Sophie Rides a Two Wheeler!

Today Sophie finally rode a two wheeler bike on her own! After three straight days of frustration and tears she finally got her confidence up and peddled hard. She was very proud of herself and so were we! 

And she's off! 

Lauren's First Day of Soccer

Sophie had no interest in doing soccer again, but we thought we'd give it a try with Lauren. She's a pretty coordinated kid and loves to kick a ball around the house. First lesson was a success! She did some dribbling and even scored her first goal.

GOAL!

Control with her friend Julia

First Day of School

The girls went back to school the day after Labor Day this year. Here are the cuties in front of our house. Lauren headed to her second year at the Toddler House and Sophie headed to her first day of Kindergarten! 

Wrapping up Summer

The sound of cicadas has been replaced by crickets chirping, so that must mean summer is coming to an end. It was a pretty great one though.

In July Aleen and I road tripped it up to Mass to visit Sallie. It was a long drive (preview of what was to come a few weeks later for our Maine trip) but so worth it to hangout with some great, old friends.

Sallie, Aleen & Me

And then in August we headed down to Va. for the weekend to drop Sophie off, who spend an entire week with my parents. We had the annual high school friends BBQ at my parents house with the whole gang, and most of the kids

Becky, Ari, Sarah, Jenny, Aleen, Lauren, Me, Bracy, Samantha

Lexi, Parker, Darby, Kaylee, Darby

 Sophie was also reunited with Lexi. Sarah and I are really forcing this best friend thing on them. We'll see where that ends up...

Lexi & Sophie

And then for the very last week of summer we trekked all the way up to Maine. All four of us packed in the car and headed to Bucks Harbor in Brooksville, MA and picked up a 40 ft. boat that was our vacation home for 5 days and nights. We sailed/motored around to Swan's Island, Mount Desert Island, and McGlathery Island before heading back to Brooksville.

We did a lot of exploring in intertidal zones. They were teaming with cool creatures, like these start fish that Sophie found. 

Sophie at the helm. It was tough navigating the waters with so many lobster pots, but there were a few spots where Sophie (and I) could steer for a bit and give Dave a break. 

Dave and the girls

The fam in Acadia National Park. Beautiful hike and breathtaking scenery. 

Sophie in front of a very cool, very big rock that was only visible at low tide. The tides were huge there. On this particular hike we started having to wade thought water and ended with vast rock to walk on (you can see in this pic). But the tide also comes back in pretty quick, so we couldn't linger for long. 

And that's it. The last hurrah of the summer. We tried to pack in as much as we could it and was a great one!