Hannah is such a great little person. She's just so great! Does that sum it up? She's a wonderful, tiny, sunshiney, toothy, grinning girl. She's still a seriously clingy mommy's girl, but in all honesty, I kind of enjoy being the favorite. Soon enough she'll outgrow the clinginess and and mommy won't be the greatest person in the world, so I'll enjoy it while I can. She can crawl like a champ. Her beautiful little face just lights up when Andy gets home from work and she crawls as fast as her little legs will take her, and that's pretty fast these days.
Mason, while still his typically challenging self, is growing too fast. He says the most completely random, witty things. He told me semi-recently that the batteries in his hands were dead. And once as Natalie and I were doing homework he asked what we were doing. I told him we were "wrinkling Natalie's brain." He replied, "We could wrinkle my brain, but it's off." Crazy boy! He's four, but seems rather older lately. I don't know if that's part of growing into his role as the older brother or what. He's still....well, himself....for lack of a better description, but somehow older. I think we're going to try a first grade curriculum with him this year, I think he can do it.
Natalie is excited to start a new year of school. She's made a lot of progress in her reading ability lately, which I'm very excited about (and I hope she is too). She seems to be more inclined toward math, which I'm DEFINITELY excited and a bit relieved about. She played softball this summer and had a good time. She seems to have picked it up pretty quickly, based on my limited understanding of softball. I always feel a little conflicted about organized sports. Uber sporto parents who push kids and start training them in whatever their personal fav sport from the moment the child emerges from the womb make me crazy. The jockeying for position, and favoritism of the coaches takes away some of the fun, as far as I'm concerned. Regardless, Natalie went and had a good time and didn't seem to be at all aware of the stupid b.s. She took a little break from piano lessons this summer due to scheduling issues between us and the piano teacher, but we'll be back at it in August. She really seems to enjoy piano, and is definitely picking that up well.
For vacation this year we went to Mema and Papa's house, stayed a few days and then headed back on our little vacay adventure through the southwest. We camped the first night at Flagstaff and then Papa, Andy, Alex, Natalie and Mason went to check out the lava tube. Then we broke camp and headed up to the Grand Canyon (or Grand Candyon if you're Mason). It was STINKING HOT! The car said it was only 88, which doesn't seem too bad, but it felt a lot hotter. Heat aside, it was great. It's really quite an impressive hole in the ground. We got the kids some super fun park ranger hat's. It's so stinking cute. After we were done there we headed out on the road and traveled along to Tuba City, where fortunately there were lodgings to be found. Interestingly, nary a tuba to be found in Tuba City. The next day we moved along to Monument Valley. Surprise, surprise...it was stinking hot too. We got there and discovered that the admission to the park is cash only, I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me, but it didn't. Fortunately Mema and Papa bailed us out on that. It was really quite amazing, so beautiful. It was a little hair raising initially. I sort of wonder whether our little Toyota minivan would make it through. The road isn't so much maintained. But I was encouraged when I saw similar vehicles coming out of the park, and as it turned out the van did great. I think I speak for everyone when I say we had a great time. We then thought we'd go to four corners, however, it closes at 8 p.m and we got there at 7:58....7:58!!!! The little gate guard man wouldn't let us in! How long could it possibly take to go in, snap a few pics...seems like we could have done that with minimal time. However, gate boy did advise us that while he wouldn't let us in we were welcome to trespass after he left, which we declined to do, thank you very much. So four corners, not quite checked off the list. So on our caravan went...and on...and on...and on. I had foolishly thought we'd be able to drive along in Colorado, and just find a hotel with a room when we got tired. WRONG! Somehow it hadn't occurred to me, AT ALL, that we were traveling on a holiday weekend. *note the drool at the corner of my mouth* So we stopped at every hotel along whatever that miserable bit of highway that goes east-west through southern CO and that wasn't a single room. Even in the places that looked like there ought to be horror films being shot in them were full(and bizarrely, there seem to be a lot of those type places in southern Colorado)So anyway, we finally crashed and burned somewhere in CO at a gas station for a couple hours and then kept chugging along. We got home that day, thankfully, because after the night in the car I think everyone was glad to be someplace where one can lay down properly. We then spent a fun 4th of July holiday together blowing things up. What could be more American than gorging ourselves on grilled meat and, literally, burning our money!? Good times!
And now that I've written a small novel, I'll stop. Perhaps I'll find the cable for my camera and then I can add some pics.
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