Westport, WA
Grays Harbor County Fair - Elma, WA . . . yee ha!
1st day of kindergarten
Gracie 
Whew, it's only been 2 months since our last post. For a second I was thinking that we were really slacking. There are maybe a few things to mention that have happened in the last two months.
Maddie turned 5 on July 14th and we celebrated at the beach. By Maddie's decree this has become our new tradition for her B-day. Birthday=Beach.
The Shermerica clan paid us a visit in August and we took the kids to their first county fair - the Grays Harbor County Fair no less. This is another outing that is sure to be replicated on an annual basis. There were no down-sides for the kids other than having to eventually leave. Food was good, rides were good, animals also good and horses very good (I think they might also fit in the animal category). The equestrian events were particularly entertaining. Not so much for the fancy footwork provided by horse and rider, mainly it was to observe the excitement of Madelyn, Ezra and Eli. We sat down in the little . . . barn? (anyways, it was indoors with bleachers and lots of dirt for the horses to frolick on) It was pretty quiet except for the sound of the horses grunting and galloping and three children screaming at the top of their lungs, "GO HORSEY! YOU CAN DO IT!" -repeated for the duration of our stay. Not sure it helped any of the riders, but it definitely might have contributed to the failures of a few. We'll never know for sure.
Gracie started crawling right about fair time - and now she won't stop. It's always exciting when your kids reach a milestone . . . for one or two minutes. Now we're all in a constant state of fear of course. Our floor is never clean enough for our now independently moving baby-hoover.
Maddie is now officially a kindergartner. She started school two weeks ago. We're still in shock that we've reached this point. Babies grow fast. She is even taking the school bus. There haven't been too many worries about Madelyn's ability to adjust to this new scene. She's a people-person. Last week she got sick and we had to keep her home. Believe me, if we didn't care about other people we would have just let her go because it was not a pleasant prospect to try to convince Maddie that she had to stay home from school. "I'm okay . . .cough cough, I'm not sick . . . barf." At least she's committed. Eli is starting preschool this week. This is the kid we're a little worried about. Eli is not the people-person his big sister is. This is one of many reasons I'm glad I'm not the mom. God-speed Connie.
