September 2024

Becky and Arek moved to a new house around the corner from the Greek church. We all decided to walk over to the Greek festival for Sunday dinner.

Game trucks will always snare Mia and Maks!

This one prefers the bounce house!

Back to School Night! I did the middle school and Dan did the high school. Have we attended 30 Back to School Nights yet? Maybe! 

The first of many September birthdays is Becky's! I went to get a cheesecake at the bakery but found out it had to be preordered so we got eclairs!

Believe it or not, they dressed like this just to walk down to the park.

Maks had is family birthday next. At 12 you get to light your own candles of course. He requested we make an ice cream cake which turned out pretty good.

Maks didn't want Kinga to miss out. These boys are so sweet to her. 😄

Since Maks and Anna both wanted to do their friends party at Top Golf on the same day, we did a combo party!

Anna's bay....

and the one for Maks.

After they ate all the donuts we found out you were supposed to dip them in this red icing.

Maks had his cake at the party.

Anna had hers afterward, at home.  She wanted a cake that looked just liked her cat. Be careful what you ask for, your mom and friends may create a cake with real fur. 😂

Present time!

Dan and I did a quick 24 hour turn around to go to Jackie's wedding in Oregon.

Jackie made everything at the wedding! She's a woodworker and a crafter.

We got to see Bill as he lives only 20 minutes from the venue.

Beth and Becky came sans husbands and made a girls trip out of it!

The next day was Anna's family birthday dinner so it was more cake, without fur.

And to top off September we finally got Anna's school pics in the mail. We all agree she looks like a linebacker. 

Fall is here!

August 2024

At the beginning of August we had two weeks to kill before school started. We got the girls a wood burning kit at Joann's.  

They found some stencils online which allowed them to do some cool art.

We watched the boys when they didn't have, or didn't want to go to camp, on Thursdays.

We took the girls golfing. Anna is really beginning to like it. Mia, not so much.

Denise gave Dan and I her front row center seats to see Bohemian Queen. Fantastic show!

This guy did a great David Bowie for Under Pressure.

For Father's Day we gave Dan tickets to the Dodgers vs. Phillies game. The Dodgers lost but it was still a really good game and we had great seats.

Anna did cross country camp this year and she's now thinking about doing cross country in high school next year. Hard to believe she will be in high school next year, I know.

Anna also volunteered to work at the 6th grade orientation as a web leader. Her words from the experience, NEVER AGAIN. Apparently the sixth graders aren't good listeners. 😂😂

I totally forgot to take pictures on the first day of school, and truth be told they probably wouldn't have smiled anyway. But she smiled for her CORE teacher. 

Mia's sophomore school picture was taken at registration. That's pretty close to the first day!

With the boys at camp and the girls at school it's just Kinga with us on Thursdays now. We baked chocolate chip cookies.

We used the recipe from my mom's old cookbook that Denise kept. That's my mom's handwriting.

Dan went to visit his brother, Greg, for a Saturday. Greg was in a bad accident on his bicycle. So the girls and I had a girls day. We stopped at Chick Fil-A per Mia's request and then Crumbl Cookies for Anna. I must say I have never spent $19 for four cookies before!

After that we went to a place they've been before which they loved. It was my surprise to them. The Melting Pot! We got there 30 minutes before our reservation. With a bunch of stores around I asked them where they would like to browse until dinner time. This was their choice.

A hardware store! We bought a cute little gnome for Dan's succulent garden.

At The Melting Pot we had a great time dipping our appetizers in the fondue, cooking our main dishes and drowning our desserts in chocolate!

They love the yin and yang chocolate sauce. It's a good representation of these two very different people!

August wound down with a trip to Campland for Labor Day Weekend. In the former words of Anna, NEVER AGAIN. Thank goodness Kelly and Melissa had the Super Site with a jacuzzi, bay view and lots of room. Our site was terrible, tiny and right next to the pool with music blaring from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM.

Melissa bought a waffle maker which was a great success!

We brought our paddle boards which the kids went on for a total of forty minutes😒, less time than it took to pump them up. The beach was wall to wall EZ ups with hardly any space between them making it very hard to even get to the water. Last time we were here it was still covidy out there and a lot less crowded.

Melissa and I had a good time playing BINGO even though we couldn't get anyone else to go with us.

That's about it for August!