Nature

Julia was sick over the weekend but we had a few fun things happen. One day Andy went outside and found a cicada hanging upside down in a shoe of his, coming out of it's shell. Very cool.

Monday he took Brendan to the garden and they found a baby paint turtle in the lake. They brought it home to show Julia and me and then took it back to the lake to be with it's mother. Since the kids wanted to keep it.

Finally, Brendan declared that he has a baby and that it's named "Taste." Taste turned out to be in the form of a seltzer bottle that was in our recycling bin. Unlike Julia when she was "pregnant" and taking such good care of her babies, Brendan ran around with Taste, banging Taste against the ground, the flagstone on the patio, anything really and yelling "TASTE!!!"

Running to Save Lives

Perhaps from the title of this you may have thought that I was perhaps training for a marathon. Are you kidding? Not me! My fingers will be tired from writing a check to my friend, Jen, in Minnesota, who is training for her very first marathon!

She's training with the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training to run the Nike Women's Marathon on October 19. This is her first running venture and it will take her all the way to San Francisco for the actual marathon. Does Jen realize that there are a lot of hills in San Fran? Apparently so, but that's not stopping her.

So, I'm writing to put in a plug for the cause. Maybe if you're inspired you will want to send a donation.

What you should know:

•Someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer every 5 minutes.

•Every 10 minutes someone will lose their battle with a blood cancer.

•The good news is that the survival rates for blood cancers have more than doubled since 1970.

She will gladly accept a contribution of any amount. Every bit helps!

So, if you're so inclined please feel free to send a check for her to me and I'll send it to her in Minnesota. Checks can be made out to "LLS."

Thanks!

Andrews Air Show

It all began with an email from our friends, the P's, who go to the Andrews Air Force Base Air Show nearly every year. Coach Bill is the assistant coach of Julia and Nick's team, so we all felt an obligation to go to the soccer game, thus we got a late start to the air show. We paid for it...we were late enough that it took 2 hours to get from the parking area at Fed Ex Field to the Base. But we did it, with no problem, other than the long wait. The kids did great!

The security was so slow getting everyone through that they began turning people away from Fed Ex. So we were lucky to be there and only wait as long as we did. Amazing.

The first cool thing was to ride the Metrobus. Brendan looooves buses and has never ridden one, so after the initial adjustment to actually being on a bus and taking it all in, he was happily singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and moving his arms to the song. Very cute.

Once there we ate and then walked about to see airplanes and helicopters or "kelihopters" as they are at our house. From there a big highlight was meeting up with Miss Jessica and her husband Mr. Albert. For a while the kids just didn't want to see planes they wanted to see Miss Jessica!!! We stopped to say hi and then went off to see a bit more before the Blue Angels started. The show was great. The kids enjoyed a late afternoon italian ice and all was good to get back into line and wait another almost 2 hours, I think, to get back to Fed Ex Field. But it was worth it. We all had a great time. Thanks so much to the P's for the idea, invitation and for making it such fun!

The Caterpillar Whisperer

We have caterpillars in our trees, the bad kind, but Julia has 3 now living in her bug house who love her and miss her when she's not holding them. They're fuzzy and they like each other because they're brothers and they're not as interesting to Brendan who would rather ride his bike or scooter.

It Worked!

I'm now home with a sick B, who's napping. Miraculously the photos downloaded on the second try this time.

That's Brendan saying a big "cheese!" in the photo of him with his helmet.

Put a fork in her...

The Mamas in the Police Car...

At night Brendan loves it when I sing to him. Lately he's decided that the "Wheels on the Bus" isn't interesting enough so he'll request that we'll switch things up a bit. It started with going to:

"The Wheels on the Fast Car"
"The Wheels on the Fire Truck"

and

most recently,

"The Wheels on the Police Car."

Which makes it interesting when you get to the part about the mamas...so it goes, "the mamas in the police car say shush, shush, shush."

I'm addicted to the show "Jon and Kate + Eight" because when they first started filming they had two 6 year olds (twins obviously) and six 2 year olds (yep, sextuplets). Now the kids are 7 and 3.5. I cannot get over watching this show and wondering how they do it. Just 5 more Brendans alone is incomprehensible, then add on top of it twins????

I can't get the photos to download from the camera and honestly after the kids are asleep and I've tried literally 15-20 times to make it happen, I just give up. Maybe one of these weekends while they're napping I'll have more time, energy and success.

Later.

Julia's Future Album Cover

Click on the photo to get the full effect.

Happy Birthday

If you ask Julia, Andy turned 76 last Tuesday.

Yes, that's April Fools Day, but she's not foolin.

We had one of his favorites, puddin pie for dessert.

Happy Birthday my darlin!

Goalia - Season II

Goalia's first game of the season was on Saturday. She scored the first goal of the game and for the season!

Her buddies, Riley, Nicholas P and Maxwell are on her team this season.

Stugotch

So lately Julia keeps using this word that sounds like "Stugotch." As in, "You! Stugotch!"

Knowing that her teacher, the wonderful Miss Jessica, grew up in Germany I figured that this was simply the word "stop!" in German since she was using it in the context of it meaning stop. I even asked Julia if that's what stop was in German and she said yes.

This morning as I dropped the kids off to school I asked Jessica how to spell "Stugotch" correctly and she looked at me like I might have had a morning cocktail before dropping the kids off. So I explained what was going on.

Turns out that there is no word...at least in German.

Final Skating Lesson and Other Goings On

The shirt says "Short and Sweet."

Some of these were taken at the zoo. The best part of the zoo for Brendan was the excavator in the area where they are renovating the elephant house. He must have stood there for 5 minutes saying "excavator!" and asking to touch it. I told him that I'd end up in jail of I let him touch it but that didn't seem to make a difference to him.

Julia enjoyed the panda who had a crate over it's head. They had put honey in the crate for some reason so the panda had it over it's head, licking it and trying to get the most out of it.

Afterward...at Johnny Rockets. Yum!

Easter Bunnies

The Number 1 Song in the Country

The song is called "Low"

As sung by Julia:
"Applemayonnaise
fur with the fur
the coach was lookin at her."

As sung by the Artist - Flo Rida:
"Apple Bottom Jeans
Boots with the Fur
The whole club was lookin at her"

Babies and Pregnancy

"The baby is making me tired. The baby is moving!! Feel the baby move? The head is here and the feet are here and it's kicking here! Rub my belly, the baby likes it when you rub my belly."

No, these are not my words (thank goodness!) they are the words of Julia who is apparently quite pregnant, just like her teacher the beloved Miss Jessica. I'm pretty surprised that Julia hasn't been dry heaving or feeling pretty terribly as Miss Jessica has for the last 23 weeks.

We don't talk about who the dad might be because I am so not ready to go there, but I learned on the way home tonight that we don't know what the baby's name will be because "the doctor will tell us." Miss Jessica, if you are reading this, you better hope that your doctor likes the same names that you do!

Once we got home Julia was asking Brendan and me to touch her belly to feel the baby kick. Thus, the photos.

P.S. We had a really fun time with Grant and his parents on Saturday night. Mr. Jason has a REAL drum set as well as the really fun xbox game "Rockband" complete with the guitar, microphone and drum set, which the kids (and us fogies) absolutely loved playing. Visit Grant's blog for photos of the kids rocking out. Thanks for having us and for a deliciously yummy dinner! Lots of fun!