Getting ready for school

I'm still sifting through nearly 600 photos from a week in Kauai (not all mine, but mostly) and hope to have some up before too long. It's been a summer of good intentions, many of which went unfulfilled, but that's OK because we've had a lot of fun anyway. Calvin starts second grade next Thursday, and Finn begins in a new room at preschool the following week. Calvin's been wiggling his front tooth most of the summer, and this morning it finally fell out!

The boys have been lucky to enjoy our friends' pool nearly every week, when schedules allowed. This week was especially silly, thanks to some birthday gifts Calvin and Finn gave to their friends. Here's Finn modeling one of the favorites:

Last weekend we spent a long, sunny day at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, playing mini golf, enjoying a few rides, and digging in the sand. Calvin, who used to prefer riding a carousel bench rather than a moving horse, this time mounted a horse on the 100-year-old carousel and tried grabbing the brass ring. Doug had slightly more success, but Calvin loved trying. The last picture is of Finn burying a toy in the sand. Because it's dead. For some reason, he's obsessed with being dead. He doesn't want to be buried in the dirt, but is currently favoring being buried under the hot tub. He wants to be buried with Boo-Boo and a host of other toys. This morning, he was flipping through a toy store ad from the paper and lamented, "Oh, great! This Batman game won't be out for 100 days, and I'll have been dead for two days! I won't even get to play with it. Hmph." I'm hoping he doesn't know something I don't know.