Saturday Morning Reader

Eve loves to read and look at books. Here she is last saturday checking one out.

Eve's first day of Preschool!

Here she is! Ready to go on her first day of preschool. She insisted on taking her Dora backpack. Apparently, I failed to tell her she had a special bag to take instead.

You can see, she isn't too thrilled about getting her picture taken with her assigned bag.


And again.


Yet again.


And then she realized her name was on it. Hey! Not too bad!

What? It's September!

I can hardly believe the summer is over and the new school year has begun. Zoe is in second grade and Eve starts pre-school tomorrow! Both of my babies are in school! Now that my trusty computer is back up and running, with pictures finally uploaded from all of our summer activities, I will begin posting more regularly. So here's a few pictures from Zoe's first day of school last Tuesday. She loves it so far and her teacher, Ms. Hartman, is really nice.

Zoe at her desk.
With Eve on our front porch. Yes, it did seem that dark.

Our traditional first day of school picture with backpack.

Another classic Eve...

Eve, "Mom? Can you make blueberries out of barkdust?"

Mom, "No. Don't eat the barkdust."

Last Day of 1st Grade!

Zoe's last day of first grade was yesterday. She had a wonderful year. We are going to miss her awesome teacher, Ms. Martinez, who has done so much for Zoe this year. I can't believe my big girl is going to be in second grade!

Lincoln Street Mural Project

A Mexican muralist came to Zoe's school this last month and completed, with the help of the students, several beautiful murals that now decorate the walls of the school. The students had input in what they were painting and the colors, everything. This is the mural that Zoe helped paint. She painted the blue dots on the right side of the mural.
We got to watch traditional Aztec dancers. The drum beats gave me goosebumps! Watching people share their culture in such a passionate way is truly inspiring.

Zoe pointing out her picture on the wall of Lynx Leaders. Students become Lynx Leaders by demonstrating leadership and positive behaviors towards schoolwork and their classmates. When they receive 30 paws-itives (their school mascot is the lynx) they become a Lynx Leader and get to go to special lunches and get treats.

Another beautiful mural.

Entryway mural.

Summer fun with Isabel!

It got really hot a few weeks ago, very unlike Oregon for the end of May, so we got the girls a little pool to stay cool in. Our little neighbor girl, Isabel, and the girls have become fast friends so she came and played too.

Zoe's Golfing Birthday

Zoe heading out after her shot on the practice hole at McKay Creek Golf Course. She loves her new set of clubs and she is awesome!
Grip it and rip it!

So Zoe!

Zoe and her favorite golf coach, Daddy. I see many golf dates in the future for these two.

Getting in a little practice at the driving range.

Zoe and Eve's Birthday Party

The girls celebrated their birthdays together this year at Grandpa Mike and Grandma Candy's backyard with lots of friends and party games. Zoe's favorite present, next to the set of junior golf clubs, was the sea monkeys!

Playing "Pin the Patch on the Princess Pirate."

Waiting to go on the treasure hunt!

Making origami pirate (samurai) hats with Grandma Sai Chiong.

Costco birthday cake is the best! Zoe wanted the cake with the umbrella on it. Happy birthday girls!

Eve's 4th birthday!

Here are the girls outside our townhouse waiting to go to IHOP for Eve's 4th birthday dinner.
Birthday kiss.

Top models!

Silly birthday girl!

I can't believe my baby is 4! She is getting so big (only a few inches shorter than Zoe and a few pounds lighter!). She is so beautiful, sweet, and a big goofball. What a blessing she has been to our family!

Second Grade Reader!!!

We had Zoe's student-led parent teacher coneference last night. We were blown away by how far Zoe has come in such a short amount of time. She read us pieces that she could barely read at the beginning of the school year through where she is now, 2nd grade level! On her DIBELS testing, she is off the charts! Yay Zoe!

Promotion for Aaron

Aaron is now the official "punch-list" guy at the job site in Cedar Hills! This is a significant improvement for many reasons, but also a lot more responsibility. For one, his commute is now only 20 minutes, not AN HOUR AND A HALF! Yay! For those of you that don't know, Aaron has been working at a job site in The Dalles, OR which is quite a distance from Hillsboro. He has been staying out there in a hotel during the week and coming home on the ocasional wednesday night and weekends. It has been a pretty rough few weeks for all of us. But thankfully, Aaron's work ethic and ability was finally noticed and he was promoted to this position. While he will still be doing some physical work, he won't be doing work that's as labor intensive as he was doing (like moving refrigerators up three flights of stairs). Now on to the part about more responsibilty...a $40 per month cell phone allowance means he needs to available at ALL TIMES to the superintendent of the job site and the owner of the company. So far no calls at home at 10:00pm. Also, the superintendent of this job site is known for working saturdays, lots of saturdays. This could mean Aaron might have to step down a little from church responsibilities (since we go to church on Saturday evenings). But this is another "wait and see" thing. No word yet on a raise but at least now we are all insured! Praise God!

Jackson Bottom Wetlands Fieldtrip

Today, I got to join Zoe and her first grade class as they visited the Jackson Bottom Wetlands near our home for their fieldtrip. It was a beautiful day! The bald eagle made an appearance as well as two turkey vultures. We saw lots of butterflies and birds. Fortunately, no snakes!

This is a picture of Zoe in front of an eagles next which was cut down from a 93 foot cottonwood tree that was in danger of falling down. It was really cool.

This was the sense of touch station. This were learning how to describe an object based on touch.

This is Zoe being the moth during the game, Bath and Moth (it was like Marco Polo). They were learning about echo location and how bats use their sense of hearing to locate their food.

Bats!

Her class getting ready for the talk on the five senses and how animals use them to survive.

The wetlands.

Learning about different types of vegetation and butterflies.

Zoe riding in the bus with her friend, Molly.

Rain slicker, check!

Getting out of town day...

So today was the day we got out of town and did a little exploring. Here is Aaron and the girls in front of Multnomah Falls.


We also went to Bonneville Dam. This dam is located in the Columbia River just east of Portland and provides power to a lot of people. They were releasing a lot of water today and the white water was a pretty neat sight.



Here is Aaron helping the girls look downriver.

"Spot of tea, anyone?" Eve playing tea party in the energy efficient model home at the dam.

Zoe and Eve posing near copper poles insulated by cermic discs. Something to do with electricity?

Feeding rainbow trout at the fish hatchery. Eve, "What's that fish smell?" Zoe, "Fish."

Standing in front of a white sturgeon. Herman, the resident sturgeon, is longer than this model. He's also 70 years old!

In front of Char Burger, a Kellar classic. This was Eve's first visit.

And her first burger from the place!

Yummm!

We also stopped in at Ikea on the way home. Now that Eve is potty trained, she is allowed to play at Smalland, the kid's area. So mom and dad got a 60 minute date at Ikea and the kids got to play. They loved the ball pit until one little kid wet his pants in it. Everyone out! Eeeeek! After Ikea was dinner and play time at Out of this World Pizza and Play, an indoor bounce house, play structure place. It's pretty awesome. Then on to McDonald's and RedBox. Watching Bolt now as a family. Girls almost asleep. What a great day!