a farewell to summer

booooo. where did the season go?  I woke up yesterday and it was Fall.  Grace is in 1st grade, my baby is in a big boy bed and life continues at the pace of a sprinting jaguar.

Wow, how I've been a lousy blogger over the past few months.  Very few updates, fewer pictures.  But our house is full, and our days are busy.  Blogging just hasn't been a priority, and truth be told, most of my free time on the computer is spent on my newest addiction, pinterest.  :)

Throughout the summer I had in mind all of these great post ideas and just never got around to them and now, my memory of yesterday is a blur,  but we did have a wonderful and fun-filled summer.  Here is the highlighted/short version:
JUNE: We got a dog, yes, we did!  Meet Margot Butch Robbins. She's a rescue dog that we got from Joplin shortly after the tornado. She's a sweetie and the kids are loving her. Kirk and I got to get away for a few nights ALONE since who knows when, it was heaven.

JULY: Grace went to San Francisco for a week with my parents and my niece. Still can't believe she is old enough to travel without us, they had a blast and she made so many good memories.  The boys and I spent 7 days trotting around New Mexico visiting a lot of friends and a lot of family. Our time there was wonderful, the road trip to and from, however, was pretty awful.  (I forgot my camera so don't have really good pics of that week.)  And drum roll please....Kirk finished school...hopefully forever.

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER: I got to go to Dallas for a weekend of fun with a friend and experienced my first ever visit to IKEA!  pure. happiness.  Grace started 1st grade.  Kirk got to visit some of our dearest friends from college on a quick trip to Madison.  We also switched all the kids' rooms in the house to make room for baby, it's been a messy adjustment but we're getting there, slowly.

So, there's summer 2011 in a nutshell, now welcome Fall.  Hopefully I won't be much of a stranger.