::first day::

The first day of kindergarten is a pretty big deal--especially for those of us parents that never attended kindergarten ourselves (that would be me). I don't really know what to expect.
But Max doesn't care if I know what to expect. He was plenty excited about school.

It's close enough that we can walk there--it's a long walk, but totally doable.
His teachers seem nice, though at the end of the first day I'm still at a loss as to their names.
Kris got to come home for lunch today--probably the 3rd time since we moved to RI. It was great timing because he was able to come with us to drop Max off at school. Mr Max looked very cute lining up with the other kids and heading in.

Afterwards Max said he had a good time and was looking forward to going back. Phew. One day down, a bunch more to go! Yay for brave Max. We're very proud of him, he's so big and strong and smart. How did he get so big? It might sound trite, but it seems like not that long ago he was learning to crawl.....

::family portrait::

This was drawn sometime in July. It's a portrait of Bad Max's family.
Man, don't they look so bad? And sad? And doesn't the little brother look bad too? Yikes.

::lunch::

It was so cute the way he had peanut butter and jelly smeared across his face in a big line. The sad news is that as soon as I brought out the camera he started wiping his face (on his shirt of course). I guess it means he's growing up--that sense of self and self consciousness just isn't there when they're littler. Kind of sad. Kind of fun though too I guess.

This last one was posed by the man himself.

::::

Some things I like tonight:

the beach (I didn't get any photos today, we were having too much fun)
sweet husbands who mow the lawn
bubble mowers


dogs that aren't as stinky as usual
fuzzy little friends that request group photos

evenings that actually get a little cooler, yay!

::beach!!!::

We finally made it to the beach last week with some friends from church as well as some friends from Kris's work. It was really fun.
Max and little Natalie (one of the new resident's daughters) hit it off quite well. They spent about an hour in a muddy pit in the sand, throwing sand at each other and generally having a blast.




Natalie is so adorable!
It was great. They were occupied, and as long as they were throwing sand at each other they weren't throwing it at anybody else!

The beach we went to was one I hadn't been to before. It was good for little kids because the waves were really small. That made Max think he could go way far out though, since things were relatively calm, so it made me nervous. I finally got him to just float on his boogie board not too far out and that was fun.
It was nice to go and get a break from the heat. The ocean breezes feel lovely, and the water is just cool enough to feel great!
We're heading out again tomorrow. It may be our last visit since school starts next week, and hopefully the weather will start cooling off a bit soon. But it could be crazy crowded tomorrow considering that everybody's going to be trying to get the last bit of summer fun in. I guess we'll see. It'll be fun either way. We're used to the crowds at the beach out here.
It's so fun to go to the beach with friends. We sure do miss Melissa, Grant and Angie though!

Santa Fe

(This post is by Kris)

As many of you know, I'm getting toward the end of my formal education--it's only been 10 years--and I'm starting to look for something to do next summer when I finish residency. As part of our search, we were invited out to Santa Fe, New Mexico to spend a few days checking out the office of a retiring pediatric dentist.

I was really excited to get out there because August is a very unpleasant month for us out here. Living in a house with no air conditioning during the hottest, most humid month is not pleasant. We were lucky enough to leave Max with the collective grandparents and Ginna and I had a great long weekend together.

To start the trip off, we ended up driving a car that embarrassed Ginna to death, a Hummer. It was the smallest one and it was a testament as to why GM is in such trouble. This thing was a hunk of junk on 31in tires.

We only have this one picture of it taken in the mountains near Los Alamos. Honestly, it barely drove smoother than my old land rover. But, we didn't have to drive too much, so it worked out fine.

In truth, I was a little nervous going into Santa Fe. Knowing that it is a large center for art, specifically southwest art. I was afraid that everything was going to look like this. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed the esthetic.

Here is a picture of a street downtown, near the inn where we stayed.

The desert can really be a beautiful place and I like the organic look of the adobe architecture.

Since there is a scarcity of water, the city is not full of artificially maintained lawns and gardens, like many other places in the west. There is instead a tendency to cultivate the naturally growing grasses, pinions and wild flowers.

One of the things I liked most about the city was the way the homes and buildings blend into the surrounding mountains. A big complaint I have with some western cities is the preponderance of McMansions everywhere. I'd much rather look out to the mountains and see mountains instead of oversized, cheaply build homes I still can't afford.

If you are reading this in Utah, look east. In Colorado, look west. Now, compare that view to this view of a populated mountainside in Santa Fe:

It's like you hardly notice the homes. In fact, many of the more affluent neighborhoods maintain dirt roads throughout. In many cases the dirt removed to dig the basements becomes the adobe used to build.

Naturally, any city with an art scene and eco-friendly building with natural landscaping is bound to have hippies.

In Santa Fe, they are more like mountain men than hippies; instead of weed, it's peyote.

We took a trip to Los Alamos because we were curious to see it. It was a small place, but very beautiful. Here is an overlook we stopped at just outside of town.

Finally, the sky and sunsets were amazing. The combination of sunshine and crisp mountain/desert air made it really hard for us to want to leave.

::highland fling--more::

Max went crazy dancing to the tunes his Grandpa Ken's band was playing at the Highland fling. He was seriously rocking out. The fact that he was wearing his awesome sunglasses and Uncle Kelly's hat didn't hurt the coolness factor either.
I'm just glad Kelly had his little camera to capture some of this dancing, because it was seriously hilarious. The best stuff was when he didn't realize anybody was watching. His serious face was so funny. For the last song he went right up to the front and rocked out. I've never seen more intense dancing.




Goofball.

::he's six::

Yesterday was Sultan's birthday. WEll, it's the day we decided to celebrate Sultan's birthday anyway. A few months ago Max realized that we hadn't ever had a party for Sul. I told him we didn't know what Sultan's birthday was. He said it was in August. August 17th to be exact (somehow 6 months from Max's own b-day). So we wrote it down on the calendar, and finally the exciting day came. Max kept reminding us--there was no way we could forget to celebrate it. And since we don't get a lot of birthdays to celebrate here in our house right now, we thought, why not?
Max thought hard about what we could get Sul for a present. His best idea was cheese. I loved the idea. In fact I wanted to make a birthday cake that looked like cheese. But yesterday dawned so DANG hot in our house. There was no way I was heating up the oven to make a cake for a dog's birthday. So instead we got a yummy ice cream cake from Trader Joes. Sorry all you poor deprived people without a trader joe's!

We got some dog snacks and a squeaky tennis ball bone as gifts for Sul. He doesn't like the bone yet, but we're working on it. He loves the snacks.

He didn't get any cake, but he certainly thought he should. Max blew out the candles for him. It was so funny, we're singing the birthday song, Kris puts the cake down so Sultan can see it, and Max starts saying, "NO NO NO" like he thought Kris was going to let the dog snarf the whole thing.

Kris did let Sultan lick the frosting off a couple of the candles. I think he ate at least half a candle.

A little wax never hurt anybody, right?

So, Sultan probably doesn't realize he had a birthday party, but at least it's an exercise in Max thinking about somebody besides himself. Since he's the only kid in the house he doesn't get a lot of opportunity to do things for his "peers."
And it was fun. And we got to eat cake. Yum.

::i can't think of a title::

Well, you might've thought I quit blogging completely, but I haven't!
We're back from our long complicated UT trip. It was really fun. I was ready to come home, but once we got here I was ready to go right back. It's really hot and humid here right now, and our house is really uncomfortable. We don't have central air--just a little window unit that doesn't do much. We're using it in the kitchen so we don't all die of heat exhaustion when we cook.
It's been too hot and uncomfortable for me to even use the computer much. I have a lot of fun photos to post from the trip, so hopefully it'll cool down a little here and I can do some work!

I officially quit my loan processing job last week. I haven't been doing much of anything the last few months anyway, so really it wasn't any loss to quit. It feels good though, to not have it hanging over my head all the time like it has been for the last 5 or 6 years. The welcome end of an era!

We went to the beach this weekend for the first time all summer. This has been such a weird summer for weather--cold for months, super rainy, really foggy and muggy. Anyway, finally it's hot enough for the beach, but we went down there saturday morning and the beach was totally foggy and cold, while our house was so hot we couldn't even move. So crazy!

The best news of all since we got back is this. Sultan got groomed. At the end of his stay at the kennel (which he seems to realy like, by the way) we had them wash and groom him--grooming for him was long overdue. It's really expensive because of how big and hairy he is.
He looked so awesome when Kris picked him up--all sleek and slim and clean. Like a different dog almost!



I love the silly little kerchief they put on him.

Getting back into real life after a long trip is tough--for Max as well as for me--we've had a lot of melt downs. But we're almost all unpacked, almost all the laundry is done (though not quite put away) and I've almost remembered how to cook. We're getting there.
Now it's off to the gym. Later.