summers end, with text

goodbye old friend
prince's island park

saunders/cichy ladies lunch
all the children we produced?!?
crave
crave cupcake heaven

aud-squad

eli
the guys

all the kids minus the 2 babies
baker park + kick the can


us

HEY! it's clear in calgary!

this last week we have been living with the smoke from the forest fires going on in british columbia. it has been like living in a fish bowl. i don't like seeing the air i breathe. it makes me claustrophobic. anyho today the air is clear, it's sunny and clean. what a nice way to close the summer or the beginning of fall. {with the weather being so cold and grey, it has kind of felt like october around here....}

let's see... the volvo.

it's gone. we donated it. it served us well. the volvo came into our life when our honda accord was stolen. we lived in south pasadena at the time. it was 3 weeks before eli was born. i waddled out to the car on my way to a doctors appointment. hmmm, i thought i left it out front...i'll check on the side street...well, thats weird... must be in the underground parking...wow, no car.. WHAT THE HECK?!? bub beep beep bub beep bepp beep, ya, hi c.j.? ya, did you take the honda to school? no? riiiiiight you have the 4runner...well, that's funny 'cause i cant find the honda..... a week later i was sitting on the back row of the pantages theatre chillin' during the intermission of the lion king. "what are you going to do about your car?" my brother dave asked. "oh, i don't know, we would really like to get a volvo, but they are so expensive..." "i'm selling my volvo!" said the little old lady sitting in front of us {who had obviously been listening to our conversation}. the rest is history.

we acquired the car, that little old lady gave us a $1000.00 dollars off the price, a baby blanket and $200.00 toward eli's mission fund. {found out she had just returned from a mission and her son was the service manager of irvine volvo}. what are the odds?

we had our annual back-to-school cousin party-palooza at baker park last night. i honestly don't think we had gone there since dave and lisa moved. it was good to go back, the kids had fun. they all looked grown up and mature ready for grades K-4.

during the week we had a tasty lunch at cousin alysha's home and got together with some of the ladies in the family. we soon found we were very out numbered by the children. how did that happen?!? great food, great company, let's do it again.

so. on with life.

lisa and the kids flew home today, there is a week and half before school starts, need catching up on laundry, cleaning, organizing. maybe i will even unpack my bags from our las vegas trip from mid-june.

it's winding down. time to get back at it.