Natalie's First Day - VPK

Today was Natalie's first day of VPK. I think she was excited because she hasn't been in the school type environment since July 10th, just before we left for Taiwan. We were very excited to watch her spell her name for the teacher, not every kid in her class could do that. For the first two weeks she is only going from 830-1130, the VPK portion, once mommy & daddy go back to work she will be there all day, along with Nicolas. And we know he is excited because the first thing he asked when we left was, "Where's Sissy?".

First Time at Seaworld

On Thursday we decided to take Nicolas to his first theme park. And because Se*world is our favorite we decided it was the best place to go. We all love the animals and the more relaxing environment than the other parks. Nicolas was in awe of the dolphins and stingrays and Shamu, of course Shamu. It was an extremely hot day so we did not stay as long as we wanted to, but we all have passes it won't be long before we go back.

A Visit from the D'Auria's

Yesterday we got to see the D'Auria's for the first time since we left. Natalie was all excited to see her friend Rebekka and Joe and I were excited to hang out with MaryBeth and Steve. The kids all got along well and were so cute together. It is funny because Nicolas seems to take a liking to all of Natalie's Asian friends and we wonder what he is thinking. Every time he sees an Asian friend they speak English not Chinese. :) But he makes the best of it. MaryBeth and Steve brought balloons for all the kids and you would have thought they brought them the world. They played with those balloons more than they played with anything else. All three of them got dressed up and danced to music, but it was so funny to watch Natalie and Rebekka with their dress up. They would go into Natalie's room and shut the door and tell Nicolas that boys aren't allowed. They would do dress changes and come back out, dance a bit and go back in for another dress change. I really didn't notice until the end of the night, but they had makeup on. Too cute! Daddy isn't crazy about the makeup-thing, but they are just playing and only 4. :)

Since it was raining we decided to bring the picnic table inside for the kids to sit at and eat and it worked out really well. They ate well and got to have cake, after they decide what color balloon on the cake they each wanted. The cake was beautiful, as you can see from the pictures. Thanks, MaryBeth and Steve for all the goodies. We had a great time!!

Nicolas' new bike

Natalie has her own bike, but Nicolas did not. So, daddy took Nicolas to pick out a bike. There is a guy, not too far from the house, who rehabs old bikes and sells them. Joe found Natalie's bike there and it is looks brand new, so he went there to look for Nicolas' bike. We figured the kids will not be on these small bikes forever so we might as well get second hand. They work just like new. Natalie was a little jealous that Nicolas' bike was a bit bigger, but we explained to her that boys bikes are bigger. She doesn't want to think that her little brother is bigger than her.

HGVC

I really want to catch up with all the pictures but some days are just too full with two kids. You wake up one minute and the next it is time to put the kids to bed. Anyway, here are a few shots of the visit to mommy's work, HGVC. As you can see everyone enjoyed meeting Nicolas and seeing Natalie again. It isn't like anyone was really excited to see me . . . .This week we will be visiting daddy's work and hopefully the pictures will be posted sooner than later.