School Daze...Good ol'fashioned rule days...

With September, of course, comes school. Annika is now the BGOC since second grade is the oldest grade at Budd Elementary. Lauren is officially a student now in kindergarten. Emily began preschool. Man, is she loving life! She thinks school is "awesome!" She loves being a big girl.

First day of school pics...






For the first time in their lives, Emily and Megan began going to daycare a few weeks ago, also. The daycare is in the same building as Emily's preschool so she just walks down the hall after school is over. The first few days were rough for her in daycare; we're not sure why but are thinking it was too much separation. Now she's in Megan's daycare room and today went much better, she said.

They go two days a week so I can do my writing during daylight; I'm almost on schedule with getting things done when I should. However, today I played hooky and had lunch at school with Lauren and then Annika. I got to go to two recesses, too!

As I was waiting at the school for Annika's class to go to lunch, I was waiting in the office. That place is really busy! First there was the girl who had a ring stuck on her finger, then the boy who needed a bandaid, then the boy who needed to talk to the principal--for peeing on the playground, and another boy who was vomiting. All this and more during 30 minutes.

During September, we also had an appointment at Mayo Clinic (yes, THE Mayo clinic) for Megan. We were able to get in with the doctor who had been recommended to us by the head of the children's diabetes department at our hospital in Chicago. We learned that, at Mayo, you don't ask for an appointment time--you get an appointment time. And you better make it or it's back on the very long waiting list you go. We go back tomorrow for more education. It's been nine months since Meg was last seen by a diabetes specialist.

We're still exploring all our town has to offer. Friday night was tailgating with the soccer teams night at the local high school. Our babysitter is on the girls' team so we went. We got there early to see the Mayo One helicopter land at the high school. Very cool! We stayed for half of the game; that was more than enough for three of the girls. Lauren stayed to finish it with Daddy.

This was the Mayo One helicopter that landed at the area high school





I've been writing columns for the local paper about our adventures. I'll post some of them as separate posts in case you were interested...

Lauren at the Pioneer Museum


The new water park in Truman, the town next door. We've had a lot of flooding down here.



Celebrating Lauren's 6th birthday with Papa, Grandma Yvonne and Great-Grandma Margaret.



Lauren opening her fave present this year: zhu zhu pets.

What I Did During My Summer Vacation

We actually did take a summer vacation. Lake Beauty Bible Camp in Long Prairie, Minn., has a family week for pastors and those on ministry staff at Covenant churches in our district. Boy, were we looking forward to it.

It was a good time--Sunday night through Thursday morning despite a few children catching flu bugs...There wasn't really any programming--just good food, including a salad bar, and a lot of free time. So we swam, went horseback riding, climbed the wall (literally and figuratively) and more.

We looked up some geocaches, too. There's actually one on Lake Beauty (not the camp). We found it. Very fun! A geocache is a treasure that someone has hidden. That person then uploads the geographic coordinates to a website so other treasure hunters have an idea of where to look. When you find the treasure, you can either replace it or just leave what's in there. We've found a small TinMan from Oz in one, a lipstick pen in another, and shells and bracelets in others. It's fun!

Soccer finished tonight. I'm soooo glad it's done. It was tough trying to get two girls there at different times right over the dinner hour. But it provided some good photo ops.

School begins next week. Megan also has her doc appointment for her diabetes at Mayo Clinic next week. While school might provide more structure for us, I'm sure I'll still be tired!









Emily in church wearing her tie-dye shirt that matched the Vacation Bible School kids who performed Sunday morning.














Emily in her sailor dress--Lauren wore this one year for Easter.
















Megan on the horse at Lake Beauty--she looks like pop art!














The climbing wall at LBBC. Dan and I made it to the top and did the zip line down. I had to have a little push to get me over the edge, but I did it!
































































































Three very dirty girls after playing in the one mud puddle at camp







This is Lauren's drawing of me wearing a crown













This is Lauren's drawing of a dinosaur. The painting is on an easel.











Lauren helping make some peach crisp from some really delicious Colorado peaches.













With Farmer Pawel--we had a party at the farm where we bought a "share" this summer