Tall Stories

Good pictures on Evan are notoriously hard to come by. So here's one all the way back from last July that hadn't made it to the blog. We were in Iceland playing in the lava flows behind the house we had rented outside Reykjavik.

Last week one morning we were getting ready to drop Evan off at school. His friend Elle came up behind us. While we chatted briefly with Elle's dad, the two kids took each other's hand and strolled off into the school. When Jo and I looked at them, they were standing in the hall still holding hands. Elle's other hand was at her head as was Evan's at his. Elle is very clearly a few inches taller than Evan.

Later, when we went to pick him up, I asked "Hey - what were Elle and you doing this morning?"

"We were checking to see who is taller"
"And...?"
"Oh. I'm taller than Elle. I think."

Show Business

This is a still from a video I recorded of Vivian practicing the other day. She and two classmates are pitching a fun trip to Venus as a part of their unit on Space. Watch out Elon and Sir Branson.

Other teams in her class are variously pitching similar trips to other places including to a black hole - all in Spanish naturally. Their assignment is to create tourist videos for different places in space.

Vivian has enjoyed the Space unit of enquiry. But lately she's busy with another endeavor - the upcoming talent show. On a whim she told Jo to sign her up to perform her perennial favorite, Jai Ho. Then she said she would practice during recess at school and took her music and player with her late last week. By Monday we estimated that six other girls had decided to join her on stage. Today the number stands at a total of nine including a lad. Jo has emphatically told Vivian that she needs to regretfully turn down any more prospects. The performance is on Saturday. These kids have practiced and decided on who does what and pretty much organized it all by themselves. Today Jo took clothes for some of the other girls and tomorrow she is going to buy them bejeweled bindis to wear at the talent show. Some parents asked Jo if she came up with the dance movements. There goes my PIO-card toting Bollywood choreographer wife.

This is what Vivian looked like almost exactly three years ago in our flat in India, practicing before the big school show.

"Aaja Aaja Jind Shamiyane Ke Tale
Aaja Jariwale Nile Aasman Ke Tale"

Easter Sunday

On Sunday we woke up and hurried to the Easter service at Slumber Falls. Pastor Scott (easy to identify due to the somewhat unique combination of his race and gender in our crowd) gave an almost new agey non-sermon with silences written into it for us to admire nature. And Evan fortunately kept his mouth shut about Easter and the discussion that he and Vivian and I had on Thursday on the way to school. Then we ate breakfast and the kids went off to hunt eggs in the light misting rain while Quinn and Kai and I threw a couple of basketballs.

Back at the ranch we finished cooking and ate a nice dinner and then Jo and the kids dealt with the Easter candy which I unsuccessfully tried to stay away from.

The kids watched Monster House again. I napped and almost missed the ending again. And then it took us a couple of hours to pack from our three day trip and another couple of hours to make it home (due to a wreck on the interstate). Evan slept the whole way and was clearly ready to party when we got home. Both Vivian and Evan were several hours sleep deficient due to excessive partying all weekend, and so with dire warnings that they would feel like crap if they didn't immediately close their eyes and go to sleep we got them to bed at a half decent time. 

Easter Bluebonnets

One fall several years ago Nicolle tossed a tinny bag of seeds on a patch of dirt at Lariat Ridge and now Carol has a nice good crop of bluebonnets. Good thing they are pretty because they grow like weeds. 

After Easter service at Slumber Falls we got the kids to get out there in the hope of getting a couple of good photos though it was a misting morning without much sun. As you can see Evan didn't cooperate. Finally he got sent off with a threat of spanking and "think about this when you're older and wonder why there aren't any decent pictures of you growing up". But he looked quite dashing in his gold bowtie and navy shirt. Vivian opted for a dress Alu and Michelle had sent her last year or the year before (she grows slowly) and a new hat.