When Jennifer is bored

Jennifer gets home earlier from work so she comes up with some fun things to do. She used the blocks I brought home from my school to make a cool design. My school was going to take them to DI so I took them home for my kids.

Olivia's new trick

Olivia has grown confident enough on her bike to ride recklessly. She likes to ride with one hand while she waves to people, and she likes to take her feet off the petals while she is going really fast. Here's a picture I snapped (Sorry about the tree shadow on her face).

By the way, about 45 seconds after this picture was taken Olivia ran into our neighbor's fence post and got a nice knot on her shin.

First Week of School! First Week of School!

Well, as promised, here are some pictures from the first week of school. It sure was a long week!

Check this out

You might be interested in my class website. Check it out:
www.mrbrunner.com

Our Open Houses

Robin, Olivia, and I all had Open Houses today at our schools. Robin's and mine went alright. You gotta love the parents who "warn" you about their children. It's going to be a fun year!
Olivia's got kind of a neat situation. Her school has so many kids that they have run out of classrooms. Instead of putting her class in a portable, they converted a commons area into a classroom. It's a little kiva (kind of like a mini stadium with raised steps/sitting area). The desks are all down on the ground, and the steps are behind the desks leading up against a wall--we'll post a picture later. The amazing thing is there are only 15 students in her class! She is still on an extended day schedule so for about an hour a day, she will be there with only 7-8 other students. One of the other students lives two houses away from us so we're excited about having a little neighbor in her class. The only drawback is that there are a total of 3 girls named Olivia in the class! Olivia kind of thinks it's neat, but we're worried she won't like it after a while. Her teacher has taught 8 years already so we're pretty excited about Olivia starting 1st grade.
We're all getting an early bedtime tonight!
-Jeremy

New laptop fun

I got a new laptop to use from my school district. It's a MacBook Pro. It's got a built-in web cam (I have no idea how to video conference with any of you though) and a program that lets you take funny pictures. Here's one you might enjoy:
(Robin just rolls her eyes)

End of Summer update

We are lamenting the end of summer. We are spending more and more time at our schools and less and less time actually having fun. I'm posting two pictures of the kids swimming at Jennifer's friend Rowena's swimming pool.

The other two show some produce from our garden. The carrots are pretty small (we should have spread the seeds out better) and the tomatoes are yummy (Jeremy's the only one who eats them). We've got a good little pumpkin growing and 3-4 ears of corn!

Colorado

Jeremy and I went to Colorado this past week. Jeremy went to a science conference I stayed with Kristi and her kids. We had a great time. We went to a water park called pirates cove, went to a little park and rode a train, and played in the creek. One night Vickie and Earl kept the kids and Kristi and Matt and Jeremy and I went on a double date. We saw the Bourne Ultimatium and then went to the melting pot for a desert. This was a lot of fun. I had never been to the melting pot before it is a fondue restaurant. It was great. While there we also did some of the experiments that Jeremy and Vickie did at there conference. Check out Earl's blog and see some cool t-shirts that the kids made.

A big thank you to Kristi and Matt for letting us stay. We had a wonderful time.