Early fall

Luckily southern California stays nice and warm in September and October, perfect for continuing water polo and swim practice.

You can almost always catch one or both kids randomly practicing their streamline or strokes throughout the day, even on land.

Polo boys hitting the jacuzzi.  We are so lucky to be part of this great group of families. 

Fuji Aquatic center's polo practice at its finest:

Labor day means staying up to watch movies in the pool even though its a school night.  Best way to officially end summer I say!

The sweetest friends.  Owen is definitely the youngest of the group and I'm so proud and grateful to all the older boys for always including him and making him feel like he's one of the group!

Results from the last meet.   They were pretty happy about it!

Team mom craft night, plus dinner and wine - there may or may not still be glitter all over our kitchen from this night back in September!!! 

First day of soccer Saturdays for the year:

Blue Dragons

Neon ninjas

(If those names sound familiar its because Scott has already been both a blue dragon and a neon ninja - way to be creative guys!)

Running into friends on Saturdays at the field is the best!

So his having friends on your team!!

Another monday, another polo night!

Owen, marching to his own drum, bead head, backwards shirt, one shoe

This fancy girl also turned 3 in september!

Watching friends' games

Scored his first goal

This particular soccer weekend Brian and grandma headed out for a movie date night, so Gpa, the boys and I decided instead of hanging around the house we'd head up to their trailer at Rincon for the night

Best.Decision.Ever.

Spur of the moment camping is the best!

The water was freezing, but of course that didn't stop them...

Celebrating the first week....

At our favorite place! Rincon!!!!

Pictures from friday right before pick up...then it was straight to the beach!

Someone is excited to be beach bound!

Favorite place.  Favorite people.

It was overcast most of the weekend but that didn't slow us down. 

Some of our favorite beach buddies came out saturday to hang for the day and swim and boogie board with us.  Not to mention swim with the dolphins...

We also made it to Ventura Harbor for ice cream one night

On our last day Scott officially turned 7&1/2.   where does the time go??

The first day of school

(So we've been in school for two months already, it is what it is.)

Back to school, here before we knew it.

And clearly we were crushing our first morning:

Kindergarten for Owen!

First grade for Scott!

We decided that another year in first grade would benefit Scott the most.  He handled it all so maturely and was so brave throughout the transition.  And since I'm not posting this til two months in  I can definitely say it was the right choice for him.  He is thriving in school this year and has truly become a different kid in this process.  We could not be happier for him or more proud!

Both babies in one school.  Heart melt!

Owen way out by the slide with his best buddy Eamon.  He clearly had zero problem leaving me on the first day, or any subsequent days since.

Cheers to a great new school year!

The rest of summer

After we got home from our big summer camping trip to Yosemite the rest of the summer just flew by.  Up first our second swim meet.

This meet was held at Daland's, which is not our normal pool.  And it didn't seem quite as organized as our first one.  Especially when it came to the starts.  Poor Scott false started almost all of his races (but since it was a novice meet he was still allowed to swim) mostly because the guy running the meet changed how he started the swimmers each time, sometimes he yelled go, sometimes a whistle - it was actually terrible and Scott got pretty bummed out.  But we learned a lot from this meet and so overall it was still a positive experience.

Right after the meet Papa took the boys back to their house for a sleep over while Brian and I headed to the Hollywood Bowl with Uncle Rob and Aunt Jenny to see Diana Krall.

The last time we saw her was the summer we got engaged - 10 years ago.

We geared up for the impending soccer season.

We got (much needed) back to school haircuts

We had dance parties

We took one final day trip to the beach with some of our buddies

Cuz there is nothing cuter than a bunch of blonde boys at the beach:

We did sun art on eclipse day.

And of course hit the pool to soak up the last minutes of summer.