First Day of Kindergarten

Hannah's first day of school was August 15. That seems really early to me - but Hannah and I were both ready for it! We started early buying her school supplies and clothes for school. I had told her how I wore uniforms to school, and she decided she wanted a uniform, so we bought a little plaid skirt and top from Target that was the closest to a school uniform that we could find. I don't know why she WANTS to wear a uniform; we always wanted to NOT wear uniforms. Of course, now I think school uniforms are a great idea.


Hannah with her teacher, Mrs. Miller:

First day of school:


I like her school. It's small, and the teachers and administrators get to know all the kids pretty quickly. I love that they teach Mandarin to all the kids. There are a lot of Chinese girls in the school. I think it's because there are so many people in town who have adopted Chinese girls, and a lot of them "choice" their kids into this school, even if it's not their district or their neighborhood school (just like we did). Also some Chinese parents choice their kids into this school. So there are six Chinese girls (out of ten girls) and one Chinese boy in Hannah's class of twenty!

This is a report about the Mandarin program that was on our local news when her school first opened two years ago. Hannah's teachers are movie stars now!

Annual Breckenridge Trip

In August we took our yearly weekend trip to Breckenridge, a ski town in the mountains. Lindsey attends the Family Law Conference sponsored by the Colorado Bar Association, and Hannah and I play. This year we stayed at a condo owned by our friends Lowell and his wife, Kathy. Lowell is Lindsey's partner in owning his office building, and they went to Breckenridge that weekend too. Luckily, they have two condos in Breckenridge, so we got to stay in one of them. There was also a street fair that weekend ("Pioneer Days" or something), so Hannah got to do some arts and crafts and see a "real" mountain man, too. We always have fun in Breckenridge - it's usually our only vacation of the year. One of these years we plan to go to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, but with the economy the way it is, this was NOT that year!

Here are some photos of our trip. Breckenridge has a rich mining heritage, so Lowell was able to pan for gold at the street fair, and gave it to Hannah as a present. The weather was beautiful and it wasn't too cold (as it can be in the mountains).


Lowell gives Hannah the panned gold:


Sometimes you have to resort to tickling Hannah in order to get a good smile out of her:

Summer Days

Hannah's best neighbor friend, Priscilla, gave her a bear from Build-A-Bear. So one day Hannah and I went with Priscilla and her dad to the Build-A-Bear store at the mall, and Hannah got to design and make her own bear. She named her bear Mei-Mei (at first), but Mei-Mei has had several name changes since then!



One weekend we went downtown to the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum. It used to be the County Courthouse, and it faces Pikes Peak, from whose summit Katherine Lee Bates saw the view that inspired her to write "America the Beautiful".



Daddy and Hannah at Daddy's office:


One week we got to babysit Sniffles, Priscilla's dog, when their family went on vacation.