September, you lovely thing, you.

each year, when september arrives, i just want to take big gulps of the sunshiny air, the coolness that is saying goodbye to summer, the hint of apples and crunchy leaves in the air. this year is no different.
after a brief and fun trip to san diego, where i had much fun, but was made ever grateful for my northwest home, i was blessed to be able to make it to another birth, and now we are having 'not back to school time.'
here is some of what we have been doing lately:yes, going on a school bus. no, make that a COOL bus. see the sign? how exciting for my young pals, to get to ride on a big school bus--they have ridden on a little one, since our friend hosanna has a biodiesel bus. and where were we going? here's a hint:yes, it was the zoo. somehow i managed to take several giraffe and hippo photos, but none of the main attraction, which was cousin hope. it is so lovely to see the cousins love each other up. poor hope gets sort of smothered with affection by her two girl cousins, who like to lift her up and down places she is perfectly capable of getting up and down herself. still, it's great to hang with cousins, and their parents. after we left they all said, 'when can we see hope again?' it is always interesting to go to the zoo. gus is a die-hard follow the map sort of guy, and wanted to make sure we saw everything. we did NOT see the new baby elephant, because i nixed the idea of standing in line for 40 minutes in the sun. perhaps another time, pachy. apparently the children really love to go through the turnstile, because when we were headed out they all raced to get a chance to go through. i remember thinking it was a cool thing when we used to go to the zoo in sioux falls with grandma and papa, too.