Round up

We're in the middle of a weeklong visit from Sacha's parents, which was been very fun.  We've had a nice combination of staying close to home and doing some adventuring.  They even went wine tasting today, which sounds like it was enjoyable for them.  They also watched the kids so Sacha and I could go out this morning, and they've been getting lots of quality time with their grandchildren.  And, Sacha's mom took me shopping yesterday, which was a lot of fun!  Here we all are on Sunday, having an extended family dinner with the four of us, Apa, and Bubby and Poppa.

 While they were wine tasting this afternoon, we stayed around here and took the kids to the first day of two weeks of swim lessons.  This is Mateo's first year of having class without a parent in the water with him, and, while we weren't sure how that would go, he did just fine!  He put his cheeks, lips, and face in the water, and had a wild time kicking around on a pretend boat the instructor pulled around.

Meanwhile, Tali went in the water with Sacha and did all the things the baby class does - lots of songs, bubbles, kicking, and toys.  Talia has been a bit skittish in the water before, but she did great today.  She was begging to get in the pool from the moment we put her in her swimsuit, at home, about an hour before her lesson actually started!   I stayed out of the water today and will go in with her tomorrow.  After Sacha starts work again next Tuesday, I'll be on my own, so I'm crossing my fingers that it will go well!

Also, we had a tree taken out of our front yard this morning and that was quite the event!  It's an old eucalyptus snag that died this winter and has been looking awful for months.  After navigating the city permit process, we hired an arborist to come and take it down.  The guy with the chainsaw actually felled it like a tree in the forest, which was quite a surprise for everyone, not least the neighbors across the street!  Luckily, as I'm sure the arborist knew, it was not as tall as it looked, so it didn't even get close to the other curb.  Whew! 

Looking lovely right before it came down...

They ground down the stump and will be planting a new trident maple tree there in the next month sometime

Mateo was actually a bit spooked by the whole thing, showing us that his longstanding fear of falling trees has not yet been outgrown.  We made up our own art therapy and drew a picture of how the tree came down, and then wrote down what he narrated.  He refused to nap later on, although who knows if that was why, but went to bed just fine.   It was seriously crazy how fast the tree went down.  I was switching from one camera to another to get a video of it, and suddenly BOOM!  Down it went.  I can see how he'd have been a little freaked out.   Here's our little picture map of the tree going down:

The whole tree thing got me in the mood to do some yard work, so Mateo and I worked on that after we got home from swimming.  He actually was a big help!  I pruned the plants around our front window (visible below) so that we'll be able to wave goodbye to Mommy when she *sob* starts work next week.  All the while, he was helpfully putting stuff into a pile and even helped me load it into the yard waste bin.  He's really becoming a big kid, and is also eating us out of house and home, so he must be growing physically, too. 

I can't believe the summer is coming to a close!  Seriously, I made an appointment for the 31st of August and was like, what?  The end of August already?  Crazy.  Let's hope we have a nice, warm fall to make up for the frigid summer we've had!

Speaking of summer, here's a photo of our garden in full bloom (although I took this right before I pruned that front section) and some of our tomatoes.  They're just starting to ripen, due to the aforementioned lack of sun, but YUM anyway!