We really took advantage of our last weekend of summer! On Friday the girls talked me into taking them to Chuck E. Cheeses because they hadn't gotten to go all summer yet. On Saturday we went miniature golfing and had a great time, and on Monday we took the girls on a ten mile bike ride! Becca rode her bike the whole way!! Tia was on the hitchhiker and the two little ones were in the trailer, but Becca went the whole way on her own power. We stopped for a picnic at about the halfway point. It was a very nice day. Here are some pics of us just goofing around the house.



Tuesday Tia started Kindergarten and Becca started 2nd grade. They both got new backpacks while we were in San Diego and wanted to make sure we got pictures of them:

And Tess' beautiful backpack too?
First day of school smiles:

Walking away:

"Please stop taking pictures now. You're embarassing us":
They came flying off the bus and talked all evening about what great days they had:
We had to get going pretty soon after they got home to get them to their first gymnastics class:


Tess showing she learned to do a "butterfly" with her legs:
Tess and Livvy wondering what they were gonna do without their big sisters for entertainment:
It has already started cooling off here, and here they are modeling their new Legoland sweatshirts:
Nigh-Night Livvy:
We're getting into a routine, the girls are still pretty excited in the morning so it makes our morning rush go a bit smoother. Pretty soon I'm sure the excitement will wear off and I will have to force them to get ready, but I'm enjoying the enthusiasm while it lasts. They come home pretty wiped out and grouchy so it's a mad rush to get their homework done, get them fed, bathed and in bed before their tempers snap. Matt has been having to stay late at school to get some stuff done before he leaves for a conference in Tucson for two weeks so they have only been seeing him for a few minutes between the time he gets home and they go to bed. Hopefully they will get adjusted to the long days soon and they won't have to go to bed so early... I'll let you know how that goes...

I can't believe summer is already almost over!! We just got back from our last trip which included Roswell, NM, Carlsbad Caverns, El Paso, TX, San Diego and Taft, CA. (Be forewarned though, if you have a slow connection the page will take a while to load. There are over 40 pictures!)
Everyone always wants to know how liv travels, so I took a short video of her "talking". This is what she does the whole way...


The cry at the end is unusual, she didn't like the camera.

Here is Roswell:
Creepy Area 51 "crash victim":



We stopped in El Paso to see our friends the Koagels and meet baby Gabby for the first time. (Thanks for the hospitality guys, we can't wait to do it again sometime.)



How disgusting is this!?



Matt with the Saguaro cactus in the Arizona desert:

We drove up about five hours from San Diego to see Grandpa Dennis and Rio. They have a grandson that let us borrow his Spiderman Slip n Slide to cool off from the 105 degree heat (Thanks Ren):
Becca and Tess fell asleep this way:
All the girls cuddling with Grandpa Dennis:

Here are the girls with Rio:
Matt's Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jay came up to see us and meet the girls. We hadn't seen them since our wedding, so it was a nice time:
We went for a walk on the pier and the girls wanted to pose with the surf boards. You can kinda see them down there:

Hangin out with Uncle Ryan:

Standard San Diego pic:
Awww night night:
Grandma had a very cool pool to play in:
Grandma Barbara was teachin the big girls to play drums:
We went to Legoland for the first time while we were there this time:




San Diego has a really cool kids hair salon "Pigtails and Crewcuts". I took the girls there to get there hair done for Sean (Matt's little brother) and Pamela's wedding:


The finished product: (Photo taken by Ren's dad Emil Brown. Thanks Emil.)




The Noyce brothers:
Tia being flower girl with her ring bearer partner:
All the groomsmen: (4 out of the 5 are Noyces)
Sean and Pamela's first dance:

We stopped at the cliffs in Pacific Beach on our way out of town. Here's a pic Matt took from the bottom.

That's it for now. The girls start school on Tuesday...Tia's going to Kindergarten and Becca will be starting 2nd grade. They got to meet there teachers yesterday and are very excited now for school to start. In the meantime we are going to enjoy the tiny bit of summer we have left.