"Our family is special, you know why? Because Doctor Papa is a doctor, and that's special. And Magic Papa does magic, and that's cool." - Rowan

Griffin shoots...scores!

Griffin, The Impaler

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Originally uploaded by flanimation

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.

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.

Yesterday, I picked Rowan up from Rocky Mountain Theater for Kids and took her out to eat at the Spicy Pickle. Afterwards, Rowan told me that her favorite part of the day was spending time with me :)

On the way home, Rowan rolled down the window and pledged allegiance to a flag we were passing while at a stoplight. She also sang "My Country Tis of Thee" to it.

Griffin had a meltdown today about going to basketball practice (he had been crashing from all of the Valentines Day sugar). When I showed up, however, he was happily and aggressively scrimmaging with the other six year olds.

Last Saturday, he was dribbling down the court when Kaden came in front of him to try to steal the ball and ended up slamming his skull into Griffin's nose. Griffin bled like a stuck pig and sat out after that. I was able, before the end of the hour, to bribe him into going back in. So the game didn't end on a negative.

WOO HOO!! Yesterday, Berit found out that she got into her first choice middle school - Platt Choice. It's a lottery system, and Platt Choice accepts a small number of students, so it wasn't necessarily likely that Berit would get a spot. The school is a small charter school that is housed within Platt Middle School's building. They have six teachers, have multi-grade level classes, and an experiential-learning focus. Learn more about the school here.

The downside is that while Berit and another friend both got a slot at the school, the another friend didn't, which is of course a real bummer for her.

Lots happening with the kids and I've been remiss at not capturing some of the highlights. Here's a snapshot of what they're up to right now:

Last weekend, Rowan played Tigger in the Rocky Mountain Theater for Kids production of Winnie the Pooh, after months of practice. She was an exuberant Tigger - perfect for the role, and was highly complemented by the play's director. RMTK will go on to a new play now. Last night, we built an insulating box (making use of bubble wrap - based on the idea that air makes a good insulator) - that with any luck, kept an ice cube from melting at school today.

Berit is practicing for the PBP production of A Jungle Book, in which she has the parts of a monkey, an elephant, and a giraffe. Berit is also doing dance and voice lessons, so she's got the full-on theatrical triumvirate going on. In school, she's starting a unit on immigrants and in math, doing geometry - both of which she likes.

Griffin did karate with me for a month, but I think the twice a week commitment was a bit much when we have so much else coming up for him to do. He just started basketball, which he is having a BLAST with!! Very exciting for me to see the kids take to a sport, because I never really did as a child and I probably feel like it's my fault if they don't.

As an aside - it would be great if one of Griffin's basketball-loving Uncles would take him to a CU game sometime.

I had to sit down with Rowan tonight and talk with her about not throwing a fit when something happened she didn't think was fair. She had been playing Uno Attack with the other kids and Bridey, and when they all decided it was time to stop after an hour, she was very upset.

After I explained to her how she might want to learn to react, she said "Ok, but I'm not going to remember this."

"You're not? Why not?" I laughed.

"Because I have a short memory. I only remember really big things, like when Berit broke her wrist."

Griffin went to bed in a pair of sweat pants he told me he was going to wear for a year. I asked him why he was going to wear it for a year, and he told me he was going to set a record.

He told me he had worn them for 7 days, and then he asked me how many days were in a year. I told him 365 and he couldn't believe it. He smiled sheepishly like he half didn't believe me and like he half had to reassess his idea.

Griffin and I just got back from our first karate class at the YMCA. It was a class full of kids, but family members can take it with them. I was the only adult.

Griffin LOVED it. He did a great job paying attention to the sensei that was teaching us - even though it was hard not to be distracted by the non-beginner kids who were actually sparring while we were just repeating steps and blocks.

All the way home Griffin sang, "I know Karate," and then he talked about how he was going to tell Sully tomorrow about how bowing is part of karate, because it was something Sully wouldn't know. He definitely wants to keep doing it.

Last night, Berit and Bridey got on the internet and learned how to make crepes. They made crepes this morning for Rowan's birthday, and at lunch they made smoothies. We hung out at home and played games, and later on Pam's family all came over for more food and more games. Rowan had a great birthday.