Busy Busy Summer

Well things are going to start getting very busy for us. Even though it is almost summer the weather is not cooperating. Where is our sun??? Anyways, our summer plans are starting to get into gear. This friday is Arianna's pre-k graduation. Then we are going to go over to our friend Lisa's in Silverdale to get hair cuts, etc. Sunday of course if Father's day. On the 20th Arianna has her dance/gymnastics performance and Michael's parents will be coming to our house late that night as his dad has a conference to go to on the 21st. Arianna is going to go home with them and stay for the week and then on the 27th we leave for Montana. Michael's parents are going to bring her up to Ellensburg so we can pick her up on our way.

We get back from Montana on the 6th and then Ethan is going to be starting a new school. He has started biting and can be aggressive sometimes and we did not like the way his school was handling it so we are moving him to the place where Arianna goes. It is more expensive, but we like how they work. To accommodate the extra cost Arianna is dropping down to 2 days a week from 3 for the last couple months before Kindergarten. That way we will pay just about the same as before.

Michael's birthday is on the 11th of July and then on the 19th we are going to go camping at the beach and then the 26th is Microsofts company picnic. And we are not done yet. We are going crabbing in Florence, OR on Aug 1-4. We think we are going to leave Ethan with Michael's parents for that trip. He can be a little picky and fussy and there are going to be lots of people there so we thought it might be easier on him and us. Also it gives Arianna some special time with us before she starts school. Kindergarten starts on the Tuesday after Labor Day. We were thinking about going to Yellowstone over labor day weekend, but we are not sure with gas prices.

On Saturday Arianna has a Parent's Night Out at school and she is going and we are going to send Ethan as well. It will be his first time so we will see how he does. He has been doing really good with me leaving him at school, so we will see how he is in this situation. Hopefully he does well, it will be nice to have a night out. Since Ethan will be attending the school, Arianna will still be able to attend the PNO even after she is in Kindergarten so that is nice.

Arianna is doing well. She is starting to want more independence now - in terms of playing with friends, etc. There are a few neighbor kids that are 8 and 9 that she likes to play with and so we are giving her a little more flexibility about going and knocking on their door to see if they can play outside, etc. She is doing well in swimming. Her class now has them swimming 25 yards of crawl and backstroke. She does well on the crawl and pretty good on the backstroke - she just needs to figure out how to go straight. She has really progressed in soccer and her running is much better now. Soccer ends for the summer, but we will sign up again for the fall.

Ethan is as busy as ever. The boy never stops unless it is time to sleep. We both had cold this week which isn't fun. He is expanding his vocabulary every day. Arianna was a clear talker and never used baby words like nana instead of banana. Ethan is the opposite. he says nana for banana, he babbles a lot, and can be hard to understand, but he is doing better. He is even trying to say orange juice :). He is also a climber. And he is always trying to figure out what he can use to climb up onto other things. He also loves to sing. he takes microphones and sings in them, plays the piano and sings, rocks to the rhythm of music, dances, etc. It is very cute. He is also starting to enjoy coloring which is nice to keep him entertained for a while. He still is not showing a preference for which hand he will use. He uses both of them very often so we will still have to wait.