See You In September

Today is Tor's last day of preschool. Tomorrow is his first day of kindergarten. Where is life going?

This makes me want to record more memories, but then I'm always torn between taking pictures and just enjoying the moment. Anyway, here are a few from the summer.

When we get to daycare in the morning, Col usually wants to hold Tor's hand and Tor usually doesn't want to hold Col's hand. The trek across the parking lot thus usually involves Tor running away from Col and Col running after him screeching, "Hanh? Hanh? Hanh?!" before usually falling down. The teachers must love seeing us coming. A few times Tor has been willing to hold hands, though.


"Come, brother, together we shall wreak much havoc upon this nursery."



Remove pants, gnaw banana 

Scotland with the Siglers was, in a word, as awesome as we expected. To be fair, with the company, we would have had a great time anywhere. Highlights for me were Stirling Castle, country walks, a particularly excellent pub, and a full spectrum of scotches yielded by Josh and April's foregoing distillery tours. The place we stayed had a river view, a playground in the yard, and twin beds for the kids.



It was Col's first time out of the crib. The first night, he seemed happy enough to go to sleep in the bed, especially with Tor there. A few hours later, we heard a THUMP. Lars raced upstairs to find Col on the floor with head and torso beneath the bed, still fast asleep. That got repeated a few times (though he didn't stay asleep for all of them).



With his big boy bed

Success: We all came away from this with all our fingers

The boldest knight of Stirling Castle

"I GOT THE POWER"

Then in mid-July the four of us spent a week in Hinterstoder, Austria, about 90 minutes east of Salzburg. In the winter it's a ski resort, and we wanted to see some mountains--as you may be aware, England is pretty flat.

Al fresco dining in 90-degree weather: that's vacation

Trails right by the place we stayed went along a river with good spots for snacks. Tor did some foot dragging, but for the most part was game to go a mile or two. Col rode in the backpack for his final hurrah--he is definitely waaaay too long and heavy for it.

In which I explain that if Tor keeps whining, the cows will charge

A rustic rest

And a gondola/chairlift combo a quarter mile from the house took us 4000 feet up the mountain. So though we couldn't hike particularly far, at least we did it at elevation.

First ride up

Leg two of the journey to the top

 

Another day, another ride

Wholeheartedly embracing Austrian mountain cuisine

Schnitzel, schnitzel, schnitzel, kartoffler

Fambly!

Fish-watching and keeping Col out of the water

Hot and sweaty and loving it

Lars's finger joins in the action

Other highlights included an alpine slide (just Lars and Tor), and a hike to a hut with no one but us, the proprietors, their cows, and bread, cheese, and beer. I realized how bad my German is and bought some comic books for motivational reading.

Final lap plane ride

We drove to Cornwall for the weekend to sneak in a mini-vacation while Lars did some field work. The kids loved the beach and Lars's colleague's three-year-old daughter. The caravan park where we stayed had a swimming pool, and Tor had just finished up a solid week of swimming lessons (facilitated by great self-sacrifice on the part of DaDa, who biked him there every morning), so we got him a Spiderman innertube and he was basically self-sufficient. He's signed up for weekend swim lessons starting in September, at which we have big hopes that he will progress to swimming without external support.

Tired AND hungry? Now there's no need to choose

Burning off some steam while waiting for dinner to arrive

"Look, kids, work is fun!"

 

Aside from Scotland, Austria, and Cornwall, we've spent most weekends at home. Tor joined the library's Summer Reading Challenge! and has surpassed my expectations at reading books all by himself (with a lot of cheerleading, of course). Lars has been particularly dedicated to this at bedtime.

Col has joined the legions of children in love with Elmo. And with coloring on themselves.

His name is Zachary and he's fabulous

"You'll need to pry these pouches from our cold dead hands"

At the playground

Tor: Col can be Peter Pan, you be the princess, and I'll be Wolverine.

Me: Why am I the princess?

Tor: Because you like princesses.

Me: Why do you think I like princesses?

Tor: Because I want you to like them.

Expression turned to disappointment upon realizing wine is not juice

On the way home after Col's classroom did fruit tasting
Me: Did you like the pears, Col?
Col: YEAH!
Me: Did you like the apples?
Col: YEAH!
Tor: I like apples and pears together. As a team.

No letters can spell the sound Col makes that means "CHEESE"

"Can I ride back here today?"