Six Flags

At the end of summer we got an invitation to Six Flags - I never say yes to Six Flags - so I thought we should go this time. We got to spend some good time with friends, and the kids had a blast. Rebecca is totally fearless and was very disappointed that she was too short for so many rides, but she had fun on the things we could do with her. Her favorite was a rafting blizzard river ride. She would love Disney!

Garrett watches the girls on the little teacups.



Rebecca met some Looney Tunes . . . See - she WOULD love Disney!

Someday we'll get her there. After this we went to the water park and they all loved the water slides and wave pool. No photos - but they had fun.

Carousel on the way out of the park.

Everyone was tired.

Camera doesn't work so well after a few shots -

Fun day for us. Unfortunately it was also the day of the Virginia earthquake - so not so fun for others. Some people said they felt it here, we didn't. Just having too much fun I guess.

Delayed First day of School

This year has been so crazy - the winter snow, all our trips, and most recently - Hurricane Irene. We were without power from Sunday mid-day until late Tuesday Afternoon - friends of ours were without power until Friday!!! School was supposed to start on Wednesday, but didn't until Thursday - The town next to us had to postpone until the following week!

Our kids were very ready for school to start - most of them anyway . . .

photos below not in chronological order -

Two youngest getting off the bus after a fun first day.

Rebecca getting on the bus for her first day of Kindergarten!

Ready to walk down the street to the bus stop - it can't come to our house because the road down the way is still unpaved (started before hurricane, still not done!).

Big girl Alaina! She went to a new school this year -

She was so excited to start school - she planned out her outfit the week before, knew she wanted tme to 'spiral' curl her hair - She looks so grown up in this photo!

Garrett, Mr. Pessimist, of course, was not at all excited about school and refused to smile for photos on such an unhappy occaision - "No really Mom, I'm not going to smile today -"

"You can't make me smile! Ooops - "

Maybe, just maybe, it won't be so bad. We'll see. . .

Kathryn didn't miss the bus on the first day - she planned to and thought she had succeeded, but it turned around and came back for her :). So this is the hurried photo we got of her - She's no longer a little girl - all grown up this one. And we've driven her to school every morning since!

Garrett's a Year Older

Happy Birthday Garrett! Below is a photo of Garrett's favorite part of birthdays -singing the Birthday song in a loud opera voice.

Since it's his own birthday, no one told him to tone it down this time :), in fact our friend LeeAnne asked for an encore so she could record it. Watch out for blackmail in your teenage years buddy!

He actually has an amazing voice and though he is able to annoy his siblings with the opera version of this amazing voice - we get comments from people all the time about how well he sings.

He is full of hot air - as evidenced by photo below blowing out the candles while our good friends and his siblings watch . . .

And later that week - family party at Grandma and Grandpa Tautkus' home . . .



He doesn't like birthday cake so for most parties he gets to choose interesting options instead - this is Bavarian Cream Pie with Raspberry topping - YUM!



Happy Birthday Garrett! Thanks for being our comic relief, inspiration, hard worker, walking encyclopedia and only boy! We're so glad you are ours!!!