So long Summer, hello Fall!

Is summer over already?  Yikes!  I read a great book (before kids) about innovation.  It talked about how some things speed up and some things slow down.  It's probably a bit controversial so I won't put all of the details here.  E.g. Discussions about the Big Bang and about computers developing the ability to think like live humans.  Email me if you want the title. :-)    As we age, it does seem that time goes by faster. 

My children are now 6 and 9.  Blaise had his birthday -- a Star War themed party at The Little Gym -- a few months back, and Freya's having a sleep over party tonight with 8 of her friends. (A friend suggested I turn the clocks forward 2 hours and buy some ear plugs.)   For Freya and Blaise, hopefully they're enjoying their childhood, relishing each experience and growing from them.

This summer we had them enrolled in various camps around Portland.  They experienced digging through regurgitated owl pellets, finding small mouse bones.  They learned how to "post" at horse camp.  And we all got introduced to tennis via a fun family tennis lesson for a few Tuesdays this summer.   We did get away for a week to a cabin in California.  Freya did her first "real" hike with us and did her first (guided) trail ride on a horse with me.  And we did get the annual Oregon Coast camping trip in last weekend. We also had plenty of down-time so they could experience the obligatory boredom of summer and focus on coming up with creative ways to keep boredom at bay.  (I'm still trying to get the stains out of our carpet.)

With Fall starting, they're excited to start school. We met their teachers the other day at their Open House.  This is also the first year that Freya and Blaise can do gymnastics together (Grade School Flips/Hot Shots).  We'll see how that goes.  

I'm excited about our Fall semester at the gym starting.  We have a few new instructors coming on board and are saying good-bye to a few too.  Teacher Amy is going to be traveling for a good chunk of the semester, so she'll be around helping with some training and substituting for a while.  Teacher Kelly (the *new* Kelly) has some family committments and is going to be finishing nurisng school.   And Teacher Michael is going back to OSU for his sophomore year.  Hopefully they'll *all* be back again!

Teacher Ana joins us in our Parent/Child, and Pre/K gymnastics and dance prorams. She recently graduated from Lewis & Clark from their Theater program.  She's going to be directing one of their upcoming productions.  And Teacher Andrea is joining us from The Little Gym of Beaverton. She'll be leading Birthday Parties and helping out in some Pre/K and Grade school classes too.

We're looking forward to having many of our summer class and camp students coming back for Fall classes, and we're excited about how many of of our former students and brand new students have been signing up in droves these past few weeks.  It's going to be a great year!

Let's hope it doesn't go *too* fast so we can enjoy it! :-)

Happy handstands.  -Ron