August

It's been life as usual around here. Mike has had a hairy deadline, so he's been working, working, and working. When he's home, he's either coaching Owen's soccer team, or helping the Young Men at church.

In August we took a weekend off and went up to Amber's parents' cabin with Howard's family and Celia and her four-legged children. The kids love it up there (Piper calls it "our cabin"), and we had a very relaxing time. Howard and Mike did some mountain biking, and I worked a little on my goal to sketch every week.

Owen helps me with the garden. We managed to save some peaches from the birds and the wasps. My tomatoes were slow this year, but I finally got some.

Owen insists that I take a picture of every single thing he builds before we can put it away, so my computer is full of pictures of Owen's creations. And interesting leaves, and rocks. And that mini-wheat left in his cereal bowl because it was a funny shape. He is really taking off in kindergarten, which is exciting. He always hated to work on letters and numbers before, so it's amazing to hear him in the back of the car counting to 100.

We got up close and personal with some wildlife at the ward campout on Labor Day weekend. A moose and her baby greeted us right next to the parking lot when we pulled up. Luckily they didn't like the noise a half dozen families with small kids made and didn't stay around to cause trouble. Of course, our kids' favorite part of the campout is playing in the river. You can never pack enough dry clothes.