Here we are starting another school year. We can't believe Isabella is two and headed to day care and Lauren is headed off to 7th grade and off to Jr. High. It feels as though Russell and I just brought Lauren home and then Isabella. Time goes by so very fast. We often think if we blink Lauren will be driving and our baby will be in Kindergarten. We are not ready. For now we will try to take things one day at a time.
Lauren was very fortunate to be involved in such an amazing program her 5th and 6th grade year at River Trails. Mrs. Conley created a "Quilting Club" and taught girls and boys...yes boys how to quilt and all of the quilts the children create are donated to a program called The Linus Project. The quilts are donated to area children's hospitals. They set up at Cooks Children's this summer and invited Mrs. Conley to come up and bring what they had made. Lauren was invited along with her friend Taelor. It was rewarding for the girls to see all the other quilts donated and were actually able to watch children come down and pick out what they wanted. River Trails kids donated 16 quilts...that made me very proud. I can only imagine how Mrs. Conley felt. Without her the kids would not have experienced this amazing program. 
Mrs. Conley, Nate and Amelia were nice enough to invite Lauren, Isabella and I to the museum for the afternoon right before school started. The kids had a great time discovering all of the new things the museum had to offer. It was a great afternoon...thanks for sharing! I would have taken more pictures, but my camera ran out of batteries. :(
We always have our own family celebration in addition to the rest of our family and friends. Isabella 's presents from Lauren was a Strawberry shortcake video and doll, Russell and I gave her a new high chair for her doll babies. Later we had her party with her Aunt Melinda and Aunt Jennifer and all of her cousins. We still need to get her two year old pictures taken...time just seems to fly by.
On Friday we drove out to Boston to see the Rangers take on the Red Sox [we won :)]. We left early enough to do some site seeing, grab lunch and head down for a 7pm game. We had to get to the game 2 hours early so we could walk down Yawkey Way...it was crowded and so very hot. We quickly found our seats and even ran into a few other Rangers fans. We watched the Rangers warm up and my niece managed to get herself a ball...he noticed her Ranger hat, but she was wearing a Red Sox t-shirt...lol...what can you say my brother will always be a Texan. We tried to keep Isabella as busy as possible, I think she kept us all busy. Once the game started and we settled in the clouds moved in and in came a huge thunderstorm that WAS NOT in the forecast. Fortunately my brother was equiped with enough umbrellas and also rain coats...boy were we thankful. We left in between down pours...unfortunately we left before we saw our catcher make history by performing a cycle...I understand he is the first catcher to do this {single, double, triple, and a grand slam...and we missed it :(} we still had a great time!
My sister-in-law Kelly went to UCONN (University of Connecticut), which happens to be up the road from where they live so we took a quick drive up to see the farm and also the stables. Lauren and Isabella don't ever get to see an up close view of animals...boy did we enjoy it. Isabella's eyes were huge and kept saying horses, it was too cute. Luckily since UCONN has their own dairy farm we were able to enjoy their own homemade ice cream...as you can see we all enjoyed the yummy ice cream. Thanks Kelly for taking us to UCONN for the morning.
We spent a day and drove out to Rhode Island too see a few beaches...the first one we went out and had am awesome picnic and the girls flew some kites and walked out and saw the ocean. I did not get any pictures of us on the sandy beach...we were way too busy and having so much fun...maybe next time. :) 
