The McPherson Chronicles

Our shortest summer ever came to an end quickly. Starting school two weeks earlier this year really made the summer feel short. But, we're back in the swing of things and 4th and TK are underway! The girls are once again in separate classes and it's no big deal. They have each teacher 50% of the day so their work and homework is identical. Ms. Rodriguez was their Spanish teacher in first grade so they were very familiar with her. Mrs. White was also a first-grade teacher but not in DLI. So far, things are going ok. The homework isn't too challenging or time-consuming and they're already way ahead of their AR goals. The teachers definitely seem to be more strict and serious this year so it's been a bit of an adjustment. I think the girls have resigned themselves to that fact that this year just might not be as fun as the past few years have been. Hopefully, things turn around and the teachers and students settle in and lighten up a little. We'll see...

With the move, Kevin's trip, the girls' trip, and life, in general, we only had time for one trip to the beach this year. We made the most of it and had a great day though. Until next summer!

The girls went on their first big adventure this summer! They went to Arizona to spend a week with Auntie Sarah, Uncle Tim, and the boys. They were beyond excited when they found out about the trip and never thought twice about if they would miss us or their brother. I knew they would be fine and knew they would have the best trip. So excited and ready to go! The three amigos on the road to Auntie's house! Auntie Katie and Lizzy were driving out to Arizona for the weekend anyway so the girls hitched a ride with them on Friday afternoon and loved spending the weekend with them too. The rest of the week the girls spent helping with the boys, baking with Auntie, crafting up a storm and watching movies. They got to go to Legoland Discovery Center too, which they loved. We sent them along with an old cell phone where they could text us on wi-fi and take photos and videos of their trip. It was their first experience with a cell phone of their own and a test to make sure the...

So as part of Kevin's MBA program, there was an international trip included to London and Germany. It was basically a two-week trip with travel and recovery time with the first half being in London and the second half in Germany. They got to do and see so many awesome things and even though he was absolutely exhausted nearly all the time, it sounds like he and his classmates had a wonderful and memorable trip that they will never forget. He can't wait to go back and spend some more time at some of the museums and other sites they had to rush through a bit. I'm so glad he was able to go! I knew he would be using the majority of his vacation time for this trip so we wouldn't be able to have the usual family vacation this year. So, I planned a trip to Big Bear with the kids, my parents and sister for the last week that he was gone. It made the time pass quickly and we had a great time up in Big Bear! The kids loved the boat tour we took of the lake and houses. Th...

Soooo we bought a new house! We had been looking around for a while and really got serious about things at the beginning of the year. After seeing quite a few houses we finally felt like we found the perfect place and luckily everything worked out that it is actually ours! It's in the neighborhood we really wanted, with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (both of which are INSIDE the house - you understand if you know our Sunnyside house) and a pool and spa!! We are so excited and grateful that things worked out the way they did. Here are a few of the listing photos. We ended up moving during the hottest week of the year. We originally were going to move the weekend after 4th of July, but the weather was up to 115 degrees plus that weekend so we decided to just spend our 4th moving. It actually went pretty quickly and we were mostly in and spent our first night on the 4th. I'm so glad to be done moving. It is definitely not my favorite thing to do. Packing is tedious, m...

The girls continue to amaze us with their bicycling. They are already pro's at it. They go round and round the driveway without crashing, for the most part. They don't even need to stop and have become coordinated enough to use their brakes and ring their bells at the same time. I'm still amazed at how quickly they picked up on the whole thing.  Here's a video of them from a couple days ago.

Kevin's work was selling LA Galaxy tickets for a game two weeks ago and we decided to gather up a group of family and friends and take the girls. I had never been to a professional soccer game either and thought it was a lot of fun. Our seats were great, the game was quick and easy to follow/explain to the girls so all-in-all we had fun. Even Andrew had fun cuddling with Tina & Tawnya for a majority of the game.

The girls went on their first field trip a couple of weeks ago. Their class went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The girls were so excited about the trip from the time they heard about it and couldn't believe they would finally get to ride on a school bus. Yes, this was the most exciting part for them. They had a great day with their class and spent most of the trip with their friend Lily and her mom and grandma. Lily's mom even bought the girls little stuffed jellyfish as a souvenir. They told us about all the different sizes and colors of fish that they saw along with the penguins. When we asked what their favorite part was it was the school bus ride. Go figure. The worst part of the day for Olivia was leaving behind her lunch with uneaten chips in it. She apparently wasn't finished with the chips, which they normally don't get in their lunch. After a long, tiring day, seeing that other kids got their uneaten lunches back and hers was missing was pre...

We had the girls' parent-teacher conference last week. It was kind of exciting to hear what the teacher saw in the girls when we're not around and how they interact with the other kids. Mrs. Tiffany was very complementary of the girls. She said behavior-wise she has absolutely no complaints and thinks they are angels. She loves how sweet they are to each other and told us about a week when Olivia was having trouble opening her lunch containers without spilling her food. Each time she would spill her sandwich on the ground, Lucy would immediately jump in and say, "it's alright, sister. You can share my sandwich" and everything was solved. She also loved how they can work things out for themselves. On their day to host snacks, Olivia was getting ahead of Lucy in passing out to most of the kids. Lucy complained and asked if she could have a turn giving snacks out and they quickly decided that they would each pass snacks out to 3 kids before it was sister's turn. ...

The girls have had their bicycles for a little over a year now and are about to grow out of them, if they haven't already. We explained to them that they will need to learn to ride without training wheels next. They were so excited about it that they asked Kevin to remove the training wheels right away. While he was at it, he took off the pedals too so they could really just get used to balancing on the bikes first. They made tremendous progress in just a week! They pushed off for a couple of steps and then lifted their feet up to glide. Their balance improved fast and they were so excited to get home and practice every night. The girls asked Kevin to put the pedals back on after a week and he finally did a few nights ago. I was inside among dinner when Olivia ran in and said, "come outside and bring the camera". I had no idea what they were even doing out there. Outside the girls were riding their bikes without training wheels. It was amazing! Kevin didn't have to ...

We decided to get San Diego Zoo/Safari Park passes for the girls' birthday. We went for the first time on Saturday. I hadn't been since college and the girls had never been to this zoo. It was a fun little day trip just to get us out of the house and down to San Diego. We started the day visiting the flamingo's who were much more active than I expected. The girls loved watching them stand on one leg, dig around in the sand, and squawk and then gather together and race walk back and forth across the enclosure. They laughed and laughed at those silly pink birds. We meant to go to the gorillas next but somehow walked all around the monkeys and missed the gorillas. Instead we checked out the elephants, had some lunch and then went on the skytram for some amazing views of the zoo, Balboa Park and San Diego. The girls loved being up in the air and giggled the whole time. We let the girls burn off some energy at the little playground they have there where...