conversation via book

I've posted quite a few of my letters home, but I always admired the example of Hugh Lofting whose letters to his children from the war formed the beginning of his Dr. Dolittle books. So recently, after a couple false starts I sent home the story of Jack Crow and his friend Sara, hand-written, folded and stapled to form a small book. At the end I wrote that if it was liked, I would continue the story.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, both kids presented me with books of their own making! Here are scans of the covers, Daughter's:



and Son's:



At the end of hers, Daughter wrote "continued if you like it"!, so I'm very encouraged. This week I wrote the second Jack Crow adventure, adding illustrations this time because Daughter's effort convinced me of their importance, and you can read the whole thing (pdf):



Of course I wouldn't put myself in the same league with the great children's authors but maybe in some small way I've contributed to the storytelling tradition ....

some more "letters home"

Here's one from a few months back, when we were to meet on the weekend in Canyonville in southern Oregon. Simple mirror writing, and I don't think they even needed a mirror to read it ...



A word-find --- these seem to be the most popular:



This one took a bit longer. Those are thin strips of green paper, woven into a larger sheet of yellow with slits cut into it. I've lined up the first three numbers of my phone so you can see that the letter starts with "DEAR S". The recipient would have to know my cell phone number to read the letter!

Disneyland II

Yes, we had so much fun last time that we wanted to hit it again before losing our Silver Pass discount. We spent Thursday and Friday at Disneyland and Saturday at Build-a-Bear, Ridemakerz, and California Adventures. This trip was not as smooth and pleasant as the previous, but we did all survive and we have some good memories to reinforce as we let the less-good memories fade from mind. Just the one pic here, for the rest go here!

all about math

So - yesterday evening at bath time (after I gave Son a haircut) Daughter said - "Mom, what's 5x2"?

Son lifted his head and proudly said "10"!

Hi 5s all around.

He then tried to tell her that 1x1 is 2. Oh well.........

Dinosaurs!

The Portland Zoo has an (extra cost!) walk-through exhibit of animatronic dinosaurs. We tried it last summer and the kids got scared and we had to bail out early (no refunds, sorry!). This year they had a lot of fun, especially with the ones that "spit" (water, I'm assuming).

(catchup) Wildlife Safari

We went to the Wildlife Safari in Wilsonville, Ore. I was expecting something pretty cheesy, but it was actually very fun and interesting and the kids loved it. There's nothing but a car door between Daughter and this giraffe. Second picture: they were not nearly this charming throughout the day but I couldn't resist this image. Third: we were pretty confidant that Daughter wouldn't have anything to do with the camels, but Son enthousiatically called our bluff ... and once he was going to go, Daughter had to also! They had fun. Fourth: not much else to do in the area, but there were a couple nice parks in Canyonville. Son pretends to be asleep. There is a great burger place, though.

(catchup) Backsplash for the Kitchen (100th Post!)

This goes back a few weeks, into the depths of my Google-imposed exile from blogging. After much painful consideration of thousands of different tile patterns (okay, I exaggerate) we finally settled on this nice number from Lowe's. We did it ourselves over a couple weekends, and Daughter even got into it for a while. She fit under the counters nicely.

As for the "100th Post!" bit, I think this is actually the 101st, but I had been looking forward to marking this milestone so here goes: we made it to 100 posts! I've really enjoyed doing this, sharing these pictures and this tiny small part of what it means to raise these two wonderful, annoying kids.