First of all, this might be the saddest August picture total ever! We have had a very laid back August and apparently I haven't found many picture worthy events! Nathan and Lynsey have both been having some friends over to enjoy the pool (can't take pictures of Lynsey in the pool with her friends:-/) and there's been beach volleyball for Lynsey two evenings a week, as well as summer volleyball at the school. Nathan had Sambica the first week of August which he enjoyed, although I think he was getting a bit tired of it by the end. It's too bad he doesn't have any friends that go, I think that would make all the difference. He does like it though, and I've already signed him up for next year.
The biggest thing that has happened so far for us is that on August 17th (exactly 10 years to the day from when we crossed the border to move here!) we got our American citizenship! I definitely have mixed feelings about it, I don't feel American pride at all. I am happy that we are DONE with immigration stuff now (except that Brian is applying to get citizenship certificates for the kids as well, but that's just a formality at this point). The next day, we both went to the DMV to get our enhanced driver's licenses. We can use that to cross back into the US by land, so while we wait for our American passports we can still cross into Canada. We applied for our American passports Saturday morning, pretty straightforward process because I was well prepared. They do have to take our citizenship papers and the kids' birth certificates, and we might not get those back for up to 6 months! Annoying because Adam needs his Canadian passport renewed probably in January (expires in March), so it looks like we may have to order another birth certificate for him. Hopefully we will have our passports by Christmas, not that we need them because we aren't flying to Calgary this year. It would be nice to get them sooner rather than later, as we were hoping to fly back to Calgary for a weekend in the Spring sometime. We are at the mercy of the passport processing department at this point!
Lynsey had school volleyball tryouts this week, and she made the JV team! It was an exciting accomplishment, but her good friend was cut which really dampened the celebration. It was unfortunate and a very puzzling decision in my opinion, but this girl will be okay and has club season to look forward to on the same team as Lynsey. So hard even to see Lynsey's friend go through this disappointment, it hit me hard because I realized it could have just as easily been Lynsey that was cut (skill levels are not drastically different, they just play different positions). It would have been tough for her (and me!) so I empathized a lot with her and her mom. Hopefully she comes out stronger and more determined to work hard and try again next year!
Only two weekends left in the summer! We don't have any big plans this weekend, probably get some pool time in for the last time - I think it's going to come down after this weekend, and we aren't putting it up again next summer. The end of the pool era for the Kroekers! Glad it will be warm this weekend so we can give it a proper send off:-D.
