Thursday, October 23, 2014

North Carolina

We're back from our second of three planned trips to North Carolina this year.  (the 3rd being a trip to Charlotte in a couple of weeks)

The background for this trip started with our friends Erinn and Dan.  Erinn's parents had a house they'd won at a school auction but had to cancel their plans somewhat last minute. So Erinn invited us, along with two other families, to share the beach house Columbus Day week.

We left after work on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday.  Although we were there off-season, the weather was amazing.  Sunny, clear, and mid-80s every day.  And the house was one lot back from the ocean, so we were easily up and down from the beach all day.

As a thank you to Erinn and Dan for the free week at the beach, we hired a family photographer to take pictures on the beach.  I'm anxiously awaiting the files to see what she managed to capture!  In the menatime, some of the great shots we caught with our little camera.

Nate and his buddy Chase:
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Margo being Margo:IMG_2052

Perhaps the best $11 I've ever spent. Kept them busy all week.
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Levi, Nate, Callum, Maggie, Chase

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Fall...what?

So yes. We took the summer off from updating our family and friends about what we were up to. I guess we were just having too much fun to take time to tell people how much fun we were having.

So here's the quick summer update - started the summer with a trip to Lake Anna with our friends, spent lots of time at the pool, took a Davis family trip to the Outer Banks, and then Nate started a new school. And somewhere in there, Nate turned four years old.

Also this summer, Nate started Tae Kwon Do. He's been asking to do so since he's was probably about Margo's age. So we enrolled him in June and he's loving it.  He recently graduated to a new belt, Orange.  And he's working towards the next belt.

More about the new school. After 4 years with Tania and Raul, we thought it was time for Nate to move into a more structured, classroom setting. Not only for education, but also for social and behavior. He's an energetic kid (to say the least). We needed him to have more stimulation and ability to burn off some of that little-boy-energy. We're also debating when he will start Kindergarten. He's eligible to start in 2015. But his birthday is five weeks before the cutoff, making him one of the youngest kids in the class. Our hope is that observing him in a classroom setting will give us a better idea of whether we start him in 2015 or wait until he's six-years-old.

The report from school is great. He loves it and has made lots of friends. He's already been to three birthday parties in the less than two months he's been in school.
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We love the teachers and the school community. Last Friday I went along on the class field trip to a pumpkin patch. You haven't lived until you've frantically chased four 4/5-year-old boys through a hay maze that's too high to see over the sides.

Margaret took a little while to adjust to not having Nate with her at TandR's but she seems okay now. She's growing so much and her vocabulary develops every day. Although we have the same problem we had with Nate. I think she's saying gibberish but she'll actually be speaking her version of Spanish. So she's a little delayed in English but we know from experience that it's normal and she'll catch up without issue.

This week we're headed back to North Carolina for a beach week with our friends. It's going to be 8 adults and 9 kids (6 boys!), should be a very loud and crazy week.