Ramblings

August 28, 2006

Dear family and friends,

I feel like I'm terribly overdue for an update and especially, I feel like I'm behind on photos. I'm sending a bunch with this email - probably too many. If you have trouble seeing all the photos, let me know, and I'll resend them in smaller batches.

I feel like the summer has flown by. Caleb finished YMCA camp last week. He had a blast. He starts school (first grade!) on Wednesday, September 6th. Alana starts daycare at the YMCA on September 5th.

Today we went to the much-vaunted NY State Fair, which is held just east of Syracuse. I took the kids on the shuttle bus from one of the strip malls near our house. We spent several hours at the fair and only scratched the surface of all there is to do, but we saw cows and horses and chickens, and we saw a small shark show, and watched a guy carve wood with a chain saw. Maybe the highlight was right after we arrived - we watched a terrific street perfomer who picked Caleb as his assistant - Caleb rode on his shoulders while he rode a unicycle! Seriously!The kids have had tons of fun in August, with friends and family (Larry's parents and son, Matthew) visiting. I didn't get photos of many of the things we did, but we took a lot of pictures at an amusement park in Rochester called Sea Breeze. That was great fun - we played in the water park section for a couple of hours, then ate lunch and went over to the rides side. I got adorable photos of Alana riding the kiddie rides, plus a few of Matt and Caleb doing older kid stuff. The park offers an observer ticket, which costs about a third what a participant ticket cost - since I got the obsever ticket I was in a good position to take pictures!

We're all enjoying our house and yard. Alana loves the little wading pool stationed out in the yard and frequently can be found in her "birthday suit" splashing around in it (like many kids her age, she shucks her clothes frequently while we're home). The picture of her in the bath tub is her "taking a picture" (with her cup) of her favorite bath toys - Dora, Boots and Diego.Lately, Caleb is obsessed with card games. We've played a lot of War, and his latest favorite is a simplified version of Rummy called Scat or 31. He's very good at these games, though he isn't always a good sport about losing. He's recently discovered Pokemon cards (which involve trading and "battlling" with a complicated point system). Unfortunately, he missed the sign-up deadline for local soccer, so he'll have to wait for next year to participate.

I'm sure there's more news, but it's late and I want to get this sent. Hope all is well with you and you're having a good summer.

Best, Danielle