September's Stories

September has gone by surprisingly fast, probably because we've been keeping busy with school starting back up, Zach beginning T-ball, the nice fall weather coming, and establishing a new routine! I lost the charger for my camera's battery at some point during our exodus out West, and have yet to find it, hence the crummy pictures lately from my iPhone. (I suppose I should just be grateful I have something to use as back-up, but I miss my camera!) The other night we hit Cracker Barrel for dinner, and I thought all 3 looked cute in their little rocking chairs.  Cheese!

A few Saturdays ago we decided to visit the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, as we hadn't been back since Zach's 3rd birthday two years ago. It's really not that far away, all things considered-- maybe 45 minutes, and it's really quite nice. It's HUGE though-- it's more of a reserve where all of the animals live together in a huge enclosement, than the traditional zoo with each type in their own cage. I'm sure this way is much more environmentally correct.

Besides being enormous, the other problem is that it is soooooo hot here. When you're walking miles to see everything, you sweat and sweat and sweat. I'm so over living in a swamp! Luckily, we decided to buy an annual pass since we'd only have to visit twice for it to pay for itself, so we didn't feel pressure to see everything that day.

We stayed for a couple of hours and played and visited all the animals in the Africa part. My kids seemed more excited about the metal statues than the real animals. Go figure!

 Leah started majorly melting down, and we knew it was a good time to move on.

We checked out the monkeys, snapped one more picture, and got the heck outta there before Mt. Leah erupted. At least we now have another place to add to our list of Things-To-Do on weekends, and another place to go with visitors. I think they are getting tired of Costco and Chick fil A, ha, ha!

Zach is doing SO WELL with preschool this year! Hooray! I hope I don't jinx it, but so far it's night and day from his experience last year. We just passed the point where I ended up pulling him out, and so far he's learning his letters, liking his teachers, and making lots of new friends. Just this last Saturday he asked if he was going to preschool that morning, and when I told him "no," he said, "Aw, man! I wanna go to preschool!

I don't know if you can read this, but here's what Zach says: "I would like to have five cats. I would call them Sun Rootbeer, December, Zach, Pencil Reader, and Dogger. I would feed them cat cookies." They did a unit on pets, and mind you, this hung on the bulletin board outside of the class. I wonder what the heck his teacher thinks I feed him for breakfast. He cracks me up!

He started playing T-Ball this month, and it has been really, really fun for him. He's naturally kind of shy, so between preschool and this, he's definitely coming out of his shell more. His coach is super easy-going and nice, so it's just been all about having fun. They had their first game last night.  

 Of course Lucy and Leah came to be cheerleaders-- okay, just kidding, Leah came to crawl into the busy street and shove old cigarette butts into her mouth that she found in the dirt. Aaahhhh! She's our craziest one yet. And that's saying something! 

Zach played great! His first time up at bat he swung so hard and missed, that he whirled around in a circle and landed in the dirt. Classic. Luckily the next swing he knocked it to the pitcher's mound and made it to first base. I can't believe how fast these little guys are growing up!