a rut, it seems

okay, so it seems like i've been in a posting rut here. i'm just never in a posting mood anymore...not sure why. um, let me think. maybe it's because i am so BUSY????? at least that's how i feel. our schedule this fall is crazy. on top of it all, homeschooling lucas in kindergarten is taking more time than i anticipated. i'm loving it, though, really. not only is he learning a ton, i'm (re)learning right along with him. recently, we've learned about conservation of mass, the egyptians, the romans, weather...interesting stuff i tell ya. do you remember how many points there are on a snowflake?

i have a lot of catching up that i'm going to attempt to do here in the next week or two. for a start, i had the pleasure of taking a group of foreign exchange interns to seattle over the summer. i had a great time getting to know them, especially the girls, and hearing about their lives over in china. they are all top-notch students from excellent universities and i am excited for them to come back to the states to attend grad school. i miss hanging out with them and practicing my mandarin! as part of our seattle expedition, we got to go on the famous seattle duck tour, visit the space needle, go SHOPPING!, and go on a "special" tour of the UW athletic department. it was special because we got VIP treatment. it was personally-guided and we got to see/do some neat stuff like see the crew boats that were sent to the olympics in beijing, go through the football tunnel and step onto the husky stadium field. neat for me. here are just a few pictures from evelyn's and summer's cameras since i didn't have mine with me.

the whole gang

me and evelyn (such a cutie!)

me and summer at the hec edmundson pavilion at UW

at dinner with our new friends (look at elise the goofball!)

sweet lucas and emma posing for miss summer

emma's first horseback ride at our friend heather's house...she loved it!