Sand Everywhere

This weekend passed in usual Fray fashion -- not a moment of downtime, but in a good way. On Saturday we packed up the car, figured out how to work the dual-screen DVD and drove to Indiana to see Debbie. We stopped for a quick bathroom break along a nature preserve and Josie had her first experience with burrs in her hair. Not pretty, but the damage definitely could have been worse.
We hiked up and around the dunes and the kids had a great time running and rolling down and getting sand absolutely everywhere. It was a windy day and the waves were huge (for Lake Michigan) so nobody was allowed in the water.

On Sunday, we went to the boat, but it was too cold to go in the water, so we fed the ducks and went out in the raft. It seems like summer is already gone and it went way too fast!

Then I took Josie and Rambler to the ice rink. We met Steve, Kira and John and Steve showed extreme patience while teaching Josie and Rambler how to skate. And they learned more in those 2 hours than they've learned in all of their lessons combined. Rambler started to glide and Josie turned around. Kira and John were also a lot of fun and great sports!!

During our skating session, Jake took Addy to a street festival so we picked them up afterwards and had a nice meal at a restaurant with Steve. The kids were completely exhausted by the time we got to the restaurant and they were excited to be out and excited that Steve was there and I have to say, they behaved better than I thought they would. Addy was the problem and there wasn't much we could do -- she just really wanted to be in the bathroom. She's potty trained herself and it's been amazing and awesome, so I guess the price is that when we go out she gets obsessed with the bathroom.

We met Josie's kindergarten teacher yesterday. She's the little sister of someone I went to high school with -- and one of Kira's friends. Josie actually has 2 teachers and they both seem wonderful. The meeting went really well; Josie was not at all shy and she seemed to like her new classroom and she's very excited about starting school next week. Rambler, meanwhile, is moving into the preschool room that Josie's leaving. He's very proud to be the big kid and will watch out for his little sister when he can (Josie is very protective of Addy when they're at school and often asks to go see her so she can check on her).