The short take...

We're enjoying a crazy summer (already), before Kate starts Kindergarten (ALREADY!!?) this fall. Our kids are so much fun, and we are SO blessed!

If you want to browse our pictures, you can do so at our new Google Picasa album).

October 25, 2008

Kate's September pictures are posted in her section now...enjoy! Hope everyone's having a nice weekend! We'll get October pictures posted as soon as Halloween is over; we wouldn't want to miss her costume now, would we? ;)

October 24, 2008

Well, Kyla's business trip was good, though she had a pile of work waiting when she got back! Though she was able to make that work up impressively quickly, since then they've had so much work come in so rapidly that she hasn't been able to slow down enough to even really be able to address "normal" day-in, day-out office stuff! But we've been making a strong effort to really slow down in the evenings and just enjoy time as a family.

Kate has really entered the full "playful" age now- she loves chasing us and teasing us to chase her, or just rolling around on the ground...she's so much fun! She's doing just awesome at preschool, except for the first day Kyla was back from her trip; she was so clingy that she didn't want to let go of mommy! They're going to get to do some fun Halloween activities next week though, so that should be fun!

Well, we heard from Daniel after his FINAL CHECKRIDE of this part of his training- he passed with flying (pun intended) colors, with a score of Excellent! So he's got a (very) few flights left, but they're mostly fun-type flights; not really for a score or anything. Then he gets to go through Track Select and see what type of craft he'll be flying for the next however many years! We're so happy for him, and excited to hear about all the stuff he's been doing, but just hearing everything will wear you out, believe me! Anyway, we can't wait to see him again this Thanksgiving!

Papa's still at my aunt's house; we've had very little contact with him, so it sounds like he's having a great, relaxing time! He'll have some more color on the trees to come home to than there was when he left though! Funny thing though, we went up on the mountain last weekend to try and find some colorful fall trees, and there were hardly any to be found! Most of the leaves were still on the trees (surprising, given the wind we'd been having), but they were almost all brown! So, other than here in town, no colors this year! (how often does THAT happen!?)

Well, I hope all your fall plans are going great and that everyone's healthy! We'll see you next time!

(P.S. I'd uploaded some photos in Kate's section, but it came to my attention this weekend that I hadn't linked them into the feed or anything. So head on over there and enjoy the pictures you probably haven't seen yet...those of July and August).

October 10, 2008

Another week has come and gone! They really are flying by! We've had a good week; Kyla's mom was up here from Sunday through Wednesday, and we had a great visit. This weekend, Michael's grandparents are coming into town for a delayed birthday celebration for Val, so it'll be great to be able to spend some time with them, too!

Papa is up visiting my aunt and uncle for a few weeks, hopefully getting some time to relax and get some fishing done! Ruby (for those of you who know her) is back home from the hospital and doing really awesome recovering from her surgery- better than anyone would have guessed was possible after a surgery like that!

Kate is doing amazingly well at preschool- she really loves going now! When you ask her in the morning if she wants to go to preschool, she runs over to the door all excited. Since it's now jacket weather, she's mastered getting that on and off (with help, of course), but still loves playing outside as much as ever. Her ability to communicate grows by the day, with new words and signs...and she's being able to mimic sounds we ask her to repeat amazingly well.

Kyla's getting ready to leave on a business trip this weekend- she'll be gone leaving Daddy and Kate together alone for a record amount of time; part or all of 5 days! We'll all miss each other, but it should be a good relaxing time for her, and a great fun time for Michael and Kate!

Hope you all have a great weekend...think snow! ;-)
(...after Kyla's left on her trip, that is)!

October 04, 2008

Well, summer has ended here, though it did so with such speed, we're really not sure what happened! But October is here, and as all the trees are beginning to show us, it's fall. It sure makes getting up in the morning tough though, as the sun keeps rising later and later!

Well, we're all keeping quite busy, between work, preschool, church and other extra-curricular activities, but we're doing just great. Kate has, even just in the past week or so, really started enjoying preschool to the point where she almost doesn't complain when we drop her off in the mornings! We always knew that she was doing great during the day, but she sure knew how to break our hearts when we put her down in the morning. Now when we put her down, she looks for some of her friends, and starts playing with toys. Her teachers have been great- and it's fun when, more than once a week, she gets to bring home some crafts that they've done that day- usually having something to do with handprints or fingerprints, which make them all the more special!

She's learned other things from preschool, too...things that make life interesting like grabbing something away or not letting us take something she wants...we're getting the first of the selfish side of childhood for the first time, but she knows that we win and usually gets over any fit she tries to throw pretty quickly. It's been an interesting process, though. She can really communicate anything she wants to, now. She's known "no" (shaking her head) for a while now, but she recently picked up "yes" (a little nodding, but usually it's spoken ya-ya). She points to and says "ma-ma" or "da-da" correctly now, though she thinks it's great fun to say the other name than you're trying to get her to say at the time. (say ma-ma, kate...DA DA!) But she'll also repeat almost any sound you ask her to imitate, and she's picking up on some key sounds (bath, thank you, etc). She's got both "food" and "sleep" down, and asks for them correctly when it's mealtime or bedtime.

Well, since we last posted on here, Kyla and Kate have been to Florida and back, visiting Kyla's dad at his house down there. Michael couldn't get the time off to come, but Kate loved the trip, and especially the beach! Daniel has continued to excel in his current program, despite obstacles and stubborn instructors. In fact, right now he's on his first of several cross-country flights! We got to talk to him tonight, it sounds like he's doing great, but he sure is working hard! He said that this flight is more what he expects flying is "supposed" to be...it was long enough he could actually relax and enjoy it! All they've had them doing 'till this point were things like emergency maneuvers, bad weather flying, formation flying (though that one has to be cool in its own right, too)...not exactly what you'd expect to be doing on every flight! So it sounded like it was good to get some "real-life" experience.

Before too many weekends pass here, we'll have to get out and look at all the leaves before they blow off the trees, but for this weekend Michele is coming up for a few days for the beginning of her fall break, so I'm sure we'll all be keeping busy doing fall-ish things! And laundry...it's still a weekend after all ;-) So it'll be a good weekend, but a busy one- Michael's even on at church this weekend. Anyway, I hope all your summers have been great and we wish you a wonderful fall!

(By the way, lots has changed around the website here under the hood, but it'll ultimately serve to make it easier to keep it updated...hopefully we'll be able to get back to the Friday afternoon updates every week. We're also using some of the new features that are coming out in the new Internet Explorer, so keep your eye out for all that when it gets released...the Short Takes at the top of this page, for instance, are now web clips so you can tell without even visiting our site generally how we're doing! There's a few side effects though, too; if you get our updates via RSS, note we've got a new address for our feed: http://www.mkgarrison.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss . Also, the older posts are now organized by month, rather than all being dumped on one big page, so it should make it nicer. But let us know if something doesn't work...it's a lot of work bringing all my antequated codes up to snuff, and I'm sure I missed something!)