Back to School

The two school-aged Semonsky's are now starting their third week of school already! Elliot has had an expected adjustment period...He and I both shed some tears the first three days of school, but by the fourth day I dropped Elliot off in his classroom, he stopped crying by the time I got to the front door of the school-SO, it made leaving a little easier. Over the weekend of the first week of school Elliot slept 11 hours Sat night (unusual!) and then a 4 hour nap on Sunday!!! I guess school tuckered him out! Then the second week was complicated by Elliot's eye surgery. The procedure went well-they inserted a tube into his tear duct, and it is sutured to the inside of his nose. The first day was difficult for all of us-and Elliot only wanted "Dada" to comfort him (in addition to his twinkle baby, puppy, and "stinky thing"-the pacifier) but by Tuesday he was back to himself. And the best part...No goop in the eye anymore...let's hope it stays that way!! Going back to school on Wednesday was hard since he had been off for four days. Finally this week it seems like we are getting back on schedule with sleeping, getting out of the house, and separating from each other for the day. I am definitely very anxious to leave school on time so we have more time to play before bedtime. Sean is keeping busy too and helping out with the new routine.

Elliot seems to enjoy playing with the steering wheels on the playground at school, he loves the music and dancing, but his most favorite thing about school I think are the snacks!!! They tell me he only eats his fruit out of his lunch everyday...but he eats ALL of his morning and afternoon snacks-requesting seconds and thirds sometimes!....That's our boy! He is so much fun, and he does new "things" all the time. He will now do motions to familiar songs, Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed....And he's using words to make requests and his needs and wants known!

I'm posting some new pics-check'em out.

lots of love-

Peachy Keen

The rains continue to grace us with their presense. However, the rain is not all good...There has been a lot of damage due to the rains, and this week a few people have even lost their lives in raging washes here in Tucson. It is very scary how powerful and intense the monsoons can be. The other thing the rains bring is ANTS...Elliot and I both were bit by fire ants this week. Thankfully Elliot's bites didn't result in a severe reaction like mine...but they are definitely painful!

We decided to head out of town toward Wilcox, AZ to pick peaches! There is a pretty big farm/orchard(s) called Apple Annie's. Anita and I thought we should leave early (to avoid the storms)...and wouldn't you know just as we arrived it started pouring! Luckily, it only lasted a few minutes and then it cleared enough for us to pick about 15 pounds of peaches!! It was a lot of fun tasting the different varieties right off the trees. Elliot didn't like the peaches so much, but enjoyed pushing the cart and picking them off the ground saying, "ball, ball". Rory, on then other hand was chowing down and loved the peaches! We did get to enjoy some homemade peach icecream too.

Elliot continues to show off his independence and likes exploring and trying out new things, like Petty's crate, putting our shoes on, and today he was really into taking care of his "bubu"(baby). In fact, he held his baby through lunch and even fed him some zucchini. Today I took him to the grocery store and he ate 3 bananas while we were shopping!!! And when "Dada" is home, I am pretty much invisible...I guess it's a guy thing.

So, tomorrow is our last day of "freedom" then back to school for me...and Elliot will also be starting his school. We visited this week again, and I left the room for a while-Elliot was expectedly upset at first, but then engaged in play and seemed to be happy. Hopefully this week we will fall into a groove and routine.

Have a fun week. More to come....

Monsoon Madness

We are definitely in the middle of an active monsoon season! We've been getting rain almost everyday-and Saturday parts of Tucson got 3 inches of rain!!! Our pool even started overflowing on one side (it's not exactly on level ground...) There have been some pretty incredible sights-rainbows, raging washes, beautiful sunsets, and lots of wildlife. Last night we took a walk over at David and Anita's house. On our walk we saw a tarantula (a big one!)...and since I had the camera they told me to take a picture of it "Get closer, get closer" they all shouted!-I took two pictures and got creeped out. So, Sean took the camera and decided to get closer...At first the tarantula jumped, and then Sean took one more picture and it started running after him-We all (David with the two dogs, Anita and I each with a stroller and little guy, and Sean) high-tailed it outta there! Then we saw a coyote, but it was a less climatic encounter. Oh, and then when we woke up this morning-our night blooming cactus had bloomed-YEAH!

SO, other news this week...Lily got her annual shave. She's looking a lot smaller, except for her belly, which now is very prominant. Elliot and I went to visit his new school. He enjoyed it-especially all the steering wheels on the playground. We got to storytime, and we got to meet Erin and Dylan at Cracker Barrel for lunch! Dylan is getting so big and is crawling now!! Yeah!

Elliot is imitating just about everything we do now...he wants to wash his hands when we do, talk on the phone when we do, and Sean usually squats down when he hands Elliot a banana in the morning, so now Elliot says, "Adada" (translation: banana) and squats down to wait for Sean to give him a piece ....Too funny!

Check out the pics-and keep in touch!

loveya all-

Back at Home

We had a fun and busy first week back in Tucson-

Elliot had his 15 month check-up and he's now weighing in at 27 pounds, 8 ounces and 33 inches tall! He got two vaccinations and didn't even cry! What a brave boy! We're also looking at another eye procedure probably the middle of August.

But back to the fun stuff....We took lunch to Sean at the airport and Elliot got to sit in, and pilot, a KingAir. He is very into transportation stuff right now-steering wheels, the wheels on the stroller, his tractor and rocket-anything that moves! We took him to one of the big city parks on Saturday, and they had a little electric train that you could ride in...It went around a small part of the park. It was fun-and it was another hit with Elliot, "Whoo Whoo!"

We also got to hang out with Anita and Rory! Rory is getting so big, sitting up and just starting to crawl! They boys are really becoming more interactive-It is so fun to watch!

SO, two weeks left for me and Elliot to tear up the town...then back to school for us! (boo hoo)

talk to you all soon...

beth ;-)

East Coast Mission Accomplished!

Greetings-

We've been back in Tucson for about 5 days now...Being back here makes us long for the cooler days and nights of the east coast, the lush green trees and grass, and of course the company of family and friends....BUT it is good to be in our own home and together with Sean again.

We had a wonderful, fun visit with everyone! Elliot had lots of new adventures-walking in grass, playing with cousins, riding on Pappy's tractor, playing at the beach and in the ocean, riding the rides at Funland, chasing rabbits in Marmee and PopPop's yard ("hop hop"), and he even picked up some new words, "OH JEEZ!" You can check out the ton of photos I took in the East Coast album-just click the Semonsky pictures link....

Thank you for all of your hospitality and for rearranging schedules to visit with us! We hope see you out here in Tucson in the near future!

Love ya all....

Happy Father's Day!

Hi ya'll
I've got two weeks worth of stuff to fill you in on...Elliot started swimming lessons last week! It's actually a parent/child class so we are learning stuff too. Elliot seems to like it pretty well except for the being on his back part-which he really doesn't like! But he put his face in the water at Thursday's class and by Friday he was blowing bubbles in the water in our pool!! SO, this week's lessons are supposed to be a little more active-bobbing, going under and even jumping in! I got some shots of him trying out his new tricks in our pool.

I finished summer school on Friday-YIPPEEE! Now one more week until we head for the east coast ;-) Oh-and Happy Anniversary again to Mom and Dad (Brodt) and Lisa and Quino too! Both share a June 15 anniversary....Happy Belated Birthday to Uncle Phil too!!!!

Saturday we spent some time with our friends Anita and David and Rory (my godson ;-) Elliot and Rory are becoming more interactive, now that Rory is bigger and almost sitting up by himself, so it's pretty fun to watch them together.

You may recall Elliot had the tear duct probe procedure done in May (for a clogged tear duct)...Unfortunately it did not work, and his eye is just as goopy as ever. So, we have an appt. on this week with the opthomologist, and will probably schedule another procedure for August. You can see what happens some mornings when his eye is too goopy-we call it "Pirate Eye"....ARGH!

And today we celebrated Father's Day! Yes, Elliot's shirt says "My Dad Rocks"- (found it at Walgreen's...who would've thunkt??!) Sean was on-call for work so we couldn't stray too far-I made his favorite breakfast, then we went to the mall -Sean used some gift cards at the bookstore and then we went swimming this afternoon...and Sean got some guitar time in too-which made him happy. And tonight Elliot and I took Sean out for icecream -MMMMM!
It was a fun day had by all....

We'll see you all very soon!
And Happy Father's Day again to all the Dads out there ;-)
love ya!
Oh yeah-the pictures at the end of the new album are of the silkworms I kind of adopted over summer school-pretty fascinating creatures!

The Little Man with the Big Hat

This week Elliot seems to have taken a liking to Sean's big hat-and requests it often. He has also learned to help with the raking and screens some of our phone calls for us ;-) So don't be surprised if he answers the phone-because he's definitely got "HI", "Yeah" and "Bye Bye" down-plus many other words! Such a fun time-especially for a Mommy speech therapist!

Love to all

XOXO