Just because I like these girls

First soccer game of the season done!

First Day of School

'Twas the night before the first day of school....  And the kids were as ready for school as they could possibly be.  We started school very late this year because we were waiting on a new elementary school to be ready.  Of course in middle school, volleyball, choir, and band started quite a while ago, which means I have been running Emma to school since almost the beginning of August.

 Two middle schoolers this year?!?!

 Everyone was ready for school by the time Dad, Emma and Elizabeth had to leave, so we had a group picture.  Emma put on her Web Leader t-shirt because she's one of those big 8th graders who gets to show the little 6th graders around and do team building games.  Except it got cancelled today because of the rain.  Rain on the first day of school in Sunnyside?  Who has ever heard of such a thing?

 Then we had to wait and wait and wait until I could take Annie and Maddie to school.  It's so hard to wait.  Whoever said "Patience is a virtue" was not 7 years old and eager to go to school.

2nd graders!  Look out, world!

 The good news is taking pictures can eat up a few of those long minutes.

And then I came back home feeling a mixture of relief (no more fighting during the day! Yay!) and sadness (my babies are gone...).

Happy Labor Day

Ryan's dad had this idea to make a hexagon swing structure in his backyard for a couple of years.  This summer he got around to finally building it, and today we went up to help hang the swings and take them for a test drive.  We ended up being short on the number of springs and clippy things, but Ryan has this way of thinking outside the box, and finagled a way into making it work so all of the swings could be hung.  

Sourdough Pass

We spent our last "free" weekend taking a nice long hike along a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail.  Ryan has hopes of hiking it properly one of these years, but in the meantime, he'll have to make due with short stretches of it a little at a time.  This trail was the one passed Sheep Lake all the way up to Sourdough Pass.  It's about 6 miles round trip, and about 1,100 ft in elevation gain.  We took our lunch and snacks and water and made a go of it.  It was a pretty nice day, and the kids did a really good job.  There's a lot less complaining than there used to be.

Emma

Emma was on the school district's video about kids succeeding.  I love how the photographer really paid attention to the background.  I also try to get a garbage can in as many photos as I can.

Fail

It's the worst when after all the blanching, peeling, cutting, syrup making and getting everything ready, you have a jar that breaks just as you are slipping it into the canner!