a celebration

Daulton's last grades came in with a wonderful report—all As and Bs! We had to celebrate his huge accomplishment. We took him out to eat at Damons, where you can play trivia while you eat. We all enjoy it, so it was a great time.

do not disturb

This is just a funny picture of Rocket and Rudy. Rocket likes to climb down into the 'caves' we build for him out of pillows, and Rudy stands watch. He goes into some sort of protection trance when he's in there, so you can NOT mess with him. It's funny though, if you call his name, he'll shoot up quickly to see what's going on, then slowly slink back down...strange birdies.

halloween

So I'm afraid this might be the last year Daulton goes trick-or-treating. About ten minutes into it he was less than thrilled to be out. I'm afraid he was a little self-conscious, there were many small children out, but we didn't see many kids his own age. We encouraged him to keep going, and he had a good time. We always stop at my stepmom's sister's house, so it's fun to see them each year. Michelle stays back to pass out candy, so we stopped in at her place before we headed home. Daulton's Ninja and Chris's Soldier were good, I felt a little bad I hadn't dressed up this year.

how things change...

We drove to the dock after Chris's birthday brunch, it was chilly but very sunny and always worth a stop. We got out to walk around, and Daulton started climbing on this dolphin statue. I had a flashback to several years earlier and dug out some old photos when we got home. Here are 'then' and 'now' photos, I think the early one was in 2002.

the birthday season

So here's a double-post. Since my birthday is in September, and Chris's is in October, it seems to be more like a "birthday season" of sorts...



The photo of Chris and me is at the comedy club. Friends of ours met us out and brought me cupcakes for my birthday, they were yummy! Chris and I also had our own dinner at a wonderful Mediterranean restaurant a few days earlier.



The photo of Chris and Daulton is outside the Pufferbelly Restaurant, where we had brunch for Chris's birthday. It's an old fire station, complete with brass pole. That week I got the most delicious apple caramel cheesecake for his 'cake', it was so rich we never finished it!

at the fair

The Crawford County Fair is held close to where I work, and it's quite the event around here. We managed to find a night that Chris could drive down with Daulton after work, and my friend Heather met us there, too. It was pretty fun, we paid 50 cents to see a 100 lb rat! (a capibarra) and ate fried cheesecake.

This is actually one of the ONLY photos I have of all three of us, I love it!

okay, so we matched...

We attended yet another friend's wedding reception this fall. Love this picture! (We didn't mean to match each other!) :)

welcome to 8th grade

So Daulton is now one of the oldest kids at his school. He'll finish eighth grade at his middle school and move on to the intermediate school next year. The pic on the couch was actually the first day, the photo in the doorway was not long after. You'll notice his bookbag is HUGE. He actually doesn't have to carry as much as he did last year, because they now have lockers at school. But I guess he wasn't taking any chances when he picked this one out with Chris...

creating landscapes

So Daulton attended a 3-week-long day camp this summer, which is held at Allegheny College every year. This photo is of him tie-dying a shirt, the same one he's wearing in the photo on the stairs. He drove in with me each morning. I saw him several days during lunch time. After their afternoon sessions they got to swim, so I usually picked him up after swimming at the sports complex. At the end they had a great performance day, where all the kids did music, dance and theater performances. He took home a CD of music created by the campers, including two or three numbers he was the drummer for.

summer 08

So the rest of the summer went by very quickly! Here are some highlights...


Erie Jazz and Blues Festival


Celebrate Erie - the chalk walk


Daulton with his Tae Kwon Do master, Master Park. They had a promotional day at the beach, so I caught Master Park for a picture. Daulton actually told him that same day that he was going to be taking a break from TKD for a while, he's moved on to drum lessons now.


Daulton helped with our garage sale, we actually had a joint sale with my parents.


Erie Arts Festival


Daulton in our driveway, he bought this scooter with his own money. Our driveway is finally repaved, so it's smooth blacktop—much better!


Discover Presque Isle—our "glow" is from a giant bonfire. Every summer they let the park stay open late, bands perform all day, and a huge bonfire is built. This was the first time we were there in years.