We enjoyed the Brewers Game in cool comfort on Labor Day. A printer Norman Design uses invited the company to view the game in their club-level suite. Sweet! It was a 90° day and the accommodations were perfect. All food and beverages were supplied (except for Paige's pretzel she had to have). My boss, John, and his girlfriend and her son were able to come, as well as my co-worker Kevin with his girlfriend and 2 other friends and the new Saunders-minus-one (Abby!) family. Bryn and Paige loved the luxury of having a parking pass, special escalators for "suites only" and our own restroom.

Tuesday Sept 2 was Paige's first day of school. Her bus picks her up at 6:40am now that she's in 8th grade. And Bryn went for her first day on Wednesday. She's very excited to drive herself and especially not have to wait around to be picked up after Cross Country practice. Construction at the high school is still not near finished. All the lockers throughout the school were replaced, but the kids were issued crazy combinations (like too few or too many digits) and locker numbers for lockers that didn't even exist! So the poor kids carried around everything for the first few days.

Bryn drove herself to the orthodontist for the first time Thursday. Loves morning ortho appointments because even though an 8:00 appointment sounds early, it's not as early as getting to school by 7:10! I think Bryn still wasn't quite wide awake as she got all the way to the ortho and realized she forgot her retainer for her retainer check.... It's now rescheduled for Monday. And Abby called me at work to ask why her debit card might be repeatedly getting declined. I asked her if she was checking her bank balance online (as I told her to do) before she went out to make any purchases and her response was, "does it matter?" I think she answered her own question.

My boss asked me to work Friday as it was a short week, but we've been so slow I just didn't feel the need. Besides, it's so exciting, that first Friday of school when I know I have the house to myself! I worked out and then ran so many errands! Like depositing money from Abby's savings into her checking account. :) After school Bryn ran Cross Country at Greenfield Park and placed around 40th. Improved her time by 30 seconds! Jeff and I are going to take a short movie at the next meet so she can critique her running form. We think she can gain a lot of time by just lengthening her strides. And she never looks tired at the end of the race!

Saturday morning I got up and started baking. It's my weekend to bake the communion bread for church. I like that our church promotes baking our own bread. I was done by 10. Got my hair cut and updated my facebook picture that I was getting insults about. Jeff took Bryn to the Good Feet Store to see what they might have available for Bryn's tired cross-country-running feet. They measured her all up and took some kind of scan, had her try various inserts and handed Jeff the package for a discount price of $600!!! He turned them down as none of their products seemed specific to her needs. Guess we'll be trying out Dr. Scholls. I've been cleaning and organizing all Abby's leftovers so that Paige may move into her room. Then I'll have to do the same with Paige's leftovers so Abby can move there. I think with a few cosmetic additions, each room can be updated. It's kind of nice having the extra space (bedroom) to dump stuff in for a while and sort out when time allows.

Today I was able to take Bryn and Paige shopping for a couple additions to their bedrooms. Don't worry Abby, we'll have yours set before you come back for Homecoming too! The girls then did their weekend homework.

We're lucky to communicate with Abby via cell phones, facebook, and email - and she's been good about talking to us. But not having Little Abby around has been noticeable. No drive-through breakfast in the morning before school. No Gilmore Girls or Jon and Kate +8 after school. We can see the bathroom counter. But we miss her teasing and craziness around the house and hope someone at UWL is smiling because of it.