Eight

Scott turned eight on Thursday. Eight seems so much older than seven. It's the last of the early childhood years and for me, that's a biggie. Seeing as I'm "trained" in early childhood education, there's something mysterious about the years beyond eight. I suddenly find myself living with a child whom I can have both a meaningful conversation and a meaningful fight with. That may sound odd and yet, we all learn something from a fight around here. We may find that we appreciate each other a little bit more after the make up and can problem solve how to avoid that situation again. Ahhh, big kid years. Scott is entering them in earnest now and yet, I'm sure he will be completely different than his brother has been so we'll get to learn a lovely new set of big kid strategies. Since Scott's soul mates may reside at South Park, this could be an interesting ride.

Speaking of rides, Scott hosted a sledding, bonfire, S'mores birthday party. It was a wild ride and it was our best birthday party yet!

Ride on Scott! And enjoy being EIGHT!

Scott's best buddy since babyhood.

Scott's best buddy at home (when speaking), his brother.

Another buddy catching some serious air!

S'mores anyone?

The birthday gang 2010!

Peace

It doesn't seem to happen very often, which I do find unfortunate, but when it does I find it purely blissful. The boys are getting along. I will say that as far as brothers go, they get along pretty well most of the time but they are polar opposites. Grant being the outgoing, active extrovert and Scott being the quirky, detail oriented introvert. In other words, they know how to push each others crazy buttons. But today, they are playing, truly playing and engaging in that cooperative type play that all the research says assists in the development of executive functioning.

As Grant gets older, he finds himself wanting to spend his time on the computer or iTouch and less time engaged in creative play (although that was never his strong suit...give the boy a ball already!). Scott on the other hand, is the master of imaginative play and is perfectly happy engaging in his schemes by himself or with others. So when Grant decides to actively PLAY with his brother, I've decided that this is an event worth documenting. Today, the theme is Percy Jackson/Age of Mythology Playmobil. They have set up Half Blood Hill and created all the characters making sure each one has the perfect outfit, hair and accessories. One of the horses even lost a head in order to make Chiron

Grant attemping to "direct" the play.

Scott, well, just being himself.

Enjoy young boys, it's almost time to get ready for church (the peace is about to erupt!)

How Could I Forget?

I find it a bit interesting that I forgot one important milestone of this summer in my little catch-up session. EJ (for those of you who forgot what EJ stands for, that would be my "Endorphin Junkie" husband) had a big event occur this August. He turned 40! Forty years old! The big 4-0. Although I had thoughts of embarrassment, surprise and grand occasions, we decided to just go with a party at home with one small surprise. After all, I turn 40 later so I don't want any birthday backfire! So here you are, EJ at his 40th birthday bash.

This is EJ on the Surf Board. It was his little birthday surprise. Think electronic bull in the shape of a surfboard. It's crazy what you can rent out there! Fun for kids, fun for adults, but really just fun for kids. The birthday boy took a ride or two as did all the members of his department. The rest of the adult birthday crowd didn't have enough beer I suppose. Hmmm, we'll get them next time. Regardless of the lack of adult surfing, we had a grand old time and were happy to have a number of friends to celebrate the beginning of EJ's next decade with us.

Catching Up

It's been a while. I'm not even going to give an excuse. I'll just hope someone is still out there. If not, I'll chalk this time up to personal creativity.

I know we are into October so a summer wrap up seems inappropriate but I don't care. I'm going to do the summer wrap up anyway. We had an awesome, busy and fun summer. Here's a little wrap up to catch you up with the Larson clan. The fall wrap up will happen on another day, or month, hopefully not year. But we'll see, things happen.

JUNE

After I got suckered into working past my teaching contract date by attending a few conferences in June, summer finally started by heading to Dillon, MT for RATPOD. Ride Around the Pioneers in One Day is a fundraising event for Camp-Mak-a-Dream, a camp serving children battling cancer. I have watched Greg the past 3 years or so, green with envy as he participated. Luckily for me, I got a fancy, dancy, pretty green cyclo-cross bike for Christmas and got my wish to ride this year. Put a few road wheels on and I'm ready to go. Training was a bit of a joke but I squeaked in just enough to actually enjoy riding RATPOD instead of hating it. My motivation for this ride is the pie stop. Since this is a ride, not a race, you basically cycle to the food stops, at least that's how I think of it. It goes something like this...start to the breakfast stop, then the lunch stop, then the watermelon stop, then the pie stop, then you're done...127 miles later. Finally, the day ends with a BBQ with a great blue grass band and beer. As an added bonus this year, G-man rode 32 miles with his grandpa "FarFar." He totally flashed it then rocked out with the band on a loaner fiddle from a band member. Wish I had video of that one! Always an awesome event that I'll look forward to again next year!

JULY

Ahhh, the cabin. We had a magical time at the cabin this summer. G-man learned to knee board, slalom ski, and wake board. I don't know it was luck, talent or pure determination. I think he has his dad's gross motor skills. Roo got lots of time on the tube behind the boat before building his confidence to knee board. He finally did it and would basically pull the entire length of the navigable river! I had a great time skiing, cooking, baking, reading, and just relaxing. EJ got his ski time in, and in, and in. As well as some cycling. We also had our nightly rounds of game playing. G-man has become a master of Scattergories and his brother is close behind!

AUGUST

August was full! First a trip to Bozeman for the Tour de Bozeman. Next, Yellowstone National Park where we saw an insane amount of wildlife! Two grizzly bears, 3 black bear, a fox, a rattlesnake, plus the plethora of elk and bison! The majority of that was all in one day. G-man is so spoiled now that he grumbled when we didn't see any bears the second day. EJ and I had to explain that in all our years in visiting Yellowstone, we had only ever seen ONE bear. To see 5 in one day was truly exceptional!

Next we headed to Salt Lake City for my 20 year high school reunion. We were able to hang out in SLC, including the boys in their cousin's little swimming pool. This photo was too funny not to post!

On the day of my reunion, which I torchered my husband into attending, he race in the Tour de Park City, a 170 mile road race...from hell. We were able to see him finish (here are the boys entertaining themselves as we waited) and I think his best comment afterward was on the way back to SLC. As we passed a golf course, EJ said, "I think I'll take up golf." Although a suffer-fest it was, his teammate drove back to MT right after the race and managed to win a crit race the next day. Maybe it wasn't as bad as they say. I'm not about to find out...I'll stick to RATPOD.

We don't look that old do we? My 20 year reunion was a blast. The opportunity to have my closest high school friends in the same room was wonderful. I have managed to stay in touch with all of them but we are never in the same room. It was great to see many other people as well and I was pleasantly surprised to have some great conversations with old friends I didn't expect to see. On the "awkward" side, as G-man would say, it was really awful to have to look at someones name tag before talking to them. Especially when they clearly didn't look at mine. Whoops! I guess it's not my fault they changed so much...

So now we are to fall. School started off with a big old bang. I am sure that every school year starts off with the chaos and craziness that this one has and that I just suppress it to the back of my head. Between flag football, par cour and violin for G-man and tae kwon do, soccer, and violin for Roo as well as implementing a new autism and social skills curriculum at work, I'd like to commit myself some days. But mostly it's all good and happy. I will admit that the boys have more going on that my comfort level allows but I'm not going to begin to explain how we got into it all and why. We'll just accept it and move on and hope we don't drive each other nuts in the process!

Happy Fall Y'all!