The funnest summer EVER

Friends

 

It’s been a really, really fun summer around here, and we wanted to share a couple of pictures from what we’ve been doing in July. 

On hot days, the kids like to run around the back yard and spray water.  I like this picture because it captured the spray in midair.

 

Our little city hosted its annual summer party again, and it was a good time.  The kids rode carnival rides, made art projects and Daniel got to paddle a kayak.  You might remember he did this last year too.  Unlike last year, the fireworks didn’t get rained out, and we went over to Declan’s house to watch them from their front yard.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been hot here this summer.  Not as bad as earlier years, but many days in the mid-90s (that’s 35 celsius for you metric-folk), and so escaping to the mountains can be a great idea.  One weekend in July, we headed up to Idaho Springs to visit the Phoenix gold mine.  Daniel was gung-ho about the idea, but not so excited once we got there.  I think he really wanted to ride a cart or train, and instead it was a walking tour.  We also got to borrow washpans and pan for gold –> and I’m not sure how old you have to be to have the attention span for this, but it’s" “More than 5”.  So they fed the chipmunks instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Texas cousins came to visit, in two separate batches.  Brayden and Kayla went hiking with the kids, went to dinosaur ridge and did some general tourism-stuff while visiting.  Chloe joined the fun in the back yard with the slip-and-slide.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just to round it all out, we went camping.  We’d originally planned to go to Turquoise Lake over the July 4th weekend, but then we got the tickets to Norway that overlapped with that. So we were able to go a couple of weeks later.  And it was a lot of fun.  The kids got fishing poles and enjoyed trying to catch something (albeit with no real bait to speak of).  We went for a little hike, roasted marshmallows, got dirty and in general had a great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only downside was that we’d booked ourselves into a campground that allowed RVs, so we had a lot of mechanical noises, generators, etc – not the escape to nature that some of our other trips have been –> so we’ll avoid that mistake in the future, but it was still a great place, and we’ll probably go back there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that’ll have to do for the general summer fun posting.  Next up, San Diego!

Norway and Sweden, Summer of 2010

Friends

It’s going to be another one of those multiple-posts-in-one-day dealies.  The Norwegians have a word for it, it’s called “Skippertak”, which basically just means –> buckle down and get it done.   Today’s theme is summer, and some of the really, really fun things we’ve done. 

 

At the end of June, and for 10 days thereafter, we went to Norway, but spent most of the time at “Stugan” or the family cottage on the Swedish coast.   It’s always a very pleasant time. 

Due to how we booked the tickets, Eric flew with Rachel and Daniel, while Anida had a more direct set of connections.  It wasn’t bad going there, but the return trip routed Oslo-Copenhagen-Manchester-Newark-Charlotte-Denver for a total of 5 flights and 26 hours.  The kids are travel champs though, so no biggie there.

Grandpa and Farmor are building a garage where Farmor’s flower garden used to be, so Daniel got to help dig up some of the plants for relocation to Sara’s garden.

In the day before going down to Stugan, we headed out to the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, on the theory that Daniel would enjoy that.  I think it’s safe to say that he was a little underwhelmed by the real thing. 

Life at Stugan falls into a fairly predicable pattern. The boys fish for crabs at the dock and play on the beach.  We take a trip or two around the area and go fishing in Grandpa’s boat.  The boys caught some mackerel this time, and enjoyed eating that.   This year, Daniel was strong enough to climb the cliffs on the North side of the cottage.  There are pictures, but not on our cameras, since Anida couldn’t watch, and Eric was busy making sure he didn’t fall.

  

This year, Rachel was able to participate in the crab fishing, and was pretty good at it, though much less obsessed than the boys.  The water was a little bit cold at the beginning of the week, but warmed up significantly.  Rachel’s the only one of the kids that spent any real time in the water. 

So it was a mellow week.  We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with strawberries and a nice champagne, then went back to Oslo for a few days.  As always it was nice to spend time with Jacob and Leo, and remarkable how well the kids play together despite the distance.  Daniel picked up a Norwegian accent the way he usually does, and that lasted for a few weeks.

    

And that’s really the news from Norway this time around.  We flew back on the 4th of July and watched the fireworks from above – though truthfully the kids slept for most of that.

Up next – random other summer activities.

 

Love, ADRE.

Star Wars

Friends

The blogger editor ate my original text for this post about 2 weeks ago, which I have to say is a real bummer, because it was actually quite entertaining.

I'm over it now, really.

This is going to be a fairly Daniel-centric post, but I wanted to start with this picture of the kids enjoying themselves massively at a "Pirate concert" put on by a local library. Pirate Pete was the perfect match for their sense of humor.

The title of the post refers to the fact that letting Daniel watch the original, 1977 "Episode IV" of Star Wars has done nothing but pour fuel on the fire of his interest.

In this, what is thought to be the original "Star Wars"-inspired drawing from right after the artist's 5th birthday, we can see a re-enactment of the climactic battle scene from Episode IV.

Done entirely in the "Restaurant Crayon" style, we see some of the inherent limitations of the medium, in that only 4 colors are available and "Yellow" is so faint as to be useless.

The ships with a circular middle are TIE figthers, the red and green ones with oblong shapes are X-Wings. Blue clouds of debris represent exploded space ships, while the green cloud is the remnants of the recently exploded Death Star.


In this drawing, from late May, the Brown figure is Chewbacca, firing a blaster. Luke Skywalker is clearly identifiable as the guy doing battle with Darth Vader, and in the lower corner, Han Solo is assisting, using a blaster that mysteriously shoots two rays simultaneously.

On the left side, Daniel has cataloged the "valid" colors for light sabers, and on the right, one can see an X-Wing fighter shooting at a TIE-fighter, with the Death Star below.

The caption displays an increased level of confidence with his lettering, while indicating that the "R" is still challenging. Bidding for this priceless item of "Early Daniel" will begin at $100.... :)


Oh, did I mention that he's growing his hair out to "Be like Luke"? For those of you who may have forgotten, the hair styles of 1977 were - well - mullet-ish.

As I mentioned - this is "Rev 2" of what originally was a long, funny, serious update about Daniel, and I've forgotten many of the original talking points, but I do know that I highlighted that Daniel can read. Like, he really can read. We don't know exactly when this happened, but already in April, the Pastas pointed out that we might be shorting him when we said he just had awesome book memory. Since then, he's started reading signs, books-he's-read-before. Simple readers (with some encouragement), but the highlight was that he read a letter from Farmor just before going on vacation there. That he did without the assist that illustrations or context provide.

Playing preferably involves a lightsaber, or a sword. Pirates are cool, Star Wars is cooler.

And I'm stopping now before Blogger eats my post again. We're just back from 10 days in Norway, and when I get some posting energy back, I'll tell you all about it, but it was a good time.

Love,
ADRE.

Pictures from a Graduation

  

Friends

So I promised you some pictures from Daniel’s graduation, and this also gives me a chance to try out this new blog editing tool, because the stock blogger one is truly bad.

So the graduation was staged as an olympic event, with various activities such as an obstacle course, hurdles, jumps, soccer, basketball, etc. 

 

 

 

This was followed by an awards ceremony and a diploma. 

 

 

 

And finally, a little video montage from the event.  This might take a little while to download. 

 

OK, that’ll have to do for now.  Let’s upload this posting and see how it looks…

 

Love, ADRE.

Friends

Summer is definitely here. Both Daniel and Rachel have finished their swim lessons and pre-schools and what used to be fairly structured weeks and days is now replaced with random playdates and playing outside.

Rachel's personality has really evolved since we got home from that little jaunt to Texas last month.

Specifically, she's really come out of her little shell socially. She'll now interact a lot more with her playmates from school as well as kids she meets in the park - even initiating the contact/conversations. For posterity, we'll record that she went on a playdate with Tyler, who has a crush on her and refers to her as "MY Rachel"

Our weekend routine consists of making pancakes or waffles for breakfast, and the kids usually argue over whos turn it is to help. Rachel has gotten pretty good at cracking eggs and mixing ingredients.

Rachel's preschool wrapped up with a little show, and unfortunately, this is the only photo we have from it.

As we've mentioned before, Rachel loves books, and so there's at least one trip per week to the library. She has her own library card, and can check out the books herself.

Rachel's task chart has been focused on the letters of the alphabet. She's mastered most of them by now, but still goofs off and occasionally pretends that she doesn't know them. Still, she's worked her way through to several rewards, and a trip to the ice cream store was one of them.

Somehow, Rachel picked up the word "Boring", and uses it frequently when there's something she doesn't want to do. She'll say "UGH, that's so Boawing" and stomp her feet, but most of the time, she still has a sweet, accomodating personality.

Rachel has always loved painting at the easel. She goes at it with great gusto, and usually has a story associated with what she's drawing. This one started as "trees", but migrated into being a "Zeebwa".




Take note of that smile - you'll probably be seeing it again, since that's the look we get if we encourage her to look at the camera.

OK, so I'd mentioned in a previous posting that Daniel has been a biking fiend this spring, and a few weeks back, we went for a bike ride in the state park next to the house. He just wanted to go and go, and with one thing and another we ended up taking a 9.8 mile trip to the beach. He didn't stop, and he didn't complain until his back started hurting around the 9-mile mark. Not bad for a 5-year-old!

(He slept REALLY well that night)

Another birthday, and another trip to the pediatrician to get poked and measured. The official stats for Daniel on his 5th birthday are:

• 36 pounds (15th percentile)
• 41" tall (13th percentile)
• Skills are off the charts
• (In other words, perfect)
• 
  Physical games are part of being a 5-year old boy, and it seems that no matter what it is, it has to involve a sword, a lightsaber or a gun. We had a brief period where he thought he knew Karate (one of his friends showed him some moves), and more recently Tae Kwon Do has shown up for the same reason.

With the warmer weather, the water guns have come into play in the back yard activities.

Star Wars is still the unquestioned champion of entertainment.


Daniel also had a class graduation, and I'll try to do a quick posting of some pictures from that after I get this one done.


Around christmas time, Daniel got a pair of Sketchers tennis shoes that had little flashing green lights. They are actually pretty cool. He had the first pair in his class, but by the end of the school year, there were 5-6 others wearing them. At this age, physical size apparently has nothing to do with influence.

So it's summer, and we're having a good time. Whether it's dragging our sister around the deck, splashing in the water, playing in the pool at Grandma Babe's house, it's all good.

And that'll have to do for this time. I'll try to post some graduation pictures next.

Love, ADRE.

Daniel turns 5

Friends

Well, it happened - Mr. D is actually 5 years old. It's hard to believe that it's really been 5 years, but sure enough it has.

The little man was celebrated in two rounds - first at home on his actual birthday, and then today at the neighborhood park with his friends. We'd invited his preschool class and some other friends, and ended up with close to 100% acceptance rate, so with siblings and parents there were just about 50 people.

On Daniel's birthday, he went to lunch with Eric at a local Chinese restaurant, and had squid, which he then followed up with a birthday dinner wish of "Fish with their heads on". He does love his seafood.

On his birthday, he was allowed to open one package before dinner, and chose the one that arrived that day from Oregon. The monster truck was very popular, as were the books. After dinner he got to open the rest, and got a big kick out of the boat and legos from Norway. The cash he got from grandma babe is getting spent $1 at a time for matchbox cars...

And then there was the big 5-year-old party at the local park. Refusing to learn from last year when we just about gave all of the kids hypothermia, we scheduled an outdoor birthday in the spring. And it was looking pretty bleak a few days before the event, with possible snow predicted, but in the end we got lucky and it was high-50s and partially clouded.

Daniel wanted a Star Wars party, so that's what he got. Invitations went out to his classmates and a few family friends, and with better than expected response rate (and siblings), there were 29 kids who RSVP'ed and they all came.

Each kid got a jedi outfit and a lightsaber, took their picture with Yoda and then ran around the park for a bit.

Then there was pizza and "Yoda Soda" (Sprite with lime sherbert), followed by "Jedi training".

There were three events for the Jedi training. First to learn control of the lightsaber, the kids were given a balloon and asked to use the lightsaber to bounce it across a field....

In retrospect, we should have thought about the wind and the pine trees... Most of the balloons ended up blowing into a tree and popping...

Then there was teamwork training, where two and two jedis were tied together and had to do a three-legged race up the hill.

And finally, there was blaster training, where they got to shoot nerf guns at a cutout of Darth Vader.

Darth himself showed up at the end of training, did battle with the newly-trianed jedis, and lost... (though he'll go on record saying that he didn't feel he could use all of his powers against 5-year-olds).

And there was cake. And more swordfights. And a few tears, but no-one left unhappy.

And most importantly, the birthday boy himself had a great time.

All of the pictures we took at the event can be found HERE.

Happy birthday Mr. D - we love you.

Love, A(D)RE.

(This post was originally funnier and actually available on Sunday after the party, but blogger ate my text. The editor is grumpy).

Houston for a wedding and a little vacation

Friends

So the weekend before Daniel's birthday, we jumped on a plane down to Houston to celebrate Anida's sister getting married, meet up with the TX side of the family, and also take a little vacation with our friends the Pastas.

What with one thing and another, we got a late start to the trip, then got stuck in security, so we made it to the plane with about 45 seconds to spare after a mad dash through the airport.


Daniel and Rachel enjoyed hanging out with their cousins Brayden, Kayla and Chloe before and after the ceremony.












We took advantage of having the kids all dressed up to get some nice pictures.

















The next day after the wedding, we piled into our rented minivan with David, Barbara and Sean and headed on up to Bastrop, TX. There we stayed for a couple of nights at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort thanks largely to some gift cards that Barbara generously shared.

What a nice place. In many ways it reminded us of the place we go in Thailand. The grounds were nice, the swimming pool was fantastic for the little ones and it was all-around relaxing. Thumbs up.

Daniel got to use his swimming skills in the pool and the kids area was large enough that he got some independence, while we felt like we didn't have to hover over him. Rachel also got confident that she could stand on her toes so they just had a grand time in there.

Daniel rode on the bikes they had for guests, and both evenings, we made S'mores at the outdoor firepits. The resort is right next to a state park, so we got some nice hikes in as well.





There are lots of additional pictures in David's photo Album - HERE.

On the way back from Bastrop, we stopped by the Blue Bell ice cream factor - which the adults enjoyed at least as much as the kids did.

(The airport and flight back were much less dramatic than the trip there).


In the spirit of keeping these short and hopefully not falling too far behind, that'll have to do for updates from TX.

Love, ADRE.