosis: pneumonia!

Wed. Aug. 14th:

Tiffanie had meetings for Brendan, so we went and scoped out the children’s museum to see if it would be a good place to take the boys. The girls had fun, even though the museum is probably better for kids age 3-7. They posed with the dragon outside…

They climbed a huge structure…

Something’s not right here…

Yes, that is Kayla riding a tricycle through a “car wash”, followed by Ashley.

This one is for you Aunt Shannon – a moose made out of sweater parts!

The museum had funny signs up for areas that kids could not go into.

We did more swimming in the afternoon to finish this day. We also made our manicotti recipe for dinner. It was a thumbs up from everyone, including Trevor! Still on Brendan’s “naughty list”. That meant he did not want to play with me or accept toys from me. But the girls were OK, so it was no big deal. =) Kevin had a very bad night, but has turned the corner.

Thurs. Aug. 15th:

Trevor took us to his gymnastics place to run around and have fun. Both of my monkeys did some hanging around..

Then they built a fort out of mats.

While the kids rested after lunch, Tiffanie and I went back to Kohls. I still had that 30% off coupon and a $20 Kohl’s Cash award. We found even more good deals on swimsuits for my girls and clearance shorts/shirts/bodysuits for the boys. Still on the list, but Brendan is slowly forgiving me now.

Fri. Aug. 16th:

It’s our last day in AZ. We made a quick trip to the aquarium, then came home for lunch and a little time with the boys. Brendan finally forgave me! It might have had something to do with me making his baby doll dance out from behind the laptop screen.

That last picture was from Tuesday, but I thought it was cute enough to be near the end!

Trevor took us to the airport, and we got all checked in right on schedule. About 40 minutes before our departure time, our plane pulled up to the gate. A little bit later, the attendant announced the the front door of the plane was broken and would take 45 minutes to fix. 30 minutes after that, we found out that the door could not be fixed and the plane was heading to the hangar for repairs (thankfully, there were no passengers on that plane). A new plane was coming in from Chicago for us, so we would not be able to leave until 5:40PM (our original departure time was 4:10PM). The plane arrived at 5PM. That’s when we found out that we had to wait because a connecting flight from California needed to come in with people who had to go to Milwaukee. We would not be leaving until 6:10PM. The girls and I ate our dinner while all of this craziness played out.

 We finally boarded the plane, then had to wait for the people and their luggage to transfer. We took off at 6:40PM. The flight itself was awesome. Thank you Uncle Bill for the extra movie on the tablet – that helped a lot to pass the time! We landed in Milwaukee just before midnight, and poured two exhausted girls and one tired Mom into bed around 1:30AM. Kevin is feeling better, thanks to some tips from Tiffanie on how to thump his chest and back to loosen up the goop.

We had a great time getting to know the boys! Each one has such a different personality, and it makes the blog posts seem more personal now that we have seen the boys in action. Of course, most of the truly good pictures are on the boys’ blog – thank you Tiffanie! We are very grateful that we got to spend some time out there.

And now, our last day. We have just been running around, getting haircuts, packing supplies, and enjoying our time. Kayla and I biked to the library to pick up/return some books. Now the girls are hanging out with friends. School starts for the girls on Tuesday!