School Days

Ryan started school at the end of August. He goes to two schools here - and his day is busy! He goes to a local elementary school every day for 3 hours as part of a pre-school program. Mon, Weds, and Friday he goes to a local church for another program. Each is doing wonders for his ability to communicate (his sentence structure is world's away from where it was a few short weeks ago) and interact with other kids his age.

Below are a couple pictures from his first day at the elementary school. He seemed pretty excited at first - he had been to the school once and seemed to like it. Heidi took him there his first official day to get him settled, and he quickly went from cute to fed up with the concept of being there. It was tough going at first, but we (bribed him) gave him an incentive for being good, and he does great at school now - and is the proud owner of a Virginia flag (the boy LOVES flags and will work hard for them).

Our happy child at school!!

Ryan gets really excited in the morning waiting for the bus - and boy does it come early (6:30 AM)!! Some days he needs a little coaching to head out there, but we're working on it...read, we're bribing him with the Germany flag.

Hanging out in the Texas heat

Wow - we thought Alabama was hot...hello Texas! It's been a while since we posted pictures, so we thought we'd give you a taste of what we've been up to during the long, hot summer.

Ryan, as always, wants to play outside - because of the weather, he only gets to play in the morning and late in the afternoon when the sun moves around and give some shade to the backyard. He loves playing on his playground set and is forever asking to "let the dogs out"...and then he proceeds to squeeze in a quick 5-minute playtime before Mom & Dad get the wiser!

When Mike came home from his DC TDY for the Labor Day Weekend (he called it his 52-hour furlough), we put Ryan in his booster seat. We moved him to the other side of the van - where the "big boys" sit - to make room for the infant car seat where he used to sit. I wished we had got pictures from his first day in the seat...this is from his second day. He absolutely loved his booster seat! He already knows how to unbuckle himself (and we have to move quick to catch him coming out of the van). Our little man is growing up so fast!

Below are a few random pictures of Ryan - hanging out on the couch (probably watching Diego) and then playing in his new tent we got from IKEA on Saturday. What a store!! Who knew the Swedes made such good stuff?!?! We went there to get a new chair, for what will be Carter's room, and ended up getting a few more things than we planned. Good thing pay day had come and gone or we would have caused a lot of damage!!

Heidi's family is doing great!

Thanks to everyone that called and wrote to check up on Heidi's family - we really appreciate the support. They got drenched by over a foot of rain, but the only apparent damage the next day were tree limbs down in their yards. The lasting impact is that they've been without power since the storm blew through. The power company told them it could be as long as two weeks...but the Governer disagreed with that assessment. Hey - good news! As I'm typing, we just found out they got their power back on!! Living in the South w/out air conditioning is something less than comfortable - we're glad this storm is behind them.