Back to school time, fall edition

School is going very well for Owen and Olivia. Here's the deal though, they haven't been there in a week. They've had a random week off, mid October. While it's been fun having them around all day, it's time to go back. We've been to parks, train stations, stores, restaurants, everywhere.

Lindsay and I had our first parent teacher conference last week. Believe it or not, Pre-K has a standardized test of sorts. It's mostly counting and letter recognition. Owen didn't do so hot. Although I believe that the test was getting in the way of playtime, so he blew it off and only counted to five. I can get on board with that. (I pretty much blew off the conference, because it was going on while the Royals were finishing off the Orioles in the ALCS. If only we'd had the foresight to not double book ourselves at conference sign up time two months ago. I mean we all knew the Royals would win 8 straight playoff games and go to the World Series back then didn't we?)

It was a little strange having the teacher go over the test results with us. It kind of drives home the point that the twins are growing up. In some ways it feels like we just brought them home from the hospital. In other ways it feels like maybe they should be heading off to college soon. It really just depends on the day.

The pumpkin patch

We went to Lawrence this morning to pick some pumpkins.  2014 is apparently the year of the white pumpkin, because we came home with a half dozen white pumpkins, and no orange ones. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I guess I'm ok with it. I think we've been to the same patch in Lawrence every year the kids have been alive, so it's kind of fun to look at the old pictures and see how they've grown.  Here are a few pics from this year.

Here are some from years past, in no particular order.

This one may be from another pumpkin patch, but it's Owen, a pumpkin, close enough.

First field trip

Today Ms. Shelley's pre-k class packed up and went on a field trip to the local fire station. The class had been talking about community helpers for the last few weeks, and I think the trip was the end of the unit. Owen was thrilled, Olivia was pretty happy to go, but not over the top like Owen. It was also the twins' first bus ride, so that was pretty exciting too.

Vacation 2014

We are back to summer life. After spending a week in Breckenridge, it's hard to come back to flat Kansas, but here we are. At least the kids are actually sleeping again, they didn't do much of that in Breck.

Riding on a boat, dodging the rain.

It's raining.

Climbing Mt. Quandary

At 14,265 feet, 1st 14er.

The view from the top, lots of clouds.

A wildflower above treeline.

A storm interrupted lunch, so we hid under a canopy.

Trying to rent a boat, didn't happen, Owen and Olivia both left screaming.

Checking out the creek behind the house, which may or may  not run both ways.

A quick nap at 9:30 am, she'd been up for 4 hours.

The slopes in summer.

Riding around the neighborhood.

I rode my bike all the way up.

It stormed almost every afternoon, good for photos, bad for golf.

Little climbers.

 A little bench.

Trying to skip rocks on the lake.

Checking out the train park.

Climbing the big rocks at the train park.

Nothing like snow in July.

We were pretty busy most of the trip, and Owen and Olivia said they wanted to stay for 100 days. Maybe next summer.