Vivian's Haircut Inside Story

Just got these from Jo's facebook feed. That's what I get for not getting on fb for days.

Isn't Vivian having so much fun. Like she does this all the time...

Au Naturale

I don't know if we'll be able to get this genie back in the bottle.

Climbing Doors

Yes. This looks like "Exorcist" meets "Spider Man". Vivian has learned to climb up door frames from her neighbor Eleanor. One of these days I expect her to be sitting in deep thought up against the corner of the ceiling in her room. And she's already so good at freaking out that we hardly notice that her head isn't spinning around.

Swallow Tail

The kids have watched a couple of black swallow tail caterpillars grow into chrysalises inside their little bug house but because of vacation timings they have never seen one hatch into a butterfly. This morning Vivian discovered a lovely new born specimen sitting on a tomato plant in her vegetable garden. It was waiting for it's wings to dry. It sat there for over an hour and let us admire it and take photos.

New Style

Several weeks ago Vivian convinced us that she wanted short hair. Jo called and made an appointment with Farah. Then Vivian picked out a few styles she liked on the internet. On Wednesday morning Evan went off to Grace Garden summer camp while Vivian and Jo went to Farah's. This is a photo I took just before she left. The next is soon after. We had lunch at Epicerie. The last photo is from a couple of evenings later at the Shah's. I'm still getting used to this new look but Vivian seems very comfortable with it.

A Walk in the Park

This morning after breakfast it was cloudy and there was a breeze. Vivian, Evan and I took the opportunity to go to Zilker Park. We took bread and fed the swans and ducks and pigeons and grackles and turtles at Barton Creek. At one point there were probably fifty turtles sticking their heads out of the water looking for food. Unfortunately the grackles were much more agile. Then the kids horsed around the grassy area. Evan showed off his fighting stunts and Vivian did cartwheels. That boys and girls are different is so self evident. And to think that a quarter of a century ago I had to read "Men are from Mars..." to figure that out.

Vivian's Florida Journal

I asked Vivian if she could write one line about what she did each day so that she could tell me when she came back. She didn't manage to do this while at Disney (14 hours days) but here are the entries from her time at Aaron's. Her spellings need help, just like her dad's. But I could still find the narrative. Good work.

How to Impress Women

Yes gentlemen, you too can impress any woman. Evan shows you how in six easy steps. You may notice that between steps 4 and 5, the lady moved to another seat. Others may have taken that as a sign of defeat. But to Evan that meant that he had to try harder.

Back in the Groove

Yesterday I picked them up from the airport. They have been eating restaurant food for days. So I had a nice dinner cooked at home. And then Jo said she wanted something "homecooked" and we went to China Cafe for dinner. This morning it was Taco Shack for breakfast. And 24 Diner for dinner.

Lizard Porn: Behind the Scenes

If you missed that post, here's the link to Lizard Porn. And here's a photo that Jo took from inside the living room of the filming crew working outside. The eponymous lizards are barely visible just above the camera, partially blocked by the blinding light of the camera man's floods... oh I mean bald spot.

Uncle Aaron's

And here are a couple of group photos from Uncle Aaron's. All the kids celebrating Cade's (the youngest of them all) birthday. And the Clarks. What a charming bunch.

They had a lot of fun, specially at the beach and on Uncle Aaron's boat - but there don't seem to be any photos of that. I'll spare some grand niece or nephew a lot of squinting and guessing many years from now by listing out the names. From L-R, B-T (pardon the spellings): Evan, Kai, Vivian, Cade, Ava, Logan, Grace, [Grandma Carol in the back], Gage, Peyton, Devyn, Quin.

Disney Pictures

Downloaded Jo's phone's photos. Here are some of them. They kids said they had a wonderful time and came back home hot and sweaty and super stimulated. Evan does not even recall what an inside voice is...

More Mickey

Here are photos of my family that I am scraping from Facebook. Yes - it's come to that. Evan is sleeping on a sleeping Kai (I think) in one. Evan and Cade are in the Thunder Dome looking for Mad Max in another.

And finally there's that giant rodent again. The color of Team Happy seems to be purple on this day with very cool looking bling-ish gold personalized lettering on the back. 

Breakfast With Dad

My dad loves breakfast. Preferably a couple of soft boiled eggs, sausage and toast. With a nice cup of tea. Most days I skip the sausage but he gets the rest. And I am eating breakfast upstairs with him this week. Here he is, looking sharp in the new shirt that Alu sent him for Father's Day. About to crack an egg.

Besides the toast for breakfast the man is on a paleo-ish diet. I like to blame the kids for my poor eating habits so while they are away I had to clean up my act. Lots of broccolini and Brussels sprouts and gulf snapper and rib eye. Then I felt bad and got my dad ice cream for dinner yesterday.

They Know

Jo and I discuss most things with Vivian and Evan around. And we don't dumb it down for them.

Our friends, a family, are going through a rough patch. Divorce, custody, lawyers, subpoenas, courts. They are X and Y and their child is Z. Some time back we told the kids that a completely unrelated family who I will name - Amanda, Gordon and Olivia, were coming over for dinner. Some time later in the day, Evan got confused and asked when Z was going to be there.

As I watched, Vivian stepped in and cleared the confusion deftly. "Not Z, Evan. Olivia and Amanda and Gordon are coming to dinner. Z's parents are getting a divorce."

  

Goodbye Aunt Jo

I got the news from JoEllen about mid morning yesterday. Goodbye Aunt Jo. I mostly knew you from your letters and I will miss you.

Father's Day Weekend

I don't recall celebrating Father's Day (or Mother's) growing up. Perhaps Hallmark wasn't big in India back then. But my lovely family has given me an awesome gift for Father's Day nevertheless. You have to stare of the picture below to see it.

See - I'm not in the picture. And though you can't tell by staring at it, I didn't take the picture either. Since Thursday the rest of the fam has been in Florida. A few fun filled days at Aaron's. And then on to the happiest place on earth. Armed with maps and apps, they are doing it for the next five days from morning to darkness. Dressed in some sort of happy uniform. Go, y'all!

Meanwhile I spend quality time with the chainsaw and other yard work implements. There are at least ten trees that are either down or need to be taken down and in the weekend I worked through about half of them. No kids. No dogs. Just my dad. Almost bliss.

Summer Holidays

The kids' seasonal holidays finally caught up with their namesake season. By dint of careful non-planning we got to spend last Tuesday with Evan and last Wednesday with Vivian. Here's what each did. Evan is sitting cross-legged with Travis outside Red Black gym. And Vivian is standing in line at Amy's ice cream (while Jo and I sat outside)

I know. It looks like one of them got screwed, no? Turns out that it all ended well because on Tuesday evening Evan got dropped off at Grandma's and he and Carol ate cereal and watched Sponge Bob and woke up at the crack of dawn the next day and drove off to Florida with the cousins and Nicolle and Michelle.

Friends

Somewhere in the chaos of leaving after the spring concert I managed to get a couple of photos of Vivian with her friends.

A short story about the lad. When we met A many months ago at the twins' birthday party he went red when Vivian said hello to him. And then for the rest of the afternoon he shadowed Vivian. I asked her and she said that A really liked her. Yesterday I met A's mother at school. She said that Vivian would always have a special place in their family. When A started school he didn't mix with the other students. He'd cry when he came home everyday. Then Vivian started talking to him. And things got better.

Spring Concert

The Magellan Spring concert was this morning. Vivian's class sang a Spanish song about the earth and sun that I couldn't understand. And there she is out front in the middle dancing bollywood style. That's what I call a global education.

Then the whole student body came together to sing the school song. Vivian is in the extreme right sitting on the second step in the white t-shirt. The school gets together and sings a school song about once a semester and it's a big deal. We sang our school song at HPS once a week and this brought back good memories of my shcool days and what we called PP2 (pre-primary 2), the grade before first grade.

Here's a photo pf most of Vivian's class. I sat down with Vivian and put everyone's name down so we don't have to squint and gaze at the photo many years from now and guess.

L-R, bottom to top: Emme, Audrey M, Ethan, Cesar (or Tenoc), Audrey R, Mateo, Tenoc (or Cesar), Highsmith, Vivian, Sampson, Morgan, Christopher, Chelsea, Alina, Sage, Andrew, Sam, Luke, Evan, and Isabella. Teachers: Ms. Tatiana, Ms. Missy, & Ms. Carmen.