...Hello?...

Yesterday was the first day of summer vacation here in our neck o' the woods.

I picked the kids up at school (a half day) on their last day of school. We stopped for big ole double dip ice cream cones with lots of sprinkles for our pre-lunch appetizers in celebration.

A few days earlier, I went into C's classroom to read a book for her birthday. She picked the book, "Bark George." It's about a dog who eats lots of other animals and so he only can make funny other animal sounds until he goes to the vet and the vet reaches down his throat while wearing a long latex glove and pulls out all these animals until George can bark again. Then George's mom is very happy until George gets home and she says "Bark, George." And he responds, "Hello?" (It seems he may have swallowed the vet.) All the kids looked at me kind of perplexed - except for C who explained, "He ate the vet, get it? Get it? Dontcha get it?" Anyway, it was funny. C is very social. She is like the mayor of Kindergarten. She likes everybody in her class except Mean Brice. Of him she says, "He bites our Kindergarten friends and pushes and says things like 'I'm the boss of me! I make up my own rules in my own head,' He is not a friendly friend." Future diplomat?

Then there was the kindergarten concert. Cute to the max. Songs about monkeys jumping on beds, mud, love, etc. Sign language hand motions to more than half the songs... just more cuteness than you can shake a video camera at. And there were plenty of those.

My son S turned the big 8 a few days ago! He is very happy. He got a Nintendo DS from my father and step-mom. Here is S opening it. He looks like a Shriner with the bow on his hat, doesn't he?

And nothing says "birthday" better than having the Happy birthday song being played on the baritone right? Yeah, I thought so. Here is my aunt serenading S. Dude, my family rocks.

And then there was another party at our house, with my mom. (Divorced grandparents always means more parties!) S asked for Nana's famous BBQ ribs for dinner and cheesecake as the birthday cake. She was happy to oblige.

And of course there were more gifts. S has a love of birds. Or more specifically, bird feathers. He will see a hawk and say, "Drop a feather, drop a feather." Or a finch, or a blue jay. He has quite a collection already, just from hiking and keeping his eyes on the ground. So my mother asked her friends who are quite "crunchy" to keep their eyes open for feathers. Part of S's gift was some new feathers, and, let me tell you, he was a happy kid. Pheasant, turkey, peacock, red-tailed hawk, and some other more wacky ones I can't remember. Last year she gave him a real raccoon skull, wrapped in purple satin. So she really has a keen eye for what boys dig.

We also had the last soccer games of the season. Those were played during high temperatures and in full sun. Hello, heat exhaustion.

So, we've been busy. Now we have the summer to enjoy. Of course, with the three kids home, that's a different kind of busy, isn't it?