Um, wait, September?! For really? When did summer come to a screeching halt? Where did it even go even? We didn’t make it to the local beach park once! We only did the slip-‘n-slide a handful of times. We didn’t make it to one concert in the park at our neighborhood park! I didn’t finish my garden sanctuary. I didn’t get the deck stained. Oh well, that’s what I get for blinking! Sheesh.

Here we are, September. We took Matthew to school this morning for his first day of first grade. FIRST, I tell you! AND Matthew turns seven on Saturday – SEVEN, I tell you! Zachary started gymnastics on Monday – he’s a natural and holy cow does he ever love it! I really don’t know that I’ve ever seen him look so enthralled and alert. His eyes were huge and lit up as he watched and listened to the coach’s every move. I can’t wait to watch him do it again!

September definitely marks the end of one season and the start to another. Vacation time is over. Beach time is over. We spent an AMAZING week with the Clan – Jason, Rebecca and their two boys – on our Clancation. We camped at Ocean City State Park near Ocean Shores. We had a great time and the first few days were gorgeous, but unfortunately the weather turned (totally) freezing-burr-cold so we (wisely) wussed out (just a couple of days early) and came back for a Clancation Staycation. For two days we did camping laundry, lounged about in pajamas and cozies, ate delicious food, drank delicious drinks and played game after fun game. For our anniversary, I got Mike (and the Clan) several new games and they’re ALL great: Qwirkle, Five Crowns and Carcassonne. I highly recommend them all. We also played one of our favorite games: Settlers of Catan. (And not that I’m bitter or counting, really, but I’m fairly certain that after seven evenings of playing games I only won a total of two or maybe just won one and tied one. At any rate, it was super fun and rough to come back to reality).

We came back to Nat’l EE Convention madness (thankfully just one month to go)! But we’re seriously going to be wrapped up in that for the next 30 days, so if you never (or rarely) hear from me/us, that’s why. We also came home to the joyful bill for Zachary’s hernia surgery ($1400 of fun!), we need to put about $1000 of work into our Honda CRV (yay!) and then, of course come December-ish we will pay Amara the ginormous (but totally worth it) adoption fee. It’s going to be a tight fall and Christmas!

Adoption news: We will be sitting down with Mia on Sept. 20th to negotiation the “The Communication Agreement.” This legal document spells out our post-baby/adoption plans for continuing contact with the birth mom. Negotiating this document can be a bit awkward and tricky business. (As you can imagine it can be difficult to balance the birth mom’s desire to see the baby with the adoptive parents’ desire to clearly assert their role as parents…that’s what the document AND the professionals are there to help sort out.) We’ve planned a trip to the zoo with Mia which might actually happen just a day or two before the C.A. negotiation meeting. Hmmm, could be interesting! I’ll do my best to keep you posted on that.

And now, for some quality time with Zach. He and I will be spend a lot of time together this year as I’ll be ‘homeschooling’ him for pre-K. It freaks me out a bit to be the sole teacher educating him in the basics (abc’s, 123’s, beginning reading, etc.), but thankfully pre-K Math is the only Math that I really excel in, so I know I’ll rock that.