An Addendum to Back to School Blog Post

After that long post from just now (see below), I'd just like add: even though I'm proud of our big kid and how mature and thoughtful she is, I appreciate that she is still our sweet little girl.

With a sock puppet.

Back to School ... First Grade!

Wow, man. It's time again! I have the same proud-parent sadness after dropping Rosalie off at school this morning. We walked down together as a family with our neighbors, with whom we now have this tradition of taking the picture in front of the house with each kid's grade written on the chalk board.

Unsurprisingly, Rosalie got right down to it once she got to the classroom. 

She has several friends in class, so that should be nice for the transition to the new year. Also, her new teacher is deliciously organized and seems kind. I'm excited for Rosalie and for myself (a person who will likely be volunteering in there). Having worked hard to get some organizational systems in my own classroom in the past, I appreciate the amount of time and care she has put into making her class run smoothly with good systems. 

Well, as I sit here thinking about my big girl and how proud I am of her, I'm going through all of the pictures we took over the summer with our phones and cameras. Here's a collage of summer Ro photos. Just let the cuteness wash over you. I'll try to sort of narrate as we go:

 Fourth of July was wonderful, as always, at Jen's parents' houseboat. It was absolutely freezing in the water that day. I am impressed with the toughness of Michael's skin.

I love the little village feeling at the houseboat "neighborhood" on Lake Union. The houseboat in Sleepless in Seattle seemed so remote compared to how close everything is to each other.

We stayed til late this time (as we did last year, but decided not to try to stay the whole night). What a view. Imagine living like this every day! So gorgeous.

Well, not this part every day. Really generous of them to share this luxury with us once a year.

It seems like Rosalie and I spent an inordinate amount of time at Seattle Public Library this summer, especially the one downtown, with its immense children's section (and chocolate cafe onsite). It's such a crazy building. It makes me dizzy every time, with its garish colors, strange angles, and vertigo-inducing views. We usually explore the building in addition to checking out books.

( Sometimes she's so lovely, I can't choose which shot to use. A pleasant problem.)

Making friends all summer long was a theme. Here she was with some buddies at a wedding we attended. Michael showed them how to extend their cocktail umbrellas with straws. It was exciting for everyone.

And there's always dancing.

A new friend made in line on the way to a little ferris wheel that neither of us grownups wanted to ride

Rosalie went to several camps this summer, none of which I got shots of. One of them was a general day camp with different themes, and the other two were more nature-themed camps.

Lots of at-home shenanigans and costumes...

Fun with crops that we grew in our garden:

We went all the way out to Port Angeles, spending the night in Hadlock, so that I could take a pie class. That's right. Commitment to the craft. But anyway, it wound up being a wonderful, impromptu family trip. Somehow the main picture I have from this whirlwind trip is a pancake/head shot from one of our favorite little breakfast places on the Olympic Peninsula:

 Seems like we went to an unusually large number of BBQs this summer. I am not complaining, I am thrilled. One of them featured a sweet baby friend, the daughter of one of Rosalie's old teachers from Berry Patch. The teachers became our friends beyond the school, so obviously our kid is friends with her kid.

Speaking of those wonderful teachers, here they are now!  This was a celebration BBQ to honor the teachers as they closed the school to move on to new adventures.  Veronica, on the left, now has her massage practitioner's license, and Nicolie, on the right, had a baby (seen above). We will always, always have sweet memories of that wonderful school. I felt compelled to give a speech that night and almost made it through without waterworks.

More kids who will always remember Nic and Veronica!

Rosalie got taller, so it was time for a new bike.

As a family we've started getting up earlier and going for a walk (us) and bike ride (her) to start the day off right. It's been great. We shall see how this plays out when it gets darker and wetter.

This weekend, we had our almost-annual camping-at-home adventure. There were marshmallows.

It started to get rainy, so our tent wound up being in the living room. It was filled with a futon mattress, our own bedding, and books. It was the best night of camping sleep I've had in years (though it still wasn't ideal, due to some adorable flopping by a certain someone).

At one point in the evening, as we were winding down in our tent/living room, all the electricity went out. We went outside our front door and started talking with our neighbors in the dark. It was an impromptu block party! I loved our micro-community just then. It make things feel less scary/freaky to all be together at that moment. Thanks to cell phones we were able to see immediately that it was not the apocalypse, but just some kind of malfunction due to (blah blah blah I can't remember). Anyway, for about one minute we were actually roughing it.

That's it for now. Be on the lookout for more news coming soon!