Our busy past 9 months?!!

Our poor neglected, abandoned blog. I have had the best of intentions to make an update, but somehow have not found the time to actually do it. So now while the baby is actually sleeping some place other than in my arms, I thought I would try to write something and to post some pictures.

The biggest change in our lives has been the birth of our third child. Spencer is now a month and a half old. Emma and Bryce have been wonderful with him. Much better than I could have imagined. Emma is often giving me suggestions on how best to help Spencer and she is very often right. She was the one who discovered that classical music is surprisingly soothing to him. She also tricks him out of fussing sometimes by saying "waa, waa!" right back to him. Bryce too helps take care of the baby. He will sit next to him in the car and perform the duties of "pass patrol" (i.e. putting the pacifier back in the baby's mouth if he starts to cry). Spencer is smiling quite a bit now and the smiles, along with the cute cooing sounds he makes bring me a surprising amount of joy.

Emma and Bryce have also changed and accomplished much since our last posting. They both tear around the block on their bikes, much to my dismay, as I try unsuccessfully to keep up with them. Emma finished her first year of Kindergarten. She loves to both read and write. She is endlessly writing and illustrating new stories. I love to hear her read to me and she often helps by reading to Bryce when I am busy. Bryce finished his first year of preschool. He now proudly writes his name. He is such a social kid. I have no clue where he got that from, definitely not from me. When we go to the park he always seems to make new friends, going up to other kids (even big kids). I hope he will always be so friendly. Even on my grumpiest days he never fails to give me a hug and tell me he loves me and that I'm his best friend.

Our busy August 2008

August is our birthday month, so we were busy putting on 2 birthday parties and making cakes, etc. But there were also some other fun things that happened this month: we had our Griffin family reunion in Sacramento, we drove to Roaring Camp to visit Thomas the train, we went to the Ringley Bros, Barnun & Bailey circus in San Jose, and Emma began Kindergarten. So all in all, both a busy month and a very fun month. Here are some of the photos we took of the festivities.

Everett Family Reunion, Park City

We had a really great time with Becky's family in Park City last month. We were able to rent a big enough cabin to fit us all comfortably -- a real feat, considering there were something like 23 people. Surprisingly, we were able to coordinate the activities so that nearly every day, all of us were able to go to the activities together.

One day we visited the Park City resort, where we rode the alpine slide, the alpine coaster (kind of like a roller coaster build on the mountain), and the smaller children bounced around on these kind of enhanced trampolines that made you bounce higher than usual. Some even tried out the zip line spanning several hundred yards.

Another day, we all congregated by a lake, where we played football, and some games the smaller children enjoyed. But the most intense activity of the day was capture the flag. Among other interesting aspects, the game included jail breakouts (legally and illegally), spies (my team would have won had Jessica -- an 'observer' -- not tipped off our entrapment of Nate, leading to a mass jail breakout), covert operations (Jeremy took off his shirt & tried to imitate the local fisherman to get close to the flag), police investigations (the 'real' police -- what would an Everett reunion be without one), and injuries (Nate and Jeremy at least). The game eventually ended in stalemate after an hour and a half.

Also, it snowed. Emma and Bryce's first experience in the snow -- in June. Fortunately, it was just one day -- I think we packed a windbreaker for each of us. 3 days after that, it was 95 degrees. Um, I think we'll stay in California. But I must say, it was very fun for a day; we made snowmen, snowballs, and got to use the hot-tub outside in the snowy weather.