Hood Canal

Brooke and I spent a sunny weekend at Janina's cabin on Hood Canal. Janina and I have been great friends since high school and now it is so fun to watch our girls grow up together! At the cabin, Brooke, Grace and Olivia collected sea shells, painted and watched for seals swimming by or fish jumping. The girls squealed with delight when we turned rocks at low tide to find little crab scurry about. Once Janina and I got the girls down to bed at night we could visit with a glass of wine and the fire going. That was relaxing but of course we spent plenty of time playing referee to three cute little girls who all have their idea about what to play and how. It was a fun "girls weekend"!

Grace in search of the perfect shell!

...more shell hunting

Olivia's treasure!

Peggy's Place

Recently I mentioned how much I enjoy the team of teachers I work with. Well, in my previous life, pre-teaching and pre-Brooke, I worked with another amazing team. That was at US West and the team consisted of Peggy, Leslie, Suzie, myself and more. We were assigned one customer - the largest in the company, the State of Washington (government account). We worked hard, leaned on one another and managed to laugh daily even though we endured a lot of frustration. I saw these friends the other day for a delicious lunch at Peggy's home where Brooke and Ella got to ride Peggy's horse. Thanks for a great time, gals!

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Starbucks wisdom...

I enjoyed every uninterrupted minute in a coffee shop today as I visited with my friend, Heather. I always feel honored when someone with triplets who rarely has time to herself, chooses to spend time with me! Here is what we read on the back of a Starbucks coffee cup:

The Way I See It #27

Do not kiss your children
so they will kiss you back
but so they will kiss their children,
and their children's children.
- Noah benShea
poet, philosopher, author

What does BLOG stand for?

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual, [citation needed] with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

I will be using our BLOG as a photo album for the most part but once in a while it will be a place to share my thoughts and try my hand at writing. I would like to write a book one day.

Yesterday

Over dinner we discussed ideas on how we might celebrate Brooke's 5th birthday next month. Now that she is tucked in bed and the house is quiet, I ask myself, 5th birthday? Where does the time go? Everyone says children grow up so quickly but to experience it is really something else. We are blessed to have such a beautiful, healthy little girl. Who by the way, does not like to be called little! But here she is, just yesterday, when she was truly little.

Friends Make a Difference

A new school year has begun not only for Brooke but for me as well. This is my ninth year of teaching at Foothills Elementary. I teach first grade. Six year olds are especially cute, so eager to learn and their knock knock jokes are so pathetic they make me laugh. The growth they make in one year is amazing! The best part of my job is the group of people I work with: Nancy, Kristen, Alice, Rene and Heidi who is my dear job-share partner that puts up with me. You couldn't ask for a better team! So here we are sporting our bracelets that say WWND or What would Nancy do? After all, when we face our daily challenges and our patience gets thin we think of our co-worker St. Nancy because we all know she would handle any situation with her soft teacher voice and more patience than humanly possible.

First Day of Pre-K

Today Brooke started Pre-Kindergarten. She goes to school with friends Hannah and Megan. Hannah is in the same class and Megan is in Kindergarten. Brooke's teacher is very nice. Her name is Mrs. Goodchild. Bob teased Brooke saying she better be good or she would have to go to Mr. Badchild's class! Brooke was so excited to start school and she had a terrific first day!

Striking a pose!

Hannah and Brooke

In line for class!

Summer Memories

We have had a terrific summer and spent it with so many people that are dear to us. We thought a blog (digital photo album) would be a great way to share our photos and blessings with friends and family. Here is a montage of highlights from the summer. Many good times are not shown here but this is a good start. Special thanks to Heather and Sue for getting us started. We'll be updating it soon with pictures of Brooke starting Pre-K. Thanks for visiting our blog!

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