Busy, Busy

How can you tell you are in St. Louis? Our beautiful Arch! I took this photo while we were driving on the highway. The first one had a pole smack-dap in the middle of the pic.

Gosh, I thought the regular school year was always busy, but we still haven't stopped! The summer brings so much time outside that I am not in front of the computer much. We have recently put up a new pool that my brother gave us. We have been swimming in it although we can't quite seem to get it sparkling clear. Nico absolutely loves having the pool out the back door. Luca is doing better in it. He loves just laying on a raft floating around, but we had hime doing some swimming the other day. The pics of the filling of the pool are still on the camera. We had to have a 4,000 gallon tanker truck bring water as we are on well water where we live. We didn't want to drain the well and knew it would take DAYS to fill the pool otherwise.

Mike and I went to a wedding a few weeks ago at our beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden. We went early and walked around taking photos and looking at the beautiful flowers in bloom.

Mike and I at the Garden.I couldn't resist taking the photo of this man painting the flowers. I have no idea how to spell the artists name who made all the glass blown features in the Garden so I apologize (Chalui??). They were on display a couple years ago and some of the pieces stayed. this is one of them surrounding the rose garden.

Before we had the pool set up I let the boys play in the sprinkler. I thought Luca would be a little freaked out, but, no worries, he jumped right in! That well water is sooooo cold I don't know how they stood it.

This boy sleeps with a smile on his face! He loves life!

Here's another that is always smiling...not quite as much as Nico, but he is up there! One fearless little boy!

We continue to do school work 3 days a week during the summer. This is so we can take breaks in the winter and still get all the hours we need for the year in, plus to keep Nico up on his skills.

Luca likes to be right next to Nico when we are doing lessons. He imitates big bro so much. Luca brought his paper down to the floor to 'write' like Nico. I LOVE THEIR TOGETHERNESS.

However, we have been trying to schedule Fridays for our fun days. Last week we went the the St. Louis Zoo. It is a FREE Zoo and fun to visit. The big event now is the stingrays. Nico couldn't wait to get in and pet them, however, this compared nothing to swimming with the Ginormous ones in the Grand Caymans when we were on our cruise. (That was Nico's favorite part of the cruise....fearless at 5 yo).

Here are some pics from our Zoo trip and a quick visit to Turtle Park (which is just a little park with a bunch of HUGE turtles to climb on).

Stingrays!

The train ride.

Luca really got into looking at the animals on this visit. Last year we went when he was home only a month or two and he was not so into it.We very rarely get to see the Gorillas close up. This big guy was sleeping right next to the window.

Luca is continuing to say more words and learning more sign language. Nico has learned to sign the alphabet and we are working on spelling words with our hands....so fun! We are also learning word signs. (Much easier to remember than Spanish...but I want them to learn that too..I just can't teach it). Luca now likes to walk up the stairs sometimes he is alternating feet! He still slides down the stairs on his bottom....fine with me! We took the baby gates down and he is doing great.

Brian is also doing well. I haven't seen him in a couple weeks, but we talk at least once a week. I am hoping to see him soon. We are still waiting for the decision on his jaw surgery. I wish they would hurry up, but it seems it is a bit complicated, so we want to make sure they get it right the first time!

Well, I better get off of here and get breakfast started and get my sleepy heads out of bed.