and in other family news . . .

. . . my brother is getting married in a few weeks.

my sister had a baby in July . . .

. . . and here he is:

Another all-boy family.

Ben's teeth: a progressive series

Raingutter Regatta

end of summer

It really bugs me how short our summers are. Don't the schools here understand that they should do things the way I did them when I was growing up? Summer break should be from around Memorial Day to Labor Day, right? Two months is just not long enough. And I don't agree with starting school in the middle of August when the heat is most likely to be the triple digit kind. Anyway, here are some of the things we were able to squeeze in that didn't get their own posts:

• Alex did Parks and Rec Basketball. This was the first sport he's been involved in that he specifically asked to do. He even made one basket and the coach's wife got video of it.

And, he saw someone else attempt this shot successfully so he thought he'd give it a try, too:

• Alex and Ben took a Grossology class one day where they dissected a squid, a sheep's eye, and a frog.
• We visited the KidSpace Museum in Pasadena for the first time. Fun little place, but crazy on free family night.
• Cousin sleepovers.
• Beach and pool days. Thank you to our friends who were generous enough to invite us to their pools and other fun activities!
• Our Netflix was pretty busy. We watched a lot of Mr. Bean, old Pink Panther cartoons, the old Batman movie from the 60's (that has a shot of the Los Angeles temple when they are flying in their helicopter), and the old Spiderman cartoons from the 60's.
• Alex and Benjamin started up piano lessons again. We had put them on hiatus when we moved almost a year ago. Now we are hearing a lot of Swans on the Lake and the Wigwam Song.

And here are a couple of pictures that should have been in earlier posts:

Airband 3

This has become a fun summer tradition. This year we were more casual with it and threw it all together about an hour or two before the "performance". The boys decided to do a pirate song called Stowaway. Charlie even acted as the stowaway who hides on the pirate ship, begs the other pirates to let him stay and eventually works his way to becoming the Captain. I forgot my camera and phone, so I am borrowing a friend's picture again. (Thanks Jennifer!)

Charlie has been a little obsessed with pirates lately. Here are a few of him just playing around at home. He can really wield a butter knife.

Another edition of Things I Initially Thought Were Fake:

So this has been around for a while, but it's new to me. I actually saw a spoof of it before I saw this and now the spoof makes much more sense.

Why does he remind me of a Wolfgramm?