Benji's New Bike

We at long last made good on our birthday promise to get Benji a new bike last night. He was pretty mellow about it until he saw the bike and then he started to get excited:

Benji does not *quite* know how to ride the bike yet, but with Abby's encouragement he agreed to give it a try:

He had a few moments of riding solo when Kevin let go and was great.  Kevin thinks he should have it down in the next few weeks.

Some Random Portraits 2015

A few leftover pictures from the old camera and my phone:

Castle on the Cloud

The kids staged another "performance" for us.  This was a reworking of "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Miserables:

New Camera!

40th birthday present. We took some test pictures that afternoon:

 

Mom's 40th Birthday

Cake time:

Sibling Love

Triple C Camp

Forgot I had these pictures on my phone.  The last week before school, we sent Benji to summer camp for the first time.  He was nervous at the start:

But excited to ride the bus:

The week was a huge success and he is already talking about going back next year (and maybe sleeping over!):

Benji sporting his camp shirt on the last day

First Day of School 2015

The kids went back to school yesterday -- boy did the summer fly by! Here is the first day of Second and Sixth grade:

Monticello, Carter's Mountain, Forest Hills, Oh My!

Since the Sturms only had one full day in Cville, we ran them around. We started the morning with the family-friendly tour at Monticello:

Ready to race on the west lawn

writing with quill pens

Benji liked the Jacob's Ladder

looking in the camera obscura

playing with the orrary

the girls found the books

Benji wanted to make mommy a birthday card

and also to touch every gadget

Benji and TJ

We moved from Monticello to Carter's Moutain, where we were surprised to find that peach season is over and apple season has begun!

We split up for a while at this point so that the Sturms could explore the mountain and UVA's campus and we could get to the kids' open houses for school.  We reconvened a little before dinner for some spray park action at Forest Hills:

We finished off the day with dinner at Bella's and Sweethaus cupcakes and sent the Sturms on their way back to Springfield on Tuesday morning.

Visitors from Illinios

Our friends the Sturms visited us this weekend from Illinios.  We had a quiet Sunday dinner followed by some playtime outside. They brought their new game "trap ball" (from Williamsburg), which everyone enjoyed: