June 2015 - For the books.

Our June 2015 is one for the books. Damn it was good.  Just the feeling of being an American with the recent Supreme Court decisions and general tone in the wake of triumphs and tragedies recently has given me a renewed sense of pride and hope.  I used to sing Amazing Grace to the twins a lot when I rocked them at night and would choke up more often than not for the innocent beauty of the moment (and fatigue induced lack of emotional control) and since President Obama's eulogy, I can't imagine not being moved to the core every time I hear it now.    Maybe this energy built on pride and hope is fleeting but I'm grateful for what it is right now.  I wish for this wave to pick up even more momentum when it comes to making an effective change to our gun safety laws. Struggling to figure out how to help this effort but not giving up.

As for our own little world, these videos reflect how awesome our month was.







Oma and Opa are back for the summer and hit the ground running.  Paul and Elise had their first sleepover with them and it was a hit.  Here they are knocking on their door super excited to be let in for their big night.

Summer is off to a fun and busy start full of celebrating, playing sports, dancing, and hanging out with friends. My foot is feeling much better within the last couple weeks, thank God.  Only took a year! 'Bout time. Hello Tennis.

Thanks to Lolo for visiting us once again.  My kids expect Lolo to come whenever they ask her to and she pretty much does.  Best Aunt ever.

Goof balls

Rose Garden fun

Happy Hiking

Surprised my Dad with his first PDX trip to Costco for Father's Day. It's Opa's Disneyland

Way too much good stuff happened to even take the time to harp on the bad stuff.  Some Ass breaking into our garage to steal a bike, a few of Paul's epic meltdowns sprinkled in just to keep us on our patience toes, Elise's inability to not write all over the walls,  dealing with fleas and ant problems....meh...whatever.  It's going to take a lot more than that to really ruffle my feathers right now.   June 2015 is in the books.

Good night. 

Nine years, six years, and 2000 meters

All in all, May was a good month no doubt.  I was about to say it didn't feel that busy but looking back there was a lot going on and we hit a lot of milestones.  And some cute moments too.

 First up was our anniversary, and Lily helped us celebrate with a nice sign to hang on the wall.  Nine years, wow.  We celebrated by getting a babysitter so we could go for a day date.  Five hours to go on a leisurely bike ride through the city, go to an estate sale, eat at food carts, and see our first movie in a theater together since Lily was born.  That's right, it had been six years since the two of us made it out to a movie.  Considering it used to be about a once a month thing for us, it had been a LONG time.  We need to get out more, who's ready to babysit?


Pause for cuteness... and ice cream.

Lily's six!  Six!  That sounds like such a big number to me.  Last year she was wrapping up preschool and now she's about to finish kindergarten, a big reader and ready for some tennis lessons this summer.  She had a few friends over to celebrate with another Nicole scavenger hunt, a project to make fairy gardens to take home, and a piñata to whack.  It was a great party, worth all the hours of prep Nicole spent.

Lily ordered her siblings to dress up nice for her party.  Might be time for a new tie for Paul.  But he is the cutest gardener of all time.

Lily got invited for a sleepover at her friend Liana's house as a birthday present, and also got to go roller skating in the morning.  She definitely loves these big events and made Paul and Elise want to have a sleepover too.  Maybe this summer with Oma and Opa.  

Another pause for cuteness.  Lots of bike riding this month with good weather.

And last but not least for May milestones, Nicole closed out the month by swimming in a 2000 meter (aka 1.2 miles, aka 44 laps in a pool) open water swim at Hagg Lake with about 200 other swimmers.  Picture a giant school of piranhas in a feeding frenzy and that's about what the start of the race looks like.  She had put a lot of hours in at the pool the past few months as the plantar fascia is still nixing tennis, so it was fun to see it pay off on a hot sunny day at the same lake where we did our first Triathlon eight (gulp) years ago.  I'm really proud of her.  The kids were super impressed with mama and were great cheerleaders too.

Ok, one last blast of cuteness.