JeffKatieEmma.com

It’s been a little over a week now since elementary school became a part of our lives here.  Things have been going well and Emma continues to be excited about kindergarten.  Each day when I walk over to get her, one of the first things she says is, "We didn’t get to go in the big library today".  Yesterday, she was finally able to say that they did get to go in the big library but she was disappointed that they didn’t get to look at all the books.  Instead they just had to sit and listen to the teacher read them a story.  Emma’s reading skills have been advancing pretty rapidly and she’s now reading books that are not even categorized as "easy readers".  She has to take some time on a few of the bigger words but she’s doing well sounding them out and normally can figure out what the word is.  We are very happy that she loves books so much!

It has been nice to have such great weather over the last couple weeks.  It’s strange how the weather turns nice as soon as school starts.  We have been trying to take advantage of the weather by going out to the lake as much as possible.  We plan on going out there this weekend since it is supposed to be near 80 degrees.  We’ve been preparing both of the lake houses for winter by cleaning the gutters and putting away all the summer type equipment that we leave out each year.  I think we are just about ready for winter.

Polly and Vic made it back to New Orleans on Sunday evening.  They packed a lot of activities in to their visit.  They spent the night out at the lake with us, spent time at Sarah’s, went to Point Defiance park, hiked up near Mt Rainier, and also spent a couple days up in Canada visiting Bill and Renee.  We look forward to the day that they are up here all the time, although it sounds like that will be a couple more years.

The picture below is of Emma after school one day.  They have been wearing different colors to school each day and this particular day was "orange" day.

Today was Emma’s first day of kindergarten.  As soon as she woke up this morning she got dressed and put her backpack on.  She insisted on wearing her school backpack during breakfast and didn’t take it off until she got to the playground at the school.  Needless to say, she was very excited and didn’t show any signs of nervousness.  We started the countdown to this day last week.  Katie made a calendar that showed each day and Emma crossed the days off one at a time.  There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t know exactly when school started.

We decided to walk over to the school with Jena and her family.  The two girls held hands all the way there and I think they smiled the entire way!

On an unrelated note, all the Browns came over on Sunday afternoon and we had a bbq at the cabin.  Polly, Vic and Alex spent the night and I think they were all pretty comfortable.  Polly and Vic had the sleeper sofa and Alex slept on a mat on the floor.  Polly and Vic were anxious due to the approaching hurricane in New Orleans.  By coincidence, they ended up leaving New Orleans for their trip up here at just the right time.  It looks like the hurricane largely missed New Orleans and there wasn’t massive damage.  Phew.

On Monday, Katie and Emma went with all the Browns and they drove to Mt Rainier for a short hike around the Naches loop to see the mountain.  During the hike they even spotted a black bear feeding on berries.  It was quite exciting for them.  I was glad to hear that there was a ranger there too!

Here are a couple pictures of Emma’s first day of kindergarten and then there is a link below those pictures to the rest of them:

And here is a link to the rest of the photos:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/kindergarten

It’s been quite awhile since we’ve posted on the blog.  For the very few people that check the site, I apologize.  We’ve had quite a busy summer.  We have spent as much time as we could out at the lake, although that ended up being a little less than we thought.  There have been birthday parties for Emma to attend as well as other obligations that have kept us from making the trip a few times.  Between that and the somewhat pathetic summer we’ve had here, we just didn’t get as much "sun" time as we had hoped.

Lots of things have happened since our last post.  Emma had her 5th birthday party which was small but fun.  We had the party out at the lake and had cake and ice cream at the park.  Her friend’s Maddie and Jena both came out to the lake for the party and Maddie’s family spent the night in their tent trailer.  We had a GREAT time!

We’ve had a few milestones this summer as well.  Emma is now reading books with no help.  She is pretty much reading anything that she can get her hands on so we’ve made some trips to the library and have bought a few additional books as well.  It’s so exciting!.

Emma also learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels.  It was amazing to watch her learn.  She saw two kids at her daycare riding with no training wheels and that was all it took for her to focus her attention on learning how.  She came home and asked us to remove her training wheels.  After 45 minutes she had gotten the balancing down and by the next afternoon she was riding around with no help.  She didn’t even crash once while learning.  She continues to amaze us.

And the third milestone for Emma is that today is her last day in day care.  Last night we attended an open house at her new elementary school and she is very excited to start kindergarten next Tuesday.  She has seen where her desk is, and has already taken all of her supplies in to her classroom.  It’s hard to believe it’s already been 5 years!  Here are a few photos from the summer:

At a birthday party beauty shop

Emma’s birthday party at the lake

Emma reading a book

Who knew that kids graduate from preschool these days?  Well, they do.  They had a ceremony at Emma’s school to mark the completion of their program.  In September Emma will start kindergarten and she couldn’t be more excited about it.

As I was sitting in the audience at her graduation, I was struck with how quickly time goes by.  It seems like just yesterday that we were agonizing over putting Emma in daycare.  Hindsight, it’s the best thing we have done yet for her.  While we missed her during the day, she has excelled in the environment.  Her social skills have come so far and she has experienced so many different things while she’s been there.  She has climbed around fire trucks, raised caterpillars in to butterflies, done a TON of art work, celebrated many different cultural holidays, learned how to read and write letters and words, and the list goes on and on.

Katie and I could not have been more proud when the graduation ceremony started.  Emma was picked to give the welcome speech to the families.  I had wondered whether she’s be petrified with being in front of that many people because she does tend to get shy around people she doesn’t know well.  As soon as she spoke I realized that wouldn’t be an issue.  Emma used a very loud voice and read the entire speech (it wasn’t very long) without an ounce of fear.  When she finished, everyone clapped and were very impressed with her.  Katie and I were smiling ear to ear.  The highlights of the graduation ceremony were the songs that the kids performed.  They had been practicing for awhile and they all did a wonderful job.  After the graduation there was a reception with lunch and dessert.  The kids all enjoyed it.

Here is a link to the video of Emma giving her welcome speech:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/Emmaspeechf.wmv

It has been awhile since we updated the blog.  Sorry.  I guess we’ve been busy with lots of different activities.  Summer is just around the corner and we have already started taking advantage of the warmer weather by being outside as much as possible.

We visited the Pacific Science Center a couple weeks ago and Emma had a great time seeing all the different things there.  We have been trying to spend as much time at the cabin as we can but haven’t been there in a couple weeks due to all the activities at home.  We did buy a used boat to keep up at the lake.  It’s nice to be able to get out on the water again.  We plan on using it as much as we can this summer, although with gas prices so high, maybe we’ll do some trolling and fishing.

Emma’s birthday is coming up in July and we are starting to organize a party for her.  It will most likely be small and she’ll just have a couple of her friends over for it.  Her actual birthday will be while we are on a road trip to Montana for Carolee’s wedding.  That’s coming up shortly and I know I’m looking forward to seeing all the family back there.  I can’t say I’m too excited for the long drive.  We have reserved a rental minivan for the trip along with Aunt Jean and Mom.  We’ll all ride together and caravan with Judy and Jessica.  We plan on driving straight through both ways so it will be a couple of very long days.  (13+ hours of driving).

Anyway, we just wanted to post a quick update.  Look for more updates as we start doing more activities through the summer.

It’s hard to believe how fast time is going by.  Last Friday we went to the elementary school near our house for "kindergarten  round up".  Amazingly Emma will be starting kindergarten in September.  Friday we went in and attended a two hour session where they threw a ton of information at us while Emma went with all the other kids to do a couple projects in her new classroom.  From what I understand they evaluated all the kids during that hour to see where they are at developmentally.  They did a few projects and performed simple tasks like writing their name and answering basic questions.  They also did an art project (they each made a paper hat).

While Emma was in with all the kids, Katie and I listened to all of the various information that was presented to us in the library.  We heard from the principal, school nurse, teachers, librarian, PTA president and on and on.  It was actually very interesting, but at the same time a little scary to think Emma is beginning her school journey.

Besides that, not too much is going on.  Katie and Emma attended a birthday party for Emma’s friend Jena and then visited Sarah’s for a little bit on Saturday.  While they were busy with those trips, I went to mom’s and hauled a couple loads of topsoil to spread on the grass and flower gardens at her house.  It actually went very quickly and we were done by about noon.  I picked up one more truckload and came home to our house to spread that.  It was nice and sunny and was a perfect temperature for working in the yard.

On Sunday we went down to the Earle’s and celebrated Jaden’s 4th birthday.  Lots of pictures are HERE: http://www.theearlefamily.com .

We have a couple trips planned over the next few months.  We’ll be heading back to Ellensburg for our 10 year anniversary.  Yeah, I know that sounds like kind of a funny place to go but we decided since it’s where we met, it might be fun to go back and see how things have changed at CWU.  While we’re there we’ll visit some of our old favorites downtown (The Tav is on the "definite list") and just have a nice relaxing time wandering around.  Later this summer we’ll also be driving back to Montana for Carolee’s wedding.  It’s shaping up to be a family reunion because just about everyone is going to be there.  Of course we are trying not to book too many weekends over the summer because we’d like to spend the majority of it at the lake.  Every time we go over there we get the goose bumps because it’s still hard to believe we can stay there now.  There will be lots of projects to work on there, but there will also be lots of time to relax.

Over the last 1.5 years I know we’ve probably overwhelmed you with cabin progress photos.  Well, since we passed our final this will be the last cabin progress post (until we do landscaping).  I thought I’d post a couple pics of the inside now that we are in the process of moving in.  Basically we are taking up one piece of furniture each time we go up there and now have a table, and also a couch.

Here are a couple shots:

On a completely separate note it hailed at our main house a couple evenings ago and was amazing.  Hail the diameter of dimes were landing all over the place.  I’d say we got about 2 inches of hail by the time it was done.  So much, in fact, that Emma and I made a couple "Hailmen".  Crazy weather!!

We finally had our final inspection and we PASSED!!  No more inspections and we can move in.  Over the next couple weeks we’ll be moving some furniture in and actually using the cabin.  It took nearly 1.5 years of weekends (off and on) but we pulled it off.  The best part is that now that we’ve done this once, we now have enough knowledge to never want to do it again.  :)

I uploaded 106 pictures of the cabin that cover the majority of the progress that we have made on it over the last 1.5 years.  As most of you know, the work was done on the weekends (not all of them but a bunch of them) by mostly Darren and I.  Ben came out a few times and also helped a bunch.  (Thanks Ben!!)

Anyway, I wanted to put a set of pictures up on the web in case someone was interested in seeing the chronological progress.  You can see them at:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/construction

Things are moving along.  Our hope is to be done with the cabin by the time spring starts.  We just have a few more loose ends to tie up and then we should be moving in.  Here are some pictures of the latest progress:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/almostdone

Happy Valentine’s Day!!