Picnic Pictures

Here are a some more pictures from the picnic.  If you are interested in all the pictures (that do not include us) feel free to check them out at:  

http://public.fotki.com/AmChamEstonia/2013/annual-usa-independ/

or go here:  http://amcham.ee/events/event/annual-independence-day-family-picnic/ 

A New Addition

This has been in the works for a few weeks now, but we just found out a little while ago that Jose will be joining our family.  He is 16 months old, and we were able to go and spend time with him several weeks ago.  He is awesome and the kids had a blast with him.  We'll be picking him up on Wednesday!

Hitting the trail...

Now that Zach is riding on two wheels only, we decided to test his skills on the trail.  First we had a short stint on the sidewalk on which he did really well.  I rode between him and traffic but he did great. There was one wipe out when he was coming off the road onto the sidewalk, but after cleaning him up he was willing to keep going.  

 I was rather impressed with how well he handled himself.  This is a very active community so we were constantly having to tell him to stay in line with us.

 Once we hit the bike path we were really moving, and so were the rollerbladers.  He had to get off to push up a big hill but did great.  I will say that I got really nervous watching him go down the hill because no matter how often I told him to slow down he kept pedaling.  At one point his feet came off the pedals and he wobbled.  I thought for sure he was going to take a spill, but he recovered and didn't miss a beat.  I'd say we biked for roughly 4 miles and he did great.  He was beginning to tire as we neared home, but hung in there.

Family Pictures 2013

Family Pictures

This past Mother's Day we went to a studio for family pictures.  This is the first time we have done it since adding Zach to the family but something we really had been wanting to do.  When this deal fell into our laps we had to act.  It was a very nice Mother's Day gift!  However, the studio doesn't rush.  After a few weeks we were able to see the proofs and select our favorites along with these three hard copies.  Finally, they were available for pick up this week!  We made arrangements to pick them up today only to find out once we got home that the disc isn't formatted for this computer.  I'm going to have to get around that little hurdle, but until then I went ahead and scanned these to share.

 I know I am biased, but I just think the little ones look so sweet here!

4th of July

We had a great time celebrating the 4th of July.  Charles and his Marines participated in an earlier ceremony and then as a family we enjoyed the picnic.  The kids had McDonald's and there was something for every taste from salads, Subway (new to Tallinn), bbq, and quesadillas.  Live music, a beautiful performance of our national anthem along with games, balloons, and face painting.

 The catapult was used to fire Angry Birds at this structure to see what could be knocked down.  Very entertaining.  

 Zach loved the catapult!  

 This game was hysterical and thankfully for the adults.  It was a relay to see which team could pound the nail in first.  No, my team did not win but we had fun.

Piano Practice

Clara has started taking piano lessons (actually has attended four so far) and we are very pleased with her progress.  We are very thankful that her piano teacher volunteered to bring her keyboard over for Clara to practice while she has been on vacation.  To be quite honest, I'm having to learn a bit and it is quite the challenge because she has workbook practice in addition to the physical practice and I'm googling and such to make sure she is doing it right.  While I love to listen to music, this stuff does not come naturally to me.  Clara seems to be taking to it quite well though!

Progress!

Day three of no training wheels.

Balance? Check!
Steering? Check!
Brakes? Check!

We must hit the trails this weekend!

Off with the Wheels!

Zach is pretty coordinated and has been zooming around on his bike now for a while.  A few months back I took off the training wheels but it didn't go over very well.  Two days ago, we decided to give it another try and boy was he ready!  I love his drive, and how he would hop back on and try again after falling (there were only two sort of rough falls).  He mastered his balance pretty quickly and by the end of the day was able to get started all by himself.

Afternoon Adventuring

Yesterday after mowing, chores, and finishing up our required enrichment activities we decided to take the afternoon to do some adventuring.  The kids each packed a backpack with water and other essentials, sprayed each other with insect repellant and off we went.  It was a lovely nature walk but was a little cool.  A few sprinkles along the way but little landed on us with the trees sheltering us.  I'm pretty impressed with their endurance as we walked three miles, with a snack break and rest at the 1.5 mile mark.