Dahlia Farm

It occurred to me that I still had not made it to the Dahlia farms, ever. I've wanted to go the last couple years, so this year I decided to finally make it happen one morning right after we dropped Charlie off at school. (He didn't want to go anyway! Ha!) We arrived shortly after opening so there weren't many people there.

He was really excited about these snowball ones. 

 And he wanted me to take his photo at every one of these things. Edwin was still attached to my back, I didn't want to bring him out until a little bit more into our outing.

My favorites were the deep red dahlias.

"Miles, that blossom is as big as your head..." then this happened

We did have a lot of fun. Each of the types of flowers had a different fun name so Miles liked hearing all of those...such as Tutti Frutti, blah blah blah, Vixen, and a whole bunch of others I can't think of right now!

And then we released the tiny beast.  He was excited to roam free, pull out signs, climb on irrigation pipes and give me a whole lot of "cheeeeeeee" for photos. (Cheese for those that don't speak 1-year-old)

 

Oh, and he had to keep on sniffing the flowers. 

 

 And Miles was grumpy within an hour so we didn't stay that long and made our way back to the car....and of course, my children were more thrilled with the parking lot flags than the flowers.

Soccer

The big boys are starting soccer this Fall. Charlie has been wanting to do this for awhile and I kept putting it off. Miles is excited to start too, although he still has to wait another week for his official practice to start. When we found out that two of Charlie's friends from Kindergarten were on his team, he was more excited than I had ever seen him, because it included the fastest kid in his class whom Charlie had always challenged to race. Anyway, Charlie has been loving it. He probably has the least experience out of all his teammates but he is picking it up quick and has a whole lot of confidence. Max was able to join us on the first day about halfway through. His dreams are coming true because he gets to do sports with his kids. He's already been having a blast practicing with his boys and going over the rules to help them better understand. And I was pretty excited about the Summer Evening light, so most of the photos aren't really soccer related...

  Miles found this large branch (log?) and pulled it over to us. The big boys (6 year olds) on Charlie's team kept say "whoa, he pulled that all the way over here, he must be strong." Miles was glowing, Charlie was oblivious.

Miles got a chance to take some photos....and show me in my true soccer mom ways...yoga pants, top knot... sigh...

 

After practice we stayed for awhile longer to play as a family. (and enjoy the summer evening)

Anyway, we are excited because the boys are so excited!!