Summer's almost over

And somehow I didn't manage to post anything for the summer.  It certainly wasn't for the lack of activity.  We've been very busy and active this entire summer.  Lauren's spent a couple of weeks in gymnastics camp, followed by horseback riding camp, and regular summer camp in the Maywood Tiny Timbers camp, where she got to go on a field trip to watch Monsters University along with an outing to Pump It Up.  She also turned 8 over the summer, celebrating her birthday at Sharks Ice, with an ice skating birthday party.  Many thanks to everyone who came and thank you all for her presents (she's way behind in writing thank you cards).  We also got to watch other summer movies including Turbo and Despicable Me 2 in the theater.

Meanwhile I got to take a quick weekend trip to Los Angeles to attend V3Con, an Asian American bloggers and journalism conference and watch the East West Players production of Chess, both of which were wonderful.

Lauren and Lars drove off to Tucson in the middle of July, while I took a business trip over to Malaysia and Singapore (during which I got to try durian for the first time).  Lauren went off to visit a copper mine in Tucson, and then after I arrived in Tucson and drove her back to San Jose, we had a nice pit stop at the Grand Canyon, along with another stop in Bakersfield to visit our surrogate, Pauline.  We got back just in time for my company summer picnic at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, where Lauren got to enjoy the rides for the day (in addition to the many outings to Great America we had through the summer, including going to watch the July 4 fireworks).

During the whole summer, Lauren also got to take plenty of advantage of our new membership in a local community pool and her swimming and diving have improved vastly this summer.  She can easily beat me across a pool now.

Lauren also got to experience making ice cream this summer, along with Dippin' Dots, since she got a Dippin' Dots machine for her birthday.  We also somehow managed to spend time working on the house, putting in a concrete patio for a new hot tube coming later this month.

Finally before school starts, we also took a trip to Hawaii, where Lauren got to visit the Teddy Bear Museum, experience Waikiki beaches (which she loved and wishes she could go back to immediately), and had a dolphin encounter adventure at Sea Life Park, where she got to kiss a dolphin, be kissed by a dolphin, dance with a dolphin named Kaleo.

We're back home now, and school starts next Monday!