Henry's Weekly Reader

Henry's weekly reader project fell in March, and this included bringing the buddies home for the week and getting pictures with them doing the things he likes to do. He also got to help mom make the treat for the end of the week!

Henry chose the Berenstain Bears as his theme, and wrote a report on posterboard about the authors, the subjects and some fun facts.

School & 95th Birthday

The first day of school:

We celebrated Grandma Gates' 95th Birthday!

Mid-June

School's over, the summer has begun, we're having all sorts of fun doing this and that... This is gonna be a Hit The High Points kind of post, 'cause I've got to get something up before our big western memory-making trip.

A while back I had the opportunity to go to central PA for a veterinary meeting in a beautiful setting.

The cicadas are here!

Of course there was Jenn's trip to Thailand and Cambodia, but these photos haven't yet been processed and Jenn's been bouncing from one thing to another and hasn't yet had an opportunity to compose a post... more to come on this later.

Lincoln's big year-long Project Ocean was on display as the school year came to a close. He was awesome, and the progression he showed from his early projects to the final ones was remarkable. Score one for OTS!

And some catch-ups...

S'more w/ a Camping Marshmallow...

And this wandered into our yard...

Mid-November Catch-Up

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve experienced…

Henry’s Symbol Breakfast at Old Trail School. A big part of the development program among the 4-5 year olds is the use of their symbol. Because the kids aren’t yet reading, they each choose a symbol to represent them, and they use the symbol in many ways during the school day. Henry’s symbol is a set of binoculars, and we made a special sweatshirt for him.

Recently Lydia informed us that she doesn’t get as much play time on the playground on Fridays because she’s “busy solving everybody’s problems.”

We finished the Summit Metro Parks Fall Hiking Spree, discovered a number of really neat hiking trails in the area, and we each earned our hiking sticks. And one of my new favorite follows on Facebook is Summit Metro Parks with their sharing of many good professional and amateur nature photographers.

Henry’s fifth Birthday came, and we now officially have a pair of five-year-olds in the house.

We didn’t have a Halloween Party last year ‘cause we were at Disney, but we returned to the tradition this year, and we had a blast doing it. Jenn’s Minion cake was my personal favorite part of the party.

We watched as Haley played her last home match at Bowling Green. It was fun to see her play here and there over the past four years. It'll be something The Nuggets remember for a long time.

Last home match for a great @bgsuwsoccer captain, @haleyparkinson. #soccer A photo posted by @rggates on Oct 25, 2015 at 10:16am PDT

And between interacting with Old Trail or Buckeyes fans during games, I've been having fun with Instagram & Twitter. Here are some fun ones...

A photo posted by @rggates on Oct 8, 2015 at 5:41pm PDT A photo posted by @rggates on Sep 23, 2015 at 5:25am PDT This may be the last nice day of the season for #running. #cvnp #fitbit #mizuno #indiansummer #autumn A photo posted by @rggates on Nov 5, 2015 at 10:52am PST

New School!

August blew into September, and the kids started at their new school, Old Trail School. We're pleased in every way so far, and the kids are loving it.

It's still very much summer time in our garden, with high-yield tomatoes and Morning Glories that are taking over the garden fence. And check out what took up residence in our garden fence!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I better get something up before Christmas so I can have at least 2 December posts.

The rundown:

Lydia's been making some goodies in the kitchen.

We took a trip to the North Pole on the Polar Express!

Jenn hosted Lincoln's First Grade class's Christmas Party. She organized some neat crafts, put together some good food, and the kids really seemed to have a good time.

And we're all getting into the Christmas Spirit. The kids want to have their stories in front of the Christmas Tree, Lincoln is learning all sorts of Christmas songs. Lydia and Henry can fill in the blanks on a number of Christmas books. And Oodles... he's up to his naughty fun around the house each day.