End of summer

I can't believe it, but there are only 2 days before I go back to work. I've really enjoyed this summer, actually, but I'm ready to get back to a routine. Routines are good. Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been really busy, so I wanted to write about all the fun things we did.

Last weekend, my mother in law came home from her mission! We were really excited to go see her so we drove over on Saturday afternoon. It was so good to see her again. We've missed her a lot! We visited for a little while and then we went to bring Gabby back (we had her over night on Friday night) to Ben and Nina's. After we dropped Gabby off we stopped at Office Max to get a couple things I needed. As we pulled into the parking space, the car lurched forward. Dan couldn't get it into drive or reverse, so we had to call AAA. We knew it was probably the transmission because we'd seen some signs that it was not good. My mom came and picked up all of us except Dan and Dan's mom came and followed the tow truck to the garage and then brought him home.

We didn't really want to put a whole bunch of money into the van because we've had a lot of trouble with it. So Dan started looking into other vehicles, especially crossovers. We don't really need a van anymore since Amber and Ashley are hardly ever here, but I don't want a car. Anyway, Dan found a Subaru Forester that he really liked. We went and test drove it last night, and I absolutely loved it! Nathan was really excited about it, too. Luckily, the salesman accepted Dan's offer, and even gave us $500 more for our trade in than we had asked for! It worked out great because our payments will only be about 5 dollars more than they are now. I'm so excited! We're going to pick it up on Thursday night.

As I already mentioned, Grammy Cooper came home from her mission, which was really exciting. Also, we've had a lot of the little great nieces over lately. I had Maddi and Sydney over one afternoon for about 5 hours. It was so much fun. We did art projects, watched The Little Mermaid, went and looked at the horses, played in the water table, etc. I just love those little girls. They are so sweet and cute. It's nice to have little girls around again. It brings back memories of my nieces when they were little. Then on Friday, we had Gabby over. She is so much fun, too. It's fun to hear her language improving each time we have her over. This time, she kept asking, "Why?" about everything. It was so cute. She has the sweetest little voice.

Megan brought a friend with her this past weekend. I really like her friend that she brought. She's come several times with Megan now. Her name is Taylor and we all really like her, even Nathan, because she's nice to him. The only problem is that Megan is not as nice to Nathan when she has friends around. During the past few months, it seems like Megan and Nathan are constantaly arguing, or she's being mean to him. I know part of it is that she is getting to be a teenager, but it's really annoying me that they aren't getting along. About a month ago, when she came for the weekend, she didn't bring a friend, and she was so much nicer to Nathan. I think we need to tell her not to bring friends for a while.

Mom, Nathan, Megan, Taylor, and I went shopping in Kittery on Monday. I love the outlets in Kittery. I needed to do Nathan's school shopping, and time is running out. It was fun to shop for him. I always love buying clothes for him. We found everything we needed. We brought Megan and Taylor home partway through because they weren't really into the shopping. I'm not sure why they wanted to come with us in the first place

Nathan started soccer last Wednesday. Today will be his second practice. He did a good job in his first practice and seemed to be enjoying it. Dan is an assistant coach again, which is really neat. I think it helps Nathan a lot to have Dad there. Plus, Dan is so athletic.

We went to Storyland on Thursday with the Smith's. That was so much fun. Their little boys, Hayden, Coy and Grady are really well behaved. It was fun for all the kids to just go on rides together and have fun. They all got along really well. The weather was perfect, too, which made the day really enjoyable. Nathan's favorite rides were the Polar Coaster and the Bamboo Chutes. My favorite is the circus. It's always a great show. I shared my Italian ice with Grady, which he loved. He is such a cute little guy. Coy and Hayden are really cute kids, too. Coy was my partner on the new battle spash ride. It's a new Egyptian themed ride where you can spray other people and they can spray you. You get completely soaked!