grandpa

Tomorrow afternoon is the service for Josh's grandfather, who passed away on Monday. Everyone in the family call him Dick or Dicky boy, even his own children. It was a little weird for me to try to call him Dick. I can't even call old teachers by their first names. So, I asked him if I could call him "grandpa." I think he liked that. I didn't know either of my grandpas, so it was really nice to have someone who didn't mind adopting me as a granddaughter.
Grandpa liked all of us, but he absolutely adored Jonah. For the first 6 months of Jonah's life, all grandpa could say was that he was "so developed." Heh. The highlight of recent months was when he came to visit with Doug & Sharon and Jonah was being very shy. However, when grandpa went to the bathroom, Jonah must have noticed him leave. When the bathroom door opened, Jonah shouted, "oh there you are, Dicky boy!" Grandpa was pretty pleased with that.

We're happy for him to finally have some rest and to be with his sweetheart, but I will definitely miss his humor and his stories. And in case Josh ever forgets this, I will be sure to remind him that grandpa's marriage advice to us was, "talk everything through and then do what she says." I couldn't have said it better myself.

caught red-handed

I figured out why those pencil marks won't wash off the wall.

They aren't pencil marks. They're scratches! Apparently, Jonah has taken to scratching the wall with my keys. Grrr.

happy father's day

I have a great father.
So does Jonah.Happy Father's Day. I am most grateful for these wonderfully kind, generous, faithful, patient, loving men.

camping is more fun with friends

We took a quick camping trip with weekend with our friends Rob & Shante. Other than the hordes of people camping down the road drinking and listening to the loudest most obnoxious music I've ever heard late into the night, we had a good time. The food was good, the company was better, and the boys had a great time. If for no other reason, we like to go camping because we like Jonah to have all that unstructured outside playtime (since we have no yard, it's harder to come by than I'd like). Here are a few of the best pictures:
Jack and Jonah in their little chairs. The only time these two were apart was at night. The first evening, they sat side by side and talked for at least 10 minutes. Well, Jack did most of the talking. It was cute.Here they are talking off with their sticks. Jonah already loves digging in the dirt with sticks, but Jack tried to teach him how to sword fight with them. It didn't really take, but at least he tried!
Possibly the highlight for Jonah was a nice motorcycle owner who let him "drive" her bike outside Safeway. He always tries to touch/climb on the bikes here in the complex, but this is the first time he was allowed on. He was pretty delighted.

My mom mentioned once that I'm never in any of the pictures (true) because I'm the one taking them. I'd like to point out that if you look in the reflection of the motorcycle, you can see my shadow! It's okay; Josh didn't make the cut in any of these pictures either.

I should be sleeping instead

Thank you, Blogger, for your new design tab which allowed me to spend 45 minutes playing with options only to storm off in frustration because I don't know what I want.

In other news, if Josh and I were one person instead of two and starting Bachelor's degrees instead of finished, this would be perfect:

Wildlife Concentration with Italian Minor - 5th Year Option
This curriculum allows undergraduate students to fulfill requirements for a BS in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences and also earn a Minor in Italian Studies. Students take 2 semesters of introductory Italian at NCSU, intermediate Italian I and II in the Study Abroad Program in northern Italy, and then work into their course work 3 additional courses in Italian at NC State that fulfill general education requirements. Finally, students spend an additional semester after their senior year taking animal ecology, conservation biology, biological diversity, and other courses at the University of Rome, which are taught in Italian.

down the street?

In the last few days, Jonah and Josh got sick, Josh's (93 year-old) grandpa shattered his ankle and is in the hospital, Josh applied for 14 graduate assistantships (no's on 3 so far...wish him luck!), we stayed in C.G. to help my parents with a garage sale, and a bird starting eating my tomatoes (grrr!). I'm desperately short on sleep after all that, but I wanted to put something up. I realize it's kind of gross that Jonah is singing with food in his mouth, but Quintin asked me to tape him singing all these songs, so here's another:

We're all alive and mostly healthy these days and looking forward to a quick camping trip this weekend. Rosalyn calls summer our winters because we're stuck inside and I totally agree. I've started searching online for good winter activities. All the blogs cheering about how lovely and green things are make me sad.

short and sweet

Josh: survived the GRE.
Jonah: won't eat anything but applesauce.
I: will be making chocolate pudding as soon as he takes a nap.

And for your time wasting pleasure: This game from the Museum of Science + Industry. I think it's meant for kids, but since when has that been a bad thing? Well, other than when there's really annoying music and stupid text/lyrics, but then we did just watch Lion King 1 1/2 the other day. No, it's not as bad as you think; it's actually worse than it sounds.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Is it fair to review four books at once? I think so, considering it is a series and I read all four in the course of three days.

Title: The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Ratings: 4 stars, 3 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars

The first book was not supposed to be the best (according to whichever book blog I first heard about it from) but I loved it. The Thief was a quick, fast-paced delight. I can imagine plenty of people enjoying it, but I plan on recommending it to my 11-year old nephew. A thief who brags he can steal anything but ends only gets caught for bragging about his successful thievery ("a professional risk" he calls it) and a hidden treasure all seem to be things that would keep his attention. There's a sprinkling of politics and human nature to give the book some depth, too, which I appreciated. The best part is, I was genuinely surprised by a few things, which doesn't happen much anymore since I've read so many books. I love a good surprise that is a shock because of how I interpreted the narration as opposed to a red herring or details simply being excluded for the sake of surprise (also my pet peeve with Ocean's 12 since you can't actually follow along with the real theft because you don't even see the events until the end). It was obviously good enough that I ran right out to get the other 3 books that night.

Skipping ahead, my second favorite book was The King of Attolia because it moved a little faster, had a little more danger, and made me laugh. I was well-prepared for the author's way of surprising me (after all, I'd read two of her books in two days at this point) but she still got me, even if it wasn't as shocking as in The Thief. It was still a good enough surprise that I laughed out loud and had to reread the beginning.

The Queen of Attolia and A Conspiracy of Kings were enjoyable, but much more drawn out. One of the things that made The Thief so good was that it was so fast-paced. There were still plenty of good things about the second and fourth books, but I probably would not read them again. Possibly the big turn-off was the romance. I think every story is improved with someone being in love, but the romance in these two seemed forced. Boo.

The Thief, though, is a keeper, as Kayla says. I make that decision based on what I'd want my kids to be delighted to find when they're desperate for a new book or one that I want to read over and over again.