summer ends and fall begins...

Well, summer is officially over and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Dylan took swim classes, enrolled in the summer program for Preschool of Rock and went camping for a second time. Swim classes went fine, though they were just a quick course to get comfortable with the water. That much we accomplished so the next round of swim lessons should hopefully introduce the actual swimming part. Preschool of Rock was really fun and I'm sad I don't have the time to keep taking Dylan on Friday mornings. We both enjoyed the singing, dancing, and drum circles once a week.

The first picture below is from the camping trip -- it's John and Keith throwing Dylan back and forth. The place we chose this year had this amazing pool. Our camping group grew to include all the Moreira siblings: Tia (Victoria) and John, Seb and Lala (Lisa), and then 3/4th of the Gonzalez siblings, with Alexa and Bri and their two little ones, Melissa and Brendan, and their brother Jason. They would have had a full crew if Jason hadn't forgotten to invite his twin brother Christian, who he also lives with. :)

After the camping trip we spent a week at the beach with the Mason family. The beginning was a little rocky because the three of us were sick with some sort of flu. Thankfully, no one caught the bug from us during the trip. Keith's turned into pulmonary bronchitis and he spent a few days in bed. Dylan had been the first to get sick so he was the first get better and he enjoyed the entire week playing with his cousins who were so cute and so nice to him (they let him play cards with them and even win at Go-Fish). As usual, we enjoyed our nightly ice-cream runs, we made trips to the aquarium, the boardwalk and played lots of game since the week was a bit rainy. Once I was feeling 100% I got to play tennis with my niece Bryanna and got a haircut from my niece Kayla.

We squeezed everything we could out of summer. A weekend at LBI with the Kurz's, some quality time with the Hallers, some road trips, lots of family time, and an appropriate amount of BBQ-ing. We had a little hurricane party at my parents after my brother and sister were evacuated from Hoboken and are lucky that nobody's homes were impacted too much from Irene. Our town was pretty devastated though -- weeks later there are still schools that never opened and homes with all their stuff on the front yard from all the flooding, so we were lucky.

And now that it's Fall, Dylan started preschool. I signed him up for two days a week at a Co-op preschool so I will be in the classroom with him once a month as a teacher's aide. I'm looking forward to this experience and actually being in class with him. All the moms got together at a playground date so the kids could meet before school started. I was so sad that I had to work but my friend Mindy was wonderful enough to take Dylan to play with the other kids. So his first day of school went pretty smoothly since he already knew other kids. So far, he's had one week of school -- that went pretty well, except that he immediately got sick and stayed home on his third day of school. The pictures below are from his first day of school. So far he likes it. He's also started soccer on Saturday mornings and though he was a bit overwhelmed on his first day, he did play a little more on his second day and hopefully he'll start to warm up to it and have fun. He's in the soccer class with his new good friend Ian ... we seem to have a budding bromance on our hands. Ian is a friend of the family and another little bi-lingual Uruguan boy who lives 10 minutes from our house. It's a perfect match for playdates.

summertime fun

Summer has been great so far. We got back from our trip to SF and got serious about potty-training, which went really well and Dylan picked up really quickly.

In May, I graduated from my Masters program at Rutgers (am now finishing up the PhD), we celebrated Keith's birthday, and Keith completed several long races.

In June, Keith and I got to see Phish a couple of times, Keith's family had a family picnic, we all participated in a brain tumor walk in honor of Carly Nelson and we joined the Cranford Community Pool.

In July, we went to the beach at LBI to visit our friends Chuck and Jane. We celebrated my sister's birthday, we went up to Rochester to visit Uncle Kenny and Aunt Lisa. Dylan started his Preschool of Rock music class on Fridays, and Keith signed up for the New York Marathon. He did not make the lottery drawing -- another way to qualify for the marathon is by raising money for a charity so he has been accepted by the Brain Tumor Foundation Team and has been fundraising for them and training hard. You'll find the link to his fundraising page below. We're so proud of him!

here's the link to donate in honor of Carly and in support of Keith's marathon training: http://www.crowdrise.com/teambtf2011/fundraiser/keithmason

Also, we have had some fun times at Tio Ney and Tia Valeria's pool in South Plainfield, birthday parties, showers, watching Keith play softball and hanging out with the Haller family. Yesterday, July 24 -- Uruguay won the America's Cup in Soccer and Dylan jumped, cheered and high fived through the game and took to the streets of Elizabeth with his grandparents and aunts and uncles to go celebrate.

Coming up we have swim lessons for Dylan starting tonite, a camping trip, hopefully a trip to Sesame Place, some more beach time with the Mason family. Despite the crazy heat waves, the summer has been cool and we want it to last as long as possible!!

Lilith Fair

We took Dylan to his first concert last weekend, the Lilith Fair. It was a beautiful day thanks to that month-long heat wave finally breaking. Though it was a little hot in the sun, once it started to go down a bit, it was a perfect evening for live music. We went with my friend Gina who is on an extended stay in NJ, having left her home in London to have her baby here in September before she moves to Lebanon. So it was nice to catch up with her and be around a nice big baby belly for the day. We also got to see "Grandma" who had been there early for a special lunch with her friend Kathy. The music was very mellow most of the show. Not too much dancing, unfortunately, but lots of relaxing. The Indigo Girls were the highlight and we left after their set because our little man was falling asleep at around 10pm. I'm glad we got to take Dylan to his first concert and saw that he had fun. I'm also glad it was at the PNC (Garden State) Arts Center where we've seen so many concerts, and I even remember seeing a play there on a grammar school field trip (about Jackie Robinson). That place is kind of special to us and it's so close to home. Now that we've been camping and to a concert and saw that Dylan liked both, a camping music festival seems like the next logical step...