11 Years and counting....

Last Friday, Spencer and I celebrated our 11th anniversary.  Congrats to us!  We went out to a lovely dinner, lazily walked around the shops while we waited to go see The Help (which we really liked).  It was so nice to just hang out together.  Our lives have become so busy that it takes real effort to fit in time to just hang out and often all we get is a few minutes here and there.  So we greatly appreciated being able to spend a good hour and a half just talking, walking around, holding hands, enjoying each other's company.  Of course we usually enjoy each other's company, but most times we are enjoying it simultaneously with our kids' company, which you know is not the same.  And being out of the house meant we weren't multi-tasking, like watching tv together and folding laundry.

Lately I have been reflecting a lot on how truly fortunate I am to be married to Spencer.  As a 21 year-old bride, I was so in love and was so sure I had snagged the best possible husband.  Now as a 32 year-old veteran wife and mother, I am reminded daily of how right I was.  And I really had no clue back then.  I couldn't ask for a husband who works harder to provide for our family.  Or for a husband who is so concerned and interested in our children's lives, their progression and devleopment.  Or for a husband who readily sees past my many flaws.  I'm sure I should be better at showing my appreciation for all he does for me and our kids.  And I hope he feels equally blessed to have me as his wife.

P.S. Sorry to be so sappy.  Sometimes there's just no way around it.

Pre-K and Basketball

Here's Ian on his first day of pre-K.  He is going to a nearby Baptist church's pre-k program and so far he is really liking it.  His teacher is very nice and it sounds like he's already made friends with the kids in his class.  No surprise there.  Ian might be the friendliest kid there is.  His schedule is two days a week from 9:15-2:30, which I love.  I wouldn't have minded a bit if we got him into a program that was 3 days a week, but this one was the right for for us.  I will admit that I am jealous of the moms I know from back in California who all had babies around the same time I had Ian and they are starting their kids in kindergarten.  The birthday cut-off here for school is September 1 so his October birthday means he won't start kindergarten till next year.  And while a part of me wishes he was in school across the street already, I know that this year of pre-K is going to be a really good transition from preschool last year (2 days/week for 3 hours) to kindergarten next year (5 days/week for 7 hours).  One of his comments about school so far is that it's kind of long.  Yeah, good thing he's got a year to get used to it.

The other thing Ian gets to do right now is basketball.  He's in the tiny tots league at the YMCA and it's pretty awesome.  Most of the kids (Ian included) do not have any baskeball skills already so their "game" last weekend was quite a sight.  Aside from one kid on the other team who was a total baller, the kids hardly dribbled (very few can actually do it at all), they weren't making many shots even though the basket was only about 6 feet high, and more than once I saw kids stealing the ball from their own teammates.  Like I said, pretty awesome.  Anyway, Ian is excited to be in basketball.  He's a pretty good shot and he's interested in practicing dribbling so maybe he'll be the baller at one of his next games.

Madeleine's version of events

Madeleine wrote this account of Ian's zipline fiasco for school.  Her teacher told her it was the best story in class.  I hope you can click the picture to enlarge so you can see all the cute details.  This paper's a keeper!