"brave"

  Disney/Pixar was a big sponsor at a small Highland Games and Dance Competition in June. After the dancing, they lined up many of the dancers for a archery photo, since the main character in the film is a princess from Scotland who is good at archery.

Shortly after that, dancers from out school were invited to perform at 3 pre-screenings of the "Brave" movie. Erin and Kate danced at one of the screenings, and had a piper to accompany them.

 First the danced in the lobby as the people were lined up behind ropes.

Then they danced in the theater before the film started, and we could then stay and watch the movie for free. Dancing has it's perks.

braces no more

As we hoped at her check up in July, it was determined that Erin didn't need to wear head gear any longer. But much to her surprise and to mine, the doctor said she didn't need anything else either and everything was to be removed at that visit: expanders on both jaws, and braces too. She'd only had braces for about 6 months, apparently that was enough.

Just in time for our vacation and Erin was excited to know she'll be a fifth grader with no hardware. She had been wearing head gear at school for several months in fourth grade in order to speed up the progress. There are some spaces near the (baby) canines to make room for those adult teeth, and she may end up needing braces again later on when more adult teeth are in, but the work on correcting her upper and lower jaw shape is apparently finished for good.

But at that same visit I scheduled the twins' initial consultations for the following month. "You just don't want to stop coming here, do you?" said the doc.
"Or stop paying you," I added.

to the pool

We have a pool! And better yet, we have a pool without having all the work and expense of a pool. I decided we should join one of the private pools in the area so we'd have a place to take the kids to swim all summer. After checking out many, many options--some with waiting lists, some open, some new, some very old, some really close, some a little farther, some expensive and some cheap, we kind of settled on this place really for lack of a better idea since summer was rapidly approaching.

It's about 4 miles from home, it's clean and was cheap to join. It's open from April to October and we've had a good time coming here at least weekly for most of the season so far. We've also turned numerous summer playdates into swimming play dates for our kids and their friends.

During the Olympics, Allison decided to give her typical diving style some serious thought.

The pool is located near a good ice cream store, a nice excuse to stop for ice cream after swimming.

But our backyard does have some water fun too. Uncle Jeff sold his house and needed a home for his hot tub, so being the considerate family that we are, we decided to take it off his hands.