I think I say this about every year, but boy has this summer gone fast. August was a bit of a blur, with Kaylee’s birthday on 
the 5th, cousins in town, school starting on the 18th and now we’re into football season already! At least I took a lot of pictures so we can remember it all.
Kaylee turned 7-years old to start off the month. Her actual birthday was pretty low key with just a few neighbors playing in the yard and some smiley face pancakes at IHOP for supper. Then a few days later the real party started as our house was filled with grandparents and 7 extra 1st grade friends. Kaylee decided on a camping theme so we set 
up the tent in the back yard and had s’mores cooking in the fire pit. It was beautiful weather and a fun time.
Kaylee even got a new bike!
The next week was the annual Gibson Annual Golf Game weekend so Heather and Ashlee’s families were all back in Iowa 
City. The Meester cousins spent the whole week at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and playing with all of our kids. They spent one of the nights at our house and they all slept down in the basement, which finally has carpet (Hooray!!!!!). They decided the storage area under the stairs was just like Harry Potter’s room in the book, so Emma and Audrey both slept under the stairs. It’s fun that they all seem to get along so well.
August 18th marked the first day of school. Emma is now a 4th grader in Ms. Neveln’s class, which she was happy about. She complained about having to go back to school, but I think she was secretly pretty excited. Now she’s come home saying she wants to play the cello. The cello!?! You can’t be in the marching band with a cello! Oh well — I bet she’ll be a pretty good cellist if she puts her mind to it. Kaylee is now in first grade in Miss Bueter’s class and loves it. She’s so good at making friends and seems to really enjoy school. Thomas started his last year at Christ the King Preschool. He was very proud of himself this week because he was the first one to raise his hand to answer a question about a word that starts with the letter “T”. “”T” for Thomas!” Way to go Thomas!
And now on to football season. Thomas is totally psyched. We were watching some old Hawkeye football highlights on an internet video I was emailed today and he was cheering and yelling “Touchdown!” at the computer. Pretty fun stuff.
We rode the shuttle over to the annual Fry Fest in Coralville tonight and got to meet Herky and see Dan Gable and the band and the Golden Girl. (The brainwashing starts early in our household!)
AJ was surprisingly unafraid of the giant helmeted raptor. He saw him from across the room and he excitedly announced, “Herky!” (Like I said, we start them early.) I love this picture!
Boy. It was really hot outside today. Bring on fall!
