First Day of School

Today was Dallin's first day of Kindergarten. Dallin was so excited this morning. He woke up and was dressed and had his bed made before I was even out of bed. He made his own little lunch, and combed his hair and wore his backpack around the house all morning. It was so cute. I took him down to Osuna Elementary where the PTA was putting on a "Boo-Hoo" breakfast, (or for some of the parents, a "woo-hoo!" breakfast.) We had breakfast together and then I gave Dallin a big hug and he went to line up with the other children to go to their classes. There they all were with their backpacks that are almost as big as they are! That's when I lost it. For me, it was definitely a boo-hoo breakfast. I wasn't expecting to cry that much, but I've been really emotional this pregnancy, so I was like a faucet! Dallin just smiled and waved and then he was gone, and I was left with my soggy Kleenex to boo-hoo all the way home. It goes so fast, and you just don't get the time back. We will miss having him home during the day.

Garden Discovery

This morning when we were weeding our garden, Dallin and I disturbed a little frog in the flower bed where we were working! He was the cutest little thing, just a little bigger than a quarter! We watched him for as long as we could before he hopped off into a thick patch of yarrow where he felt less exposed. I'd never seen a frog in our yard before, but I hope he stays!

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free!

When we got back from all our travels this summer, our peach tree was loaded and a friend of mine had me come over and pick a bunch of hers too. As a result, I spent about a week canning and making peach jam and freezing peaches and making peach pie. I love those peaches! But I wouldn't mind if I didn't eat another one for a month or so.

Here comes another Gariety

As you may have guessed from my growing belly, we are expecting another little one in our family! We are so excited for her/him ? to come. We had the ultrasound on August 7th and the baby looks healthy. We don't find out what we're having because we like the big surprise at the end. But I think it's a girl. And Daphne is praying for a little sister. Dallin and Daphne are both so excited for "the baby in [my] tummy" and Sean doesn't really have a clue. The baby is due December 5th, so I'm more than half way there!

Profile

Arm and Fist

Foot

Face

A rudimentary 3D shot. Baby's fist is up by mouth and nose. It's kind of hard to make out.

Stone Family Vacation at Northstar

We got to spend the first week of August up at "Stonehaven," my grandpa's cabin in Northstar, CA--(near Truckee). Everyone in my family made it, so we had a blast! We played games, ate, went to the lake, ate, took a little hike, ate, watched movies, did Mad Libs, and ate some more. It was FANTASTIC! We loved hanging out with everybody up there.

I'm including a few pictures for the dial-uppers, but of course, I couldn't whittle it down very well, so my new favorite thing is the photo montage, which has some more fun photos.

Gariety Family

Chics with Cheetos

(the granddaughters)

The Grandsons

Nona and Grandpa in the yellow raft

The whole Stone clan

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Hawaii!

Arthur and I recently returned from an awesome trip to the island of Oahu. Arthur was attending a Radiation Effects conference for work there, and I got to tag along. My parents watched the kids for us while we went on this virtually free trip! (Thanks soooo much, Mom and Dad!) We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, a super nice resort on Waikiki beach. We went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay and Shark's Cove, saw a huge rainbow arcing over the entire sky (the picture does NOT do it justice), attended a luau at Paradise Cove (good but not quite as good as the Polynesian Cultural Center), toured the Iolani Royal Palace and paid a visit to the Arizona Memorial which was sobering.

While Arthur was in conference sessions, I went on walks and window shopped a little bit. But mostly I sat out by the pool reading Harry Potter #7! (You'd be surprised how many Harry Potter books I saw in people's hands on this trip. No wonder J.K. Rowling is a billionaire.) It was such a treat to just be a couple again and relax.


The only sad thing was that our camera drowned and as a result, we don't have any good pictures from this trip because we were using a disposable camera. So just believe that our trip was a lot better than the pictures look.


Here are a couple of pictures for those of you with dial-up. (I know from experience that those photo montages take a really long time to download, so you can look at the abbreviated version.) Meanwhile if you do have high speed internet, you can see the pictures complete with some mood music by Israel Kamakaiwo'ole.

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