Author: Elsa

All the girls wore red, white and blue to the party. Monti and Dahlia
added cut outs of the Beijing Olympic mascots to the bottom of their
dresses to spice up their Olympic wear.

One of Lesa's teacher friends had an olympic party for the kids. She
had several olympic events for the kids to participate in with medals
and certificates for all. There were 4 elementary teachers present.
Three of them being first grade teachers so the party was tailored
perfectly to my kids age group. It was very cute and a lot of fun!

The girls really miss Joe. We have been gone 2 weeks now. Thank
goodness for video chat.

Monti's first tooth needed some help in coming out. The big tooth was
pushing the little tooth forward instead of up. The whole root of her
baby tooth was exposed in the front. Kim did a great job getting it
out with little complaint from the dramatic Monti. She had to call her
Dad as soon as it came out.

Monti was also very disappointed she did not get goggles from any
jockey. My aunt Lorraine went and bought some goggles and had them
signed by the only female jockey racing during the day. Her name was
Inez Karlsson. She is a 23 year old former boxer from Sweden. Earlier
this summer she made Arlington history by being the first female to
win four races in one day. The jockey's horse won the last race and
Monti was able to meet and talk to her after everything was over.
Monti even had a chance to hug her. This made her day.

At the end of the race the winning jockey signs his or her goggles and hands it to a kid in the crowd. Dahlia was very upset when she was not chosen. Brecken tried to help Dahlia feel better about things by going over to see what was wrong. He even tried to bring over some lemonade but nothing seemed to work. He is learning that females are quite tough to figure out.

We went to Arlington Park racetrack on Sunday. The girls strategy for
choosing a horse to bet on was to check out the horses before the race
and pick the prettiest looking horse or the jockey with the best
jersey. There was one jockey wearing a jersey with pink polka dots
that Dahlia and Monti favored. He didn't even place however. The boys
strategy was to study the book and choose a horse by their odds.
Neither strategy really paid off.