July and August

Van at the 4th of July celebration.  We went and watched fireworks in Leesburg with another family we know.  Van was super excited about the show for about 5 minutes then refused to watch anymore.

 I knew I was in trouble when Eric started sending me links to the local pet shelters.  He took the boys to go "look"  at older cats and came home with this.  Meet Lewis

We decided to check out the "Loudoun County Fair" It was the cutest, littlest fair I've ever been to! Unfortunately it was the last day AND it was raining!  We watched a dog show, which Keenan got to partake in.  One of the dogs leaped over them.

 Van loved all the animals, mostly the little sheep. The rides never opened up due to the weather so we ate our over priced fair food and called it a day.

 One of Keenan's biggest accomplishments this summer was learning how to do the monkey bars.  We were at a park near our house one day and we stopped holding him up as went across.  He was pissed and pouted a bit but wouldn't budge.  Mostly I think he was scared because those ones were pretty high up.  Long story short he FINALLY did it and now he wants to show off his impressive feat to everyone!

Have I mentioned that Ashburn has some awesome parks?  This one called "Trailside" keeps the kids entertained for long periods of time :)  

 Sometimes, pouting...

 When we first got here it took me awhile to find a new Taekwondo place for Keenan.  I walked into quite a few that just didn't feel right, looking around there'd be tons of little kids, small space and no students who appeared older than 8.  Then I found AMA.  They have a big space and even a large trampoline to practice- flying kicks?  More important they had a wide range of ages.  I think it's important for Keenan to see the older, more advanced kids as role models, some thing to aspire to.  At any rate, we like it.  Better yet they had a summer program so instead of Keenan going to daycare with Van he got to go to Taekwondo.  Best yet, he came home exhausted!  They also have an after school program.  Keenan gets picked up from school, sometimes in a Limo (an old one but hey, it's still a LIMO)  and goes to taekwondo.  No more of me trying to run around frantically to get to the school and into class on time.  I love it!

 It's "American" style verses the "Korean" style he was in before so the belt colors are a bit different.  He is now a gold belt and it hoping to get his green soon so he can start sparring again.  This school only allows green belt and above to spar.

 Sometime in August Keenan was in a flag football camp.  He loved it, i thought he was adorable!

 Van is starting to get a little more adventurous.  He decided the scooter wasn't so bad after all.

 Yup, no helmet or pads... I'm pretty sure he was only inching along though.

 Van loves Lewis and gives him hugs all the time to prove it!

 After nearly 5 years overseas we didn't have a whole lot of furniture.  In fact the boys had almost nothing!  So since we've gotten here it's been a constant hemorrhage of money on furniture and other house stuff.  Below, we finally got a couch and coffee table for our one sitting room.  Van thought he'd immediately test it to make sure it was ok for watching cartoons on the ipad.