Bring on the fall!

Well the hot summer is FINALLY coming to an end, and we are so ready for football, school, and cooler weather!

The last few weeks have been a great end to our summer fun, and we have been blessed to spend it with the people we love the most. Mommy and Daddy went out to Las Vegas to celebrate a lot of family birthdays, including a late celebration of Daddy's big 4-0! We were joined by our friends Ruben and Jen, our wonderful "Buela," Diego, Juan, Jenny, Jonny, Lupe, Jerrie, Nicole, and her friend Nessa! What a FUN week it was! We stayed on the strip, ate at so many great restaurants, went to pool parties by day and fun nightclubs in the evenings, and have many "Vegas stories" to remember the trip by. :o)

 Sophie spent the week with G.G. and Big Mack and traveled to Fontana Dam for the weekend. She was so excited to ride on the Smokey Mountain Railroad, and came back with so many fun stories of her own about the people she met, swimming in the pool every day, riding on the boat cruise and seeing baby bears, and of course, the TRAIN! This girl is so interested in so many things. Her little brain is so full of curiosity and knowledge. I wish I had her retention! She remembers it all.

The last few weeks since have been spent getting ready for school! Sophie started gymnastics and she absolutely loves it. We've been twice to the gym with her teacher, Ms. Tiana (who Soph refers to as "Princess Tiana "of course.) She has done so well, and loves to be first in line, show off her front roll, and is already mastering new skills like pulling up on the parallel bars and walking on the balance beam. I think her favorite parts are wearing her sparkly leotards and getting stamps and suckers after class. Until she's 3, Mommy goes to class with her and does everything she does, so it's fun for me to be back in gymnastics jumping on trampolines and doing cartwheels again too. (Yes, I can still NAIL a cartwheel!) "Yay Mommy," Sophie says. :o)


We also went to Sophie's first wedding this past weekend. My God-sister, Claire married my elementary school friend Kevin Ott! It was a beautiful wedding and Sophie was a little under the weather, as are the rest of us, but she sniffled and sneezed her way through the whole night with a big smile as she watched the bride and groom at the ceremony, then danced the night away with G.G. and Big Mack at the reception. She got to stay out later than usual, but it was worth it to see her shagging with Big Mack to "Miss Grace" like I've done so many times. It brought tears to my eyes. We stayed until they cut the cake, had a few pieces of candy from the adorable candy bar, and took some gummy bears home in a "Kevin & Claire" koozie to remember the special night forever. Sophie is still talking about the wedding and what SHE wants to have when she gets married. We've also already had to explain to her that she can't marry Daddy because Mommy already has. :o)

We have had a lot of family time in the last few weeks. GranMarian came for a visit and met baby Ben, and then we celebrated G.G.s birthday with the whole family in Orangeburg. It was a great birthday present to us when G.G. announced she was getting a new car, so she sold her Murano to us, and we gave the Passat to Uncle Wes! Yay for new cars! Now Sophie can see out of the windows much better as she rides, and she told me she doesn't feel sick anymore in the car and likes "seeing the rainbows." I'm just thrilled to have rear air bags, air conditioning for her in the back seat, and a CD player that works! Woo Hoo! Happy Birthday to all of us! Now the fun task this week is visiting the DMV, calling the insurance company, switching titles and tags... I actually had to do a lot of this anyway since my whole wallet was stolen in Vegas. New military IDs, credit cards, social security cards, and a few others are on the agenda anyway, so why not do it all at the same time? Fun.


Last night marked the official kickoff of football season, and we are all so excited! We will have to take Sophie to her first game this year, but as for last night, we hired a new babysitter to come play so we could go watch the game with friends, and Leah and Sophie watched the game together and cheered for the Gamecocks at home with popcorn and garnet pom-poms! Sophie loved Leah immediately, and told me she showed her all of her toys and sang her every song she knew. I'm sure Leah was thoroughly entertained. She called me around bedtime and I was so worried something was wrong, but I heard Sophie just singing in the background. Turns out Leah WAS calling to tell me Soph had gotten so excited and run around so much she'd made herself sick. My silly girl told me, "I'm OK Mommy. I got a little sick, but I'm playing in the bathtub now. Have fun. I love you!"  What a nut.

So school starts back next week, and we met Sophie's new teacher, Mrs. Christie yesterday for lunch and she is precious! I can tell Soph will love her and we are going to get along so well. She brought Sophie a book and some clothespins with the letters of her name on them and told her she wanted her to learn the letters and the order they go in before class next week. Well, my Sophia took those clothespins, put them in the right order on the page, said "S,O,P,H,I,A! SOPHIA!" and handed it right back to her. Mrs. Christie just died. She told Soph she was SO impressed and she had a feeling she was going to be her favorite student. (But it's our secret.) :o)

Can't wait for all the fall fun to begin! We're off to a great start already!
See ya real soon! ☼