Muddy Skeet Range

Maybe there is a limit to the number of photos we can post? In any case, here are the photos that were missing from the 10th Anniversary post.

Happy 10th Anniversary to Us!

We took the day off today to celebrate our 10th Anniversary. First stop: the skeet range (Eva's idea!). It was kind of muddy - see the boots! After lunch at Patsy's Cowgirl Cafe, we went for a short hike at McKinney State Park, where there was lots of water due to the recent rain. And we even saw a Texas Spiked Lizard (as identified by a park ranger). There were also cool mats of green algae-bubbles.

What Wiley thinks modern art is good for..

Welcome to Austin, Elisabeth!

Yesterday, we welcomed Elisabeth, our fifth Au Pair into our family! We took a walk along the hike and bike trail with her, Maggi, and the crew.

Texas girl with a chocolate chip cookie

You can't smile when you're chewing... and yes, that is a "little curl, right in the middle of her forehead" ... .

Diversification!

Graydon discovered that he could also sell pretty rocks - and those are free to collect (on the playground, the back yard, etc). It's about 1/3 of his earnings today.

Doesn't she look happy ?

Summer break is officially over

Since Wiley and Portia's school started this week I wanted to make a little summer throwback with some of my favorite playground pictures :)

Going fishing

Wiley taking matters into his own hands to get a promised fishing trip moving. 

Student of the Month

Graydon was named one of two "students of the month" at his music school this month. He was very excited, and we are glad that he's enjoying his lessons. But I'm posting this mostly because we were also amused by the quote they listed for him. We'll let you guess how much of that he said himself versus what Mami said about him that was then "misquoted" as coming from him... :)

Anti-Climactic First Day of Preschool

Well, today is Portia's first day at preschool. Neal, Maggi, and I all decided to go with her to take part in the momentous event. We all had our wheels! Turns out, we weren't needed at all. Wiley, the old hat, found his (new) classroom all by himself while we were waiting for Portia's room to open. When we went looking for him, we found him happily playing and his teachers told us he walked himself in, washed his hands, and went off to find something cool to play with. When Portia's classroom opened, she just marched in, straight to the sink where she had seen Wiley go for the last two years, washed her hands, and was off with nary a look back over her shoulder. Maggi, Neal and I were left looking at each other wondering why this was such a big deal...

Update: Maggi reports that everything went smoothly today and both kids didn't want to leave when she came to pick them up. All the parents in Portia's room had picked their kids up 15+ minutes earlier so Portia was playing all alone with 4 teachers - that's more concentrated attention than she's ever had in her life!!