This Week in Pictures

Mostly last week and a tiny bit of this week. Pictures have to be worth all the words usually found here. Summer is less about narrating than it is about doing. Sustaining blogativity will likely be a matter of my natural reflex to slip a camera between me and the good stuff.

Addie had a cold, but fun time at her end of the year class picnic. The treats were the best part.



When we came home, she and I considered the garden and hoped things would bloom soon.



The next day, our hopes were realized.






That same day, face-painted Cate had a blast at her own end of the year class picnic, as did I, as team coach of the single-bean-on-a-plastic-spoon transport challenge.




Which takes us to the next day, in which we thoroughly enjoyed an evening our local zoo set aside purely for the enjoyment of people with disabilities and their families. We ran into a lot of people we knew while soaking up the animal oogling and the peaceful twilight zoo train ride.





Addie was riveted by the traditional zoo attractions, but was not certain what to make of the blue-haired, stilted, woman with a high pitched voice.





After yet another sun/moon swap-out, it was time to say goodbye schoolyear, hello summer. Addie seemed to understand she would not see some of her favorite ladies for a while. The first is her classroom teacher and her idol. In the second, she is a bit more concerned with watching the shadow of her feet, but she sits on the lap of her special ed teacher, whom we all adore because she sees Addie with complete clarity and therefore demands the best from her.




Cate looks jubilant here as the final bell of 4th grade rang, but what she was unaware of then was the firecracker of celebration-worthy news she held on her back, in her pack, sealed in an envelope. Later we all whooped it up as we perused the girl's BEST REPORT CARD EVER! Now she too, knows what she is capable of.



Below, everyone awaits the arrival of Cate and Addie's 2nd family to pick them up. The Bautista's took them on an overnight adventure so Michael and I could have a lovely evening to ourselves (this is a "before" of Michael - he just went for a run and was to clean up for our dinner on the river just after the photo. K, pal? Good enough disclaimer to still post it?).



And the best event of all, according to our Fish Called Addie - we made it to "her" pool for the first time this season! She was so relieved that her joy still existed, that the beginning of hours a day in the water finally arrived. And Cate wasn't too broken up about it, either.




The girls are used to being able to splash around in our little pool at home after we get back from the big pool, but it is in disrepair and will probably require complete replacement. So we hauled out the...Slip n' Slide...by Whammo! (if you're old enough, you hear the mail order commercial in your head when you read that). Addie found it to be naught more than a really unnecessarily elaborate drinking fountain. Cate gave it a try a few times, but was still a bit ginger about it. The biggest kid in the house, the birthday boy of this week, seemed to enjoy himself to Addie's delight, though. Click on the photo so you can see Addie's gob open wide in amazement.




Better go charge the camera battery, we've got a fresh week to devour.