School started up again last month. Karina is in 1st grade and Lydia has afternoon pre-k. Our bus stop is huge - here are most of the kids on the first day of school (at least 3 missing):
When Hurricane Irma was about to hit Florida, Mormor bought tickets to come visit in anticipation of not having electricity in Miami for an extended period of time. No A/C, refrigerator, stove, oven, etc. is no fun. As it turned out, power was luckily only out at their house for 36 hours (the neighbors across the street weren't so lucky), but Mormor came to visit anyway. The kids loved the extra attention.
Derek is a little obsessed with trains. He needs someone to build him a track first thing every morning.
Karina is making progress with piano:
We were also visited by my childhood friends Tanya and Nalina. Tanya was here for a week and Nalina for 3 days. My mother's visit overlapped with Tanya's, as she flew out the day Nalina arrived. It was wonderful to see Tanya and Nalina again! Tanya was out here from Australia for her cousin's wedding in DC and Nalina flew up from Miami.
In Baltimore's Inner Harbor:
We also hiked to Cascade Falls in Patapsco State Park, with the trail head just a 4 minute drive from our house. I had hiked to the waterfall once before with Mimi and the kids, but from a different trail that is paved most of the way. I had never walked this particular trail before, but it is definitely one we will do again. It was about a mile each way. I didn't bring a carrier for Derek because I had planned to have us hike on the paved trail with strollers, but it was blocked due to some construction. Derek was a champ though. He ran nearly the whole way and did not want to be carried. The only times I carried him were the difficult sections that were too steep or too full of huge tree roots. Despite his best intentions, his legs were too short to navigate some parts. He and Karina were both speedsters. Karina kept racing ahead of everyone like a gazelle.
Snoopy found a new best friend in Tanya. He stayed snuggled up with her all the time on the couch.
Tanya knitted Derek a beautiful blanket! She managed the final touches while she was here. It has a Norwegian pattern and is lovely!
Nalina is a good reader:
We went to an Orioles game. Since the game didn't actually mean anything, we were able to get incredible seats (8th row) for a small fraction of the original cost. I don't think any of us had ever had such good seats at a sporting event before and the seats really helped make the game.
We also went out for crabs one day. I don't have a picture of it, but Nalina single handedly ate 15 big crabs!
Maybe next time we get together will be in Australia!
Karina's bottom right front tooth got progressively wigglier. If you zoom in, you can see her tooth sticking out awkwardly in front of her top teeth. It was like that for a couple weeks because Karina was too nervous to pull it out.
Then all of sudden one day she could bend the tooth forward 90 degrees:
Two days later her first tooth finally fell out! Unfortunately, the tooth fairy messed up and Karina woke up before we did. It turns out that Karina overheard Nate and I talking the next morning about what we could do to rectify the situation (I didn't realize she was in the hallway bathroom listening to us). I ended up sneaking into her room and taking the tooth and putting out money and was going to tell her the tooth fairy was late. I thought she was downstairs and had no idea she was in the bathroom between our bedrooms listening and observing all. Fail.
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