Today was the first day of elementary school for Rowan and Griffin. They were both excited to go, and we all enjoyed the party atmosphere at the bus stop. Berit, whose first day of middle school was yesterday, enjoyed coming up with us to see her siblings off and then coming home to enjoy her time before leisurely heading out to catch the middle school bus.

Ok folks - the video below should be fixed now - ENJOY!

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better




Used YouTube's "private" setting on this, and I'm wondering if you all can still view it. Please let me know by leaving a comment. Thanks! Mark

Rowan wanted to have a fire in the fire pit last night, which was out of the question since it was about 212 degrees yesterday. I did however appease the kids by setting the tent up in the backyard yesterday evening. Griffin and I watched some of "The Never Ending Story" which put him to sleep, and Berit wanted no part of sleeping in the tent, so Rowan asked me if I would sleep out there with her.

It was awesome - got all the pads and sleeping bags out and just comfied it all up. Then Rowan and I each read our books before turning our headlamps out and crashing, sometime around 10pm.

I was awakened at 6 am this morning - when the sprinklers went off.

Berit is in Shakespeare camp at the CO Shakespeare Festival for a half day every weekday - it's a kick. She plays one of the three witches from Macbeth in the performance they'll do at the end. This past weekend she memorized Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove...

Griffin and I did a crystal growing experiment, but so far I am questioning its success. He fell asleep watching SHARK WEEK.

Happy 11th Birthday Berit!

The other day, Griffin and I were doing some "legomation" with the legos and some lego star wars people we have. I set up our digital camera on my tripod and we shot still pictures of the lego people moving.

He was pretty into it, so I (against my better judgement) left the camera on the tripod there by the legos in the living room - in case he wanted to mess with it some more. Griffin is pretty good with the camera. But his judgement wasn't so good either when he took the camera on the tripod across the alley to his friend's house and ended up dropping it and breaking it.

I was not happy. In fact, I was obviously (and vocally) angry about it. We made up, of course, but before that - here is the note he left me (click image to enlarge).

Her name is Bellatrix Betelgeuse, and we got her yesterday. Sure - it sounds like we named her for the Harry Potter reference, but the names are the names of stars - Bellatrix and Betelgeuse being (I believe) the two shoulders of Orion's belt (her parents are named after two of Jupiter's moons).

She is six weeks old, has extra toes (polydactyl), and has quickly become the most popular member of the family.

Evidently, polydactyl kittens are in high demand, as her siblings have been adopted by familes as far flung as Colorado Springs and Florida. And get this - Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas sent their help down from Aspen to adopt two of Bellatrix's siblings. How about them degrees of separation?

"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.