Kaitlyn really loved the ice skating lessons over the summer, and begged to continue them. I wasn't sure at first, but when her gymnastics teacher said that she wasn't going to be teaching this year, we caved. I wish the rink wasn't a half an hour away, but she really does love it so much. I decided that if I was already driving down there, we might as well sign Jasmine up, too. (Tyler told us he didn't care for it. "It is too slippery.") So Tuesdays were now taken over by ice skating lessons.
A few weeks into school, Kaitlyn asked if we could start violin lessons for her, which was actually a big step. She had asked to quit piano because she didn't like the extra work of practicing, and she knew we would expect extra effort if she was in violin lessons. Thankfully, she stepped right up to the plate.
She has even been helping Jasmine learn. As much as Jasmine's pride will let her listen to her big sister, at least.
Let me see what other pictures I can find . . .
We had a Harry Potter themed meal for September 1st. I love that Kaitlyn is old enough to share my nerdy love for those books! The butterbeer was the best part of that meal.
Every time I go to the school carnival, I am really grateful that my girls go to such a small school. Fun, but not totally chaotic!
Kaitlyn had fun building a castle for her school project.
And then, we lost track of Daddy for a while.
He has been dreaming of putting solar panels on our roof for years. He's had a lot of practice with the system at the cabin, and then on each of our trailers. He even planned it out and got the permit with the city a year ago, but we saw the power company trying to make policies that weren't good for homes with solar. And then he heard about the final version of that plan, which had a very quick deadline for you to be "grandfathered" in. Which meant it was now or never on the solar system. Before I knew it, my garage was filled with panels and rails and wire and conduit, and within weeks, it was all up and running on our roof. We had companies popping up constantly for the last couple of years offering to install a system for us. He even got quotes from many of them (most of them were rather taken aback at the guy that knew more than them and started quizzing them about every detail about their quotes), but the lowest ones were close to $25,000. We ended up paying about $12,000 in parts, but will get $5,000 back in a tax rebate. We decided there was a reason there were so many solar companies- they were making a big profit! It was a lot of work for him to do it himself, but I think he also really enjoyed that project, too.
I started a project of my own, in part just so I could be out there working on something while he was. I had planned this out slowly for a year, but finally took the plunge. I found out that it was much easier than I thought it would be!
From the inspiration wood lath art on etsy (that cost hundreds of dollars) . . .
To the final project . . .
that looks great on my wall.
It is quite huge, actually. Which is on purpose, because that wall was huge. I had put up pictures low by the piano when we first moved in a decade ago, and have since decided that I should have something big and high to show off how tall that wall is. And since wood lath is cheap, my project cost $40. I'm really proud of it!
