September Catch-up

There hasn't been a whole lot going on in our lives other than school school school! Besides the regular schedule, which is every day for Ashton 8:30 am - 2:56 pm at Lilja Elementary in Natick and MWF for Alex 9-11:45 am at Community Nursery School in Wayland, there's all the extras. For example, last week, Monday night was the soccer meeting and equipment pickup, Wednesday night was Curriculum Night where the teachers all made presentations to their classrooms and the principal gave an address, and then Friday night was the Kindergarten picnic. Plus, I am the chair of the book fair which is in October, so I have had meetings for that and I am really looking forward to it, but it is a huge fundraiser that is turning out to be more involved than I was expecting haha. We got invited to the first class birthday party and the field trip permission slips are starting to come home, and that's just Ashton's part of things! Btw we did a retake of his first day picture once I found the sign I had made:

And also here is Alex, ready to rock CNS on his first day a couple weeks later! I think it's the shark shirt - that one is a real confidence booster ;)

Right in the middle of all the school starting shenanigans, Papa and GG came to visit us! It was wonderful. The last time we were together was (gasp) four years ago and Alex didn't even exist! But that was then and this is now :)

Papa and GG, I loved having you here! (XOXOXOXOX!)

Right after that we cruised through Labor Day Weekend, which, you know what stinks when you're in Long Island and supposed to be at the beach or in the pool? Crappy weather. And that's what we had. The boys played some baseball, fished and swam anyway.

Four cannonballs: Jason, Ashton, Chris and Alex in the corner!

And we made it to Southwick's Zoo last weekend, the largest zoo in New England. I have to say I was impressed (with the zoo, not Jason's pictures, which are what follow ;) )

 

(Cheetahs!)

(Lions!)

(Unidentified small mammal!)

We had a really great day there! The boys read books about rhinos, lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, zebras, etc. all day long and seeing those animals in real life is always so much fun for them. Grandma and Grandpa took them to the Riverhead aquarium over Labor Day weekend too and she said they were losing it over the sharks and sting rays :)

Lastly, the star of the summer: our garden. Freshly planted at the beginning of June:

By August:

And the tomatoes as I type this are even taller. Most of it has been cut back by now but the amount of summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, mini eggplants, herbs, and cucumbers that this little plot spit out...whoa. Jason did an AMAZING job taking care of it, I honestly did nothing, but do get to reap the rewards by making things that look like this.

I mean...

Tomato sauce doesn't get any fresher than that.

So that's where we're at. Summer's over, our new routine has begun...stay with me!