To my sweet boys on your first day of Kindergarten

Charley & Jackson,

Today you start your first day of Kindergarten. You've already both told me a million times how this is harder for me than it is for you. And I really am so happy that is the case. You both take on new challenges so positively, and I'm so relieved you do. But given that it's your first day of big kid school, your first day at 'German Immersion Kindergarten,' your first day in a classroom all by yourselves, I feel that I can't let the day pass without telling you a few things.

Charley,

You are a little nervous that no one else in your class will have glasses. You are worried some kids might make fun of you for that. I hope you're wrong. But if you're right, I hope you remember what we talked about, and how you tell them that all the cool kids wear glasses and walk away.

You are excited about meeting new friends and getting to play with all of the new toys. I hope that you keep that confidence and excitement as you walk into the classroom and see all of the new faces.

You are a good friend, and I know you will make so many new friends quickly. I hope you remember to look for the good guys, and to seek out and play with the kids who are too nervous to ask anyone else to play.

You have a hard time speaking up in circle time, and when the teacher asks you a question. I hope you know how smart and capable you are, and how much everyone really wants to know what you have to say.

You want to be a big kid, and you won't let me call you my baby. I hope you know that I will never stop calling you my baby, because that is who you are!

I Love You.

Mommy

Jackson,

You are so excited about Kindergarten you didn't want to go to bed last night. I hope you are able to control your body and your words, even though your excitement is about to pop out of you at every second.

You always have a good time, no matter what you're doing, so you know that Kindergarten is going to be the best time. I hope you have a teacher and classmates who love and respect how awesome you are to be around, like I do.

You can't wait to meet 100 new friends at your new school. It's really a shame there are only 24 in your class, because I think you would. I hope you remember what you told me about walking away from the 'bad guys' and playing only with the 'good guys.' And I hope you always know that you are, without a doubt, one of the 'good guys.'

You face special challenges in groups and with kids your own age. I hope you see that your special way of thinking and dealing with challenges makes you the strongest, most amazing boy anyone could ever know.

You say that you're not nervous at all about starting Kindergarten, that it's me who's nervous because I'm 'losing my babies.' And you are so right. I hope that you know that I'll never lose you. No matter if you're in Kindergarten, or if you choose to go to college many states (or even countries) away, you'll always be my baby.

I Love You.

Mommy

kindergarten, Kindergarten, KINDERGARTEN!!!

Today was the first day of kindergarten. We could not have been more excited. We received our Schultuten. The Schultute is a German tradition on the first day of school. It's a cone filled with special treats and some school supplies. We dutifully carried ours all the way to school.

We parked on the street outside the school, fed the meter . . .

. . . and headed toward our school.

Mommy was holding up surprising well. She wasn't too sure how she would hold up during the moment.

Let's get schooled

It was all a tad overwhelming when we go there. There were tons of people and lots of noise. Despite all that, we found our locker and carefully placed our Schultuten inside . . .

. . . we then put on our Hausschuhe and were ready to go.

We ran into our awesome friends Ari and Gwen before making it to our classrooms. It was great to see them and share our excitement. Since they're in a different class, we'll only get to see them before school.

After that, we gave each other a high-five for good luck and headed to our separate classrooms.

Jax said hello to his teacher, Frau Heindl . . .

. . . and Charley got right to work.

Mixed emotions

Summer's over?

It can't be, but alas, it is. Tomorrow we start kindergarten and we could not be more excited. To celebrate, we spent the afternoon outside eating popcorn.

Oh yeah, and going down the water slide, too.

It was awesome fun as usual. Since we were the only ones on it, there was a lot of wrestling . . .

. . . and jumping and general silliness.

It was great hanging out with an awesome brother.

And the popcorn was great too.

So long zoo friends

It's nearing the end of summer so we headed to the zoo to see the dinosaur exhibit on last time.

It was good to get one more round of dino wrestling in.

We said hello to the goats and fed them a little snack . . .

. . . and bears swam right up to say hello, as well.

We also saw the dolphin show for perhaps the last time. They are moving to a different zoo in a few weeks.

And so it begins

Look at all those beautiful lockers. And we both have one of our very own.

We went to our kindergarten open house to meet our teachers and see our rooms. Jackson checked out the number 5 on the circle-time rug.

We checked out Charley's locker and kindergarten room next.

His room has this great area for reading books with a giant leaf umbrella thing.

After learning the ins and outs of our new rooms, we headed to the cafeteria to make a Schultute. Apparently you get to fill it up with candy and bring it to school on the first day. We can't wait, that's a lot of candy.

Dog day of summer

It's been a long time since our last trips to a dog park. Hairy was very excited to be there.

There were many other dogs there too, and lots of sniffing was going on. Hairy didn't seem to care though.

There were some pretty crazy dogs there. We were a little intimidated at first. We all warmed up to each other pretty quick.

This little guys loved to be petted by us, but he seemed to love Daddy's camera more.

New glasses, finally

After a month and multiple trips to the glasses store(s), Charley finally got his new glasses. Whew.

AAAHHHHHH Wichita

After a couple days in Kansas City, we headed to Wichita. We had a wedding to go to, eventually. But first, we stopped by the Exploration Place with the Smelly German Pirates and Kinsey. The tornado simulator was the best.

The speed of the wind was CRAZY.

We don't really know a whole lot about Star Wars, but there was a pretty cool exhibit of Star Wars stuff at this museum. We even got to drive a hover craft. Supposedly it's like this thing called a Landspeeder.

There was a great castle area with a real working catapult. We could shoot a ball about 20-feet into shield-shaped gong. It made a great noise.

Eventually it was time to head to lunch and the Smelly German Pirates, Kinsey and Grandma had to head back to Texas. We said our goodbyes and went to our hotel for a little swimming.

The next day we met with Grandma Cathy and Matt and Darina at an airplane museum. There were some huge airplanes there.

There were some smaller ones too, we were not about to move them, even with Daddy's help.

We could move a couple of the propellers inside the museum.

And we definitely test drove some, flying to Baghdad, South Africa to see some penguins, and Minnesota.

We even got to go into the control tower, one of the high spots in all of Wichita. We're not sure that's saying much. The view was terrific. We could see every plane in the musuem, even the FedEx plane.

Good to be back in KC

We were back in Kansas City this past week. It's been too long. We started our trip at Crown Center, pretending all the escalators were log rides like the one at Mall of America.

One of our first stops at Crown Center was the fudge shop. We watched the flying fudge . . .

. . . and tasted it too.

It. Was. AWESOME.

Although we would've filled up on fudge if given the chance, we grabbed lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. The one that delivers your food by model train..

With lunch consumed, we headed over to Science City. We created boat race tracks in the water table . . .

. . . and watched Daddy test out a special bike that rides along a cable high above the floor. It looked pretty intense. When we're tall enough, we'll definitely test it out ourselves.

But the best part about Kansas City, hanging out with Grandma Jean and those smelly German Pirates.