Public Updates

In the interest of catching up our family record of the last few months, here are some updates:

Along with Gabrielle's birthday we celebrated a few others  .  .  . 

The little girls attended Elsa's amazing camping themed party.  It was pretty awesome and you can check it out here and here.  I think Ellie's favorite part has the marshmallow fight--probably because she didn't fight.  She just wandered around, scooped up jumbo marshmallows off the ground, and shoved them in her mouth.  Families were invited to the party, but Liz didn't go because she was at a Girl Scout campfire thing that sounded pretty cool itself.

We went go-carting at my friend, Celia's family-friendly party.  I think the last time I was on a go-cart was in high school and probably on a date.  Incidentally that's one of the things we did on my very first date ever.  So fun.  Drew couldn't make it to the party so I rode with Lainey and Liz rode with a bachelor friend of the birthday girl (which sounded kind of weird when I told Drew about everything, especially when Lizzie starting talking about her friend, Jerry, but really it was all fine).

We had to replace the main water line into our house which was completely unexpected and financially painful. Speaking of spending money, Drew's commuter car died (after we spent a nice chunk of money on it last month).  So, we donated the Altima to Habitat for Humanity and bought a replacement.  We both like the new vehicle a lot better, but we're not loving the expense.  It's affecting our summer travel plans and now I feel bad for signing Lainey for preschool.

We have enjoyed the random weather.  Really, it's been pretty mild and pleasant until, oh, yesterday.

 Lizzie finished 3rd grade with a bang.  In her last week she competed in Battle of the Books, passed out teacher gifts (the owls below contain candy, a thank you note from Liz, and a gift card), and performed in the school talent show. Liz gave gifts to seven of her teachers and she made each note unique telling one teacher that she was pretty, another that it was good he that he was strict with the students.

We turned Ellie's carseat around (and I later realized that she was supposed to face backwards till three--oops) and placed her next to Lainey.  Sometimes they play nicely together, but every car ride they fight.  It gets loud and having them in the very back seats is only a marginal improvement on the noise.  Seriously, why don't mini-vans have an optional glass partition that you can raise and lower like in limousines?!

Oh, and Liz taught the girls taught the girls how to suck honey suckle.  In all it's a nice few months.