Still Catching Up

What have we been up to besides searching for my camera battery charger.... well, before the big move we had one last (sniff sniff) family birthday celebration in our first home. Here's Nick blowing out the candles on his Lightning McQueen racing cake:

No photos of the move. Why would I ever want to remember that with pictures, I don't know, but I do remember all of the many people who helped us move and the wonderful, wonderful grandparents who helped with cleaning, painting and kid-watching. I am certain I would not have survived this move without them. Did I mention the meals and food several people brought us too? I'm pretty sure we would have starved to death had those food-angels not shown up at our door since we were simultaneously trying to move into a new house and prepare our townhouse for renters in a two-day time frame. I hope I get many opportunities to reciprocate the service we received. We lived a few days in a post-bomb scene, but time kept ticking and I found myself at the corner bus-stop sending of Nick to his first day of kindergarten:

Waiting for the bus, check out Gavin hanging out on the pole in the background.

We still need to order carpet for the basement, which will be the kid's domain, but Grandma Dub saved the day with her awesome moonbounce when we hosted our babysitting swap right after moving in. One of the advantages of having completely empty dining and living rooms is that the living room has now been renamed "the moonbounce room".

Then we decided to take a break from moving related activities and went hiking. The boys had a blast up White Oak Canyon in the Shenandoahs, particularly playing in the water.

All three boys (and mom) slept the whole way home.

And now, to make sure this is the longest blog post ever, we move to our first season of soccer. I hesitated to throw Nick into what can be an extremely serious, competetive environment here in NOVA, but he is so cute in his little cleats and shin-guards and has so much FUN that it has been worth giving up the first six of probably a minimum on 1,000 Saturdays over the next 20 years to sporting events. As previously mentioned, I can't find my battery charger, but I have five more games to capture some photographic proof of his first season. In lieu of photos, here are my two favorite Nick-isms on soccer:

1. After encouragement from the coach to work as a team at the first practice, Nick passed the ball to a teammate, stopped in his tracks and jumped up and down with his arms in the air yelling "GO GO GO whatever your name is!!"

2. Squirming in excitement on the sidelines as we waiting for the first game to start, he says "I can't wait, I just can't WAIT to get in the mix!"

Soccer photos and photos of RYAN's first day of school to come!