"I think its your parents who bring the Sacajawea coins and not the tooth fairy. The next time I lose a tooth, I'm not going to tell anyone and see if the tooth fairy comes." - Griffin

Tonight he was pretty broken up for a couple minutes because he thought that Berit would be leaving to live at another house when she became a teenager.

Today, Griffin lost his first tooth!

We got back from Club Med Cancun on Sunday - our second Club Med gathering with Pam's family. What a blast - we all had the best time having spent our days between ocean and pool, sailboats and trapezes, wonderful food, and two amazing performances by the kids - one production of Peter Pan, and one magic show. More to come on that along with pictures.

Pam took the kids to the dentist yesterday. The good news: no cavaties. The bad news: Rowan is missing two adult teeth, the ones that would be on either side of her two front teeth. Consequently, the next two teeth are sort of coming in diagonally at an angle toward the middle. This is not good. Pam set up an orthodontist appointment to see what measures can be taken - perhaps surgery, we don't really know. Whatever it is sounds extremely expensive and likely painful. Oh - and they said it was hereditary, so I need to speak to Mom and Dad about that.

This morning, Griffin and I watched "How it Works" on the Discovery Channel and learned how they make silver miniature items. Griffin wants to do it now so evidently I'm going to need a lathe, a soldering iron, and a whole workbench full of silver-smithing tools.

Sorry I've been so bad about blogging - I vow to do better! For now, here's a photo of the kids at the Boulder Creek Festivus, yesterday:

Tonight at dinner, Griffin told me that a great invention would be a sign on his bedroom door that said "Danger - Keep Out," and a laser beam that if a person walked through it would cause all of Griffin's underwear to be dropped on the interloper's head.

Last Thursday, all five of us skied together up in Vail - it was a first. Griffin and Rowan have both been in lessons at Eldora, so they were both up to speed for the green and blue runs we ended up on in Vail. In fact, Griffin had to be chased by Pam as we descended back to the base. Rowan made wonderful s-turns, following me down the mountain. Berit might have been bored, had she not been practicing skiing backwards.

The snow was epic up there. Berit built a snow fort in front of Grammy and Papa's house, and I followed up by digging a cave that attached to her fort. Grammy and Papa arrived Thursday evening, as did Kip. On Friday, Grammy hung out with the kids - coloring easter eggs, making cookies, and watching Mary Poppins - while Pam, Kip, Al, and I skied Vail together.




At the house we played games - Quiddler and Uno. Rowan also read Harry Potter 4 a lot of the time. Cookie the Mouse was there too. Before we left on Saturday, Grammy gave the kids chinese-takeout-style Easter baskets.

We can hardly extract Rowan's head from the Harry Potter books now. In the past few weeks she's devoured the first two and is halfway through the third one. She walks around with her face buried in it, omitting the occasional giggle or apprising us sometimes of what's happening in the boy wizard's saga.

What can I say except that there’s hardly anything I’d rather do than spend three days in Disney World with my son and my father. February was a perfect time to be there – hardly any lines, and the weather was beautiful.



Griffin had some idea about what he was going to, but I don’t think the sheer magnificence of the experience dawned on him until we arrived. It’s been a few days since our return now, and last night he told me that his favorite was “the log ride” (Splash Mountain). I know that he also loved Philharmagic and Kali River Rapids, both of which we did twice. He loved Mission: Space too, though he has also told me that it was a little scary.



The day after our return home, Griffin wore his mouse ears (Pirate-style, with “Griffin” artistically sewn into the back) and took his pearl to school for show-and-tell. The pearl experience was definitely a highlight – Griffin was utterly captivated that night in “Japan,” watching as oysters were selected and pried open to reveal their precious cargo, and then each pearl was measured, weighed, and delivered to the joyous recipient with a Japanese Taiko drumming accompaniment.



Other highlights included the jungle safari, during which I convinced Griffin to let me man the camera, while he merely checked on me now and again to make sure that I was indeed capturing all this, and Cici’s Pizza, where Griffin got to eat whatever he wanted, including four deserts and soda. My man was exhausted at the end of each day, as were Dad and I, though we didn’t let that stop us from making use of the pool.

We can hardly wait for Christmas 2009.

Pam, while putting Griffin to bed, told him to go to the laundry room and put clean underwear on. I busted him in the laundry room stuffing tools (he has his own tools and they happen to be in his toolbox in the laundry room) into his underwear - I suppose to bring to bed and play with.

Rowan is reading Harry Potter 2 now. A couple of weeks ago she decided that she was ready to start reading the Harry Potter books on her own (she and I are in the middle of Harry Potter 4), and she read the first one in about a week.

Pam and I need to talk to her teacher about bumping her up to the next reading level. She says she's bored.