I can hardly believe that summer is coming to an end - but October is looming, and the weather is changing, and the kids are back in school. I thought the above quote appropriate, namely for those of us getting ready to run our half marathon this Saturday, the Indian Summer Half, in Richland. There will be a lot of us running - I am excited to have so many familiar faces out there on the course. It runs right along the Columbia, so it should be beautiful.

Quick update from us:

• Isaac is loving cross-country. He made varsity as a freshman and has his first home meet this Thursday down at Cottonwood Beach. He goes to dances now, and is a full-fledged 14-year old kid. We still have to sit down and have some heart-to-heart discussions on respect and gratitude, but I am thinking this is mostly normal. Either way, he's a good kid - gets himself up for seminary each morning, and gets himself out the door. He's enjoying high school and I am loving that it is about 200 yards from our front door.
• Taylor is doing the middle-school thing now. He was extremely nervous the first day. "What if I miss the bus?" "What if I go to the wrong classroom?" "What if the bus takes me to the wrong place?" But he has settled in nicely. I kind of miss the days when his teachers would call me to say he sat in his seat and quietly cried, saying he missed his mom. Those days are gone. Taylor has also earned his Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class in scouts and will be honored at a Court of Honor on Wednesday night.
• Parker & Morgan now take the bus to school. It adds like 15 minutes on to their morning, but Parker insists. It is valuable socializing time for him. And it has helped him to be ready on time. Each morning, he is at the bottom of the stairs, yelling, "Morgan - let's go! You are going to make me miss the bus!"
• Morgan is discovering, painfully, the cruelty of little girls. She has some friends in the neighborhood, and when 2 of them are together, it's great. When a third enters the picture, someone is always left out, and sometimes it's Morgan. I remember this all too well. She'll come in from playing, with her big, sad, brown eyes, and say, "Jordan isn't my friend anymore." But within the next half hour, they are playing together in her room.

We are excited for the St. George marathon with Mike & Brooke - I will tag along and play photographer, if I can. We'll be heading to St. George straight from Mexico, so that will be interesting. It sounded like an okay idea at the time.

Life is full and busy - time is flying - hope you are all well.

Adina