My trip to Long Beach went really well. The highlight, of course, was being able to spend a few hours with my good friend Vanessa who lives out there. We ate at a restaurant overlooking the hollywood sign. (Oh, the conference was good, too.)

I returned from my trip around midnight on Saturday-exhausted. I was excited to see Zoey in the morning, but I still made Tyler get up with her. She came into my room, said hi (just like always) and went on with her day. Ah!

When I went back to school on Monday, it was the start of Homecoming week--Pajama Day! Zoey and I both dressed in our I love LA gear. It was pretty comfortable! I wish I could wear pj's to work everyday. (It wasn't as fun running errands after work, though.)

This picture should have been blogged awhile ago. It is Zoey and I celebrating my birthday (Sept. 8th) at TGI Friday's where we had a nice family dinner.

Today, Zoey put on her party hat and she and I drove to Rochester to help celebrate both Aiden and Kiera's birthdays. Aiden is 3 and Kiera is 1. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Zoey had a great time playing with all the kids and I had fun catching up with my friends.

A picture that once again proves the point. . . it is hard to get babies to smile for a picture at the same time. . .or even at all.

Zoey and Daddy played with the camera a little when we got home.

Zoey was happy to be home at the end of our day.

Where are the Twins?

As you can tell, by the lack of blog updates, our family is back into the school year routine. It isn't that we don't have time to update the blog--it is that we don't have the energy. Ok, so it isn't quite that bad, but the beginning of the school year does take some adjusting too.

Tonight, Zoey started playing one of her favorite games--Turning on and off the TV. She has just recently added the "I don't know" sign and is using it for everything. Also--Uncle Rob doesn't believe me when I say that Zoey says his name all the time--so I left in the part where Zoey sees a picture of Rob on the comptuer screen.

Here is an update of our past two weeks:
Zoey loves her daycare. A colleage of mine has his son, Sean, at the same daycare. Sean and Zoey have become good buddies--getting into trouble when ever they can. Apparently they like to sneak down the hallway together at daycare and try to open doors. I wish I could be a fly on the wall to watch those two together.

I am having a great start to my school year. I have been doing a lot of data collection. I am looking forward to when I get to start working with kids again. Next Wednesday, my district is sending me to Long Beach, CA for a conference. I am excited to get away for a while and hoepfully enjoy some nice California weather for a few days, but I am sad that I have to be away from Zoey for 4 nights.

Tyler has started at his new job and is settling in. I don't want to speak for him, so I will let him write about his first 2 weeks of school at a later date.

Enjoy the weekend!

Happy Labor Day!

It is the last day before our family gets back into the regular daily routine of work and daycare. To tell the truth, I think we are all ready. But, I will miss spending so much time with Zoey. She is very happy at her new daycare home. There are lots of kids to play with. I am excited about all the challenges that my school year hold and just want to get started. Tyler is also ready to start in a new place. Hopefully neither of us will have the dreaded teacher dream tonight--you know, the one where I am yelling at the top of my lungs and all my students are just laughing and throwing things around the room. I hate that dream! To all our teaching friends out there--Here is to a great year!!!

To celebrate our last weekend before school starts we did almost nothing. It was great! Tyler and I did some school shopping on Saturday. I held the open house for our home on Sunday--and yes, I did have a real visitor (a nice couple moving up here from near Peoria, IL!), and today Tyler and I took Zoey to the park--TWICE! It was her lucky day. We finished our day by grilling and eating on our deck. Zoey helped set the table and clean up afterward. She loves helping out.

Ready, set, GO!

This picture was taken after we were all at the flower garden. Zoey took off and Tyler and I just stood there and watched her--wondering how far she would go before she became aware of not being near us. She went pretty far. She also climbed onto this playground toy all by herself. She was very proud.

I love Zoey's features. She always looks like she is taking in the world.

Look at those fingers fly on those keys.

 
Whala! My first blog entry is superb. 

I think I'll make an entry into the blog.

Zoey sees DaDa and Mommy blog so why not Zoey? 

I found the blog book again

Zoey looks at the blog book so much (and a little too roughly) so we tried to hide it to keep it in good shape. But she found it!