Colin's First Day of School

Colin had a good first day of school and enjoyed being back in Miss Christina's class. Some of the students were the same from last year, along with a few new faces.

He continues to ride the bus both too and from school, which works really well for our family. His morning bus driver comes roaring up our hill earlier than we are scheduled for, so most mornings are a mad dash to get out the door and down the street in time. His afternoon bus is like a preschool party with him and his friends laughing, singing songs, and about as wound up as one could imagine. God bless that school bus driver -- literally!

Visit from Texas Grandma

After our visit to Colorado we had a visit from my mom, and the boys had fun hanging out with her. Colin, in particular, enjoyed taking her to Toy Story 3. Dare I share that my mom hadn't been to a movie in the theatre since Jerry Maguire, which was in 1996. Ehmh, it had been a while, and that was back when Tom Cruise was still an enjoyable actor to watch (before the whole Oprah couch jumping incident, etc.).....but I digress!

Anyhow, Colin enjoyed his third watching of Toy Story 3 and we have had many a recap of the garbage truck incidents and discussions about Lotso Bear not having a happy heart.

We are glad you came to visit us, Grandma!

Back from the Dark

Shortly after my last post our home computer was having serious issues. We nursed it back to health so that we could recover files and some of the programs, but with no connection to the internet.

We were fortunate that I had Matt's iPad for use for email and other social connecting, but their Blogger ap is only as good as you know how to use it, and with no access to my pictures to post, what was the point, right?

Well I am happy to say I am back in business thanks to the help of my brother and I am lovin' my new "toy!" I've still been a little slow to catch up, as that's just life when you have sick children.

But, in the interest of wearing my "family curator hat," I hope to catch up on some of the big events of the past almost 2 months.

Odds and Ends from CO

Star Wars Holy Grail

Colin discovered Darth Vader and Storm Troopers at a recent parade where several of the characters marched in the procession. He was delighted to hear of Daddy's stash of related toys and begged PaPa to get them out of the garage. I had heard of this stash for over a dozen years, and now I got to meet his childhood love!

This later turned into the need for a Skype call with Daddy to identify all of the spaceships and characters, and Colin was then hard pressed to the leave the house because he had located the Star Wars Holy Grail of toys. Ebay folks would pay big bucks for these originals in great condition, but our 4 year old just played gleefully with them and began asking lots of questions about when his Daddy was growing up (thinking, "hey, my Dad really WAS cool!")

Colin is showing off Dad's speeder bike, which is just like the one he bought a friend for a birthday party. That manufacturer in China has gotten a lot of mileage out of that mold!

Following in Dad's Tippy Toes

Luke was not sure about the grass when we were in Colorado. When I sat him in the yard he got up in a push up position and kept his knees off of that spikey green-stuff (though he was happy to sample it with his mouth!) Apparently this is exactly how Matt acted in the yard at this age. I don't recall Colin being this way, but he was never a crawler when the weather would have been warm enough to have sat him down in the yard. And I think our grass is less spikey here in the PNW (much softer, probably from being drenched by the rain much of the year! )

Feeding PaPa's Blue Gills

The pond in PaPa's yard is home to 5 larger blue gills who are so domesticated that they come begging for food each evening during the nightly ritual of "the night crawler, hand-fed, all-you-can-eat buffet!" They're PaPa's pets! Colin enjoyed this evening ritual, though he wasn't too sure about the slimy nature of the worms and eventually just sat with PaPa each evening and watched. Such sweet photos of the two of them together at the water!

Since our return home he has talked a lot about those blue gills!

Colin isn't too sure about grabbing on to the slimy night crawler. In the water below, the fish patiently wait!

I just love the gleam of the sun off of the water and through the sky. It was a gorgeous evening!