We once again had a huge garden. Here is Cassie planting what was to become the greatest potato crop we've ever had.
Cassie and Takumi took gymnastic classes for a week at the very beginning of the summer. Here is Cassie on the balance beam.
And here's Takumi on the parallel bars.
Cassie and Takumi once again had some wonderful weekends at the Farm. Here they are with my uncle David.
Takumi is now good enought at ping-pong that he is fun to play with. I think our volley record is now (as of Christmas 2007) at 20.
Takumi and Cassie got to meet my cousin Chris and have a big family dinner at the Farm.
The kids still spend lots of time reading. Takumi is very proud to be reading his first "chapter book."
We dragged Marin along to the Chinese Cutlure Weekend in the middle of July. It was really great that she could be there with the kids since I was working most of the weekend.
Takumi and Cassie really like foosball. Here Takumi is playing with Marin and the daughter of one of Marin's best friend's from high school who came to camp to teach Chinese brush painting!
Cassie found three other households of girls who know the "Sing and Dance with Mei Mei" DVD. Here they are doing the dance for "Pull the Carrot."
Cassie got to try her hand at brush painting.
Camp Common Ground started in late August. Most people come for one of the four week sessions. I took a week of vacation and attended Week 2 with the kids. However, the kids came every day all of the other weeks as well. I would bring them to work with me in the morning and they'd do the morning kids program. We'd eat lunch together (sort of - because if Cassie got the chance to eat with her boys (the teen-agers who were so patient and nice to her) then Mom was a very distant second choice). After lunch Lois came and picked them up so I could work in the afternoon when the rest of camp did family stuff.
Takumi always chooses a snake when he can. He is very proud to be the year of the snake and have the character for snake in his name.
Cassie and Takumi had a great time in the water. This is Clifford Pond - a beautiful pond in Starksboro that is privately owned and very generously shared with the community.
Here is Jim trying to escape from Monster Cassie. There is no hope!
Here is Dew giving Takumi the thumbs up after he rode his bike in the big show. Takumi learned to ride his two wheeler by himself at camp. He was very excited and wore his helmet constantly. Someone at camp came up and asked me if it was true that he slept in his helmet!
We took all of our yukatas for the Big Show one week and taught everybody how to do an Oh-bon dance. It was a lot of fun.
That was the same week that we sang Little Bunny Foo Foo for the Big Show. Cassie was the Good Fairy with David swinging her down. Takumi and his friend Clayton were field mice (Takumi was very excited to have an excuse to wear his bicycle helmet). I was Little Bunny Foo Foo.
Cassie and Takumi wanted to dress up to go to town. It is a lot of fun to walk around town with the two of them!
Here are two of Cassie's favorite people - David and Charlie.
Here is Takumi with potato ears and of course his bike helmet!
My uncle Don Paul came and visited much to the kids' excitment.
Takumi proudly riding through the corn field in back of our house.
Don Paul and the kids posing by the sunflowers.
The end of summer and the first day of school! Cassie started kindergarten and Takumi started first grade. They both love school. Takumi was taken off of his IEP (Individual Education Plan) in October. He was put on because he was more than two years behind on his speech at 3 years old. Because of this, he has received speech therapy through the Special Education Department each week since he was three. While he is still behind on his speech, he does not show "adverse effect" - in other words he does well in school and so no longer has an IEP. His teachers and the school feel that it would be good for him to continue speech therapy for at least this year. While I am not really worried about his schoolwork, I really don't want him to get behind because I think he tends to shut down if he thinks things are too hard.
The bus stops right in front of our house. We are almost at the end of the route. The bus goes up the road for about a half mile and then turns around and comes back. The bus only takes about five more minutes to get to school then I would so they are only on the bus for about 20 minutes.
Cassie proudly showing off her new ballerina outfit from her cousin Elizabeth. She's standing on the lawn at the Farm.