A sporadic collection of notes and pictures

First Day of School–1st Grade

Kaitlin was very excited and eager to go to 1st grade. Matt dropped us off so that I could walk with her to her room. When the door opened she wanted to go inside right away, and began checking out the room. We said good-bye a couple times, but she was completely fine with me leaving. The bus came in the afternoon, and sure enough, she was on it! She got on the right bus! I think she was most impressed with the cafeteria, the behavior chart (today she ranked “fabulous day”), the school coaches who gave the tour, that snacks are allowed at 1st recess, and that her teacher’s college-age daughter took a picture of the class (which they sent home with the kids). She had conversations with the lunch lady and bus driver already. At one point this afternoon, she said that there was so much to talk about 1st grade that she would tell us the rest on Saturday. I bribed her with a popsicle and got a little bit more information. The gist is that she had a really good day, knows her way around her part of the school and mastered the bus. She is exhausted! The parents eagerly awaiting the arrival of the bus was pretty darn funny, we were all so anxious and worried about how the day went. Then they arrived and basically walked home together (ignoring the parents).

Check out the pictures, in this movie format: 1st-grade-first-day-version-2.wmv

love Becky

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 Daily Posts 3 Comments

A Glimpse of the Heartland

We’re back safe & sound from our trip to visit the Clancy’s in Naperville, IL and the Schlax’s in Urbandale, IA. We had a smooth trip, travel-wise and weather-wise, low-humidity and bright and sunny–truth be told Matt was disappointed about not experiencing a thunderstorm though! We caught up with the grown-ups, including Nana (Judy) who visited Naperville when we did, and are so pleased that everyone is doing well and healthy and happy. We saw lots of beautiful and interesting sights too, which I’ll get to. But the definite highlight was seeing the kids interact and get to know each other. Gustin crossed the threshold into official crawling while we were there and cracked us up with his gleeful response to our clapping! We felt like we got to know Ann for the first time too, since she was an infant last time we saw her. And Sam impressed us with his master of vocabulary, articulate speech and his knowledge of all things King Arthur. It was fun watching the kids swordfight and pretend to be Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot. To cap it off, Sam lost his first tooth while we were there. We especially enjoyed visiting the Morton Arboretum, where we spent the day in the children’s garden which included a stream that kids could walk in, tree houses, watering cans and a hedge maze. Here are some pictures:

Kaitlin said her favorite part of visiting Illinois was kayaking. Matt & Steven took turns ferrying the kids in their kayak while those of us onshore searched for tiny shells in the sand (perhaps imported or perhaps tiny freshwater snail shells?) We also took a nice hike through a reserve which was partly forested and partly native prairie habitat. There were some mosquitos, but it was really neat seeing the prairie foliage, which I had never really seen before.

After flying to Des Moines and making our way to the suburb of Urbandale, we relaxed a bit and then visited E. and J.’s school where we enjoyed the student art show put on by J’s two year old class. Perhaps there are some budding Piccassos in the lot! Then we headed over to the zoo where we witnessed a giraffe picking up a lost baseball hat, a feeding frenzy of koi and some amorous 550 pound turtles. Matt & I were blown away by the lushness of the landscape, the fruit trees, the grass and the birds. We picked and ate fresh peaches from the Schlax’s yard too! On Saturday we went to the Living Farms, a series of three sites depicting homesteads from Indian (Ioway tribe) times, 1875 and 1900. At each site were docents in period dress who were actually doing typical tasks of the time and answering questions. It was very, very extensive, for example they didn’t just have a buffalo hide on display, they were actually tanning it real-time and inviting guests to help (the kids all scraped a bit). The docents knowledge was quite broad and they answered all kinds of questions. In between the sites we walked through a beautiful forested area. K. and E. got to carry freshly laid (still warm) eggs to one of the docents who set them aside for later baking. It was fascinating and highly interactive and blended nicely with Kaitlin’s recent exposure to the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Kaitlin said it was her favorite part of Iowa. Check out the video of Kaitlin pumping water (it was pretty hard, as it took much priming before any water came out): pumping-water-in-iowa.wmv

Here are some pictures.

Later, the girls helped Uncle Mike to shuck fresh Iowa corn and make ice cream. In between activities, the girls played dress-up and got to know each other through the universal language of copying, or so it seemed to me. The grown-ups spent some time discussing our next get-together, which will hopefully include the rest of the Purdue crew and their families, some time next year.

We are so lucky to have wonderful family and friends, and to have the opportunity to visit them and explore a different part of the country (and not during Winter)!

Becky

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 Daily Posts 2 Comments

patio and diving

Today, Kaitlin finished her swim lessons for the summer and the class got to jump off the diving board, if they wanted to, and if they wanted they could jump off the BIG diving board. Kaitlin tried and said it was a little scary, but fun. For her second turn, she jumped off the little board. She has become a very competent swimmer, probably mostly from visiting the pool more than lessons. Here is a video: kaitlin-diving-2.wmv and picture:

We’ve been griping about our narrow patio for years and how the BBQ and half the chairs teeter near the brink of falling into the grass. Here are some before, during, and after pictures. We’re very happy that we finally went ahead with it…but the final seal of approval is a happy, sleepy dog!

love Becky

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 Daily Posts 4 Comments

Milestones

I realize its been much too long since I’ve posted! It’s been a very busy few months, for one, but also I kept waiting until various events passed before posting.

In May we had a visit with Matt’s parents, from which I remember many challenges of Connect-4! As to be expected, Kaitlin beat most of us, with Judy as a close second out of all five of us. We also attended a bug display at the local nature center and Kaitlin actually (briefly) held a tarantula. My parents enjoyed a wonderful (and well deserved) retirement kick-off cruise to Alaska and shared some wonderful pictures and video with us. Also brought some yummy smoked salmon, and real gold which my dad panned for the old-fashioned way!

In June I flew to San Francisco to visit my friend Devon. Though I’ve visited S.F. before, I was still amazed at the fog and how fluidly and quickly it moved…really the stuff of horror stories…compounded by the fact that we drove along a windy road north of the Golden Gate, in Marin, to an old English Inn/pub. We also visited a farmers market. We saw some drugged out teens, quite nearby what seemed to be a caviar cafe. It was great catching up with Devon and seeing some new sights. Kaitlin graduated from kindergarten later in the month, with an end-of-year potluck picnic with the parents and then an actual ceremony complete with paper mortarboards. Not only was it very cute, but it provided some closure for the kids to grasp the concept of leaving their classroom, teacher, (and in many cases with this private school), leaving the school to transition to public. I will add that Kaitlin’s report card clearly showed how much she liked, and therefore excelled in, school.

The annual Irish Festival came to town and Kaitlin got to dance on stage, showing her reel and jig skills. Her teacher felt she wasn’t ready to actually compete, so she simply did a demonstration on stage…but she wasn’t nervous and seemed to be happy to be up there, despite the 105 degree heat! A week later she was demonstrating her jazz skills to Aretha Franklin for her jazz class performance. Very cute, because she didn’t quite figure out how to shake her hips until a few days before the recital. Again, she seemed happy and remembered to smile the whole time while remembering lots of steps check out the video: http://www.ryanclan.org/ryanblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/june-2008-dance-shows-number-3.wmv

….getting tired reading this yet??? We hosted a cul-de-sac potluck BBQ with a bounce house for the kids, rolled out a few BBQ’s and lawn chairs and spent a Saturday evening with our neighbors–very Suburbia, but fun and cheap! We celebrated Kaitlin’s 6th birthday with her favorite meal of spaghetti (no sauce, just parmesan) and meatballs (with sauce) and then on the weekend had a gymnastics party. The kids were put through the obstacle course, rope swing, and trampoline and were completely exhausted; we topped it off with cake and sent that combustible combination home to their parents! Last week we travelled to Colorado to visit the Powells and Ryan’s Senior. Ruth Anna, Clare and Kaitlin had a ball, incorporating some kind of fairy story into most aspects of the trip, but particularly the hike to the mica mine. I think perhaps the mica mine hike was my favorite too; the narrow red stone canyons and green foliage was beautiful and the mica veins in the cave walls were pretty neat. For a kid, it wasn’t too far off from the seven dwarves hunting for jewels. It was also fun watching Nana & Pop-pop toss the grandkids to one another in the pool! Selah was a bit young for the hike, but also loved the pool…and later I discovered, she likes playing ball too!

What now? We’re doing the usual summer things: chasing the ice cream truck, beach, pool, camp, mom making Kaitlin do reading/workbooks on occasion, pancakes on a weekday, etc. As usual, when I write these blog posts, I realize how lucky we are to have our family, our health, our friends and such wonderfully fun times!

I love you all–Becky

P.S….need more? Stay tuned because we’ll post text and pics from our upcoming Illinois/Iowa trip to visit the Clancy family and Schlax family!

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 Daily Posts 3 Comments

First Tooth Out

Well, the picture pretty much says it all. Unfortunately, it happened shortly after Matt left for a business trip (we e-mailed him a picture though), but it was so extremely wiggly and starting to bleed that I told her she had to pull it right away or risk swallowing it with her next meal. K. was very brave and handled it all by herself. She was quite fascinated by the tooth itself, and I admit, so was I! She washed it three times to get it nice and clean.

K. drew a beautiful picture for the Tooth Fairy, complete with a winged fairy, hula-skirted, hula-dancing moon and pennies falling from the sky and a celtic-looking cross in the sky that she said is God. To complete the picture she wrote the formula: K-T (translation, Kaitlin minus Tooth). We argued about whether or not to leave the drawing under the pillow. I finally convinced her to leave it on the headboard shelf b/c the Tooth Fairy’s magic won’t work if K. wakes up due to rustling paper. She decorated a tiny wooden box a couple months ago, and I hotglued some purple satin inside to nestle the tooth. I’ll have to get to bed early too so the Tooth Fairy can do her thing.

Love to you all,

Becky

Sunday, April 20th, 2008 Daily Posts 4 Comments

Death and Taxes

Well, the taxes part.

The news was saying how there are two days left before taxes are due. I went into the other room and said “I’m not worried about taxes because I already did ours.”. Becky said something supportive. Kaitlin chimed in with “I’m not worried about taxes because I don’t know what they are.”

Classic!

Matt

Monday, April 14th, 2008 Daily Posts 1 Comment

Girls Night In

O.K. So Becky started this thing last year where I get kicked out of the house so her and Kaitlin can spend some quality time. Quality time means watching a movie (a whole movie, not a 10 minute snippet…this time it was “Enchanted”), eating popcorn, then “camping” out in Mom and Dad’s bedroom without Dad. Check out this sign that was hung on our bedroom door. The graphics of the no boys is classic:

I don’t really get kicked out of the house, I just don’t get to do any of that, so I updated the blog software. Yee-haw.

The fun part was “intruding” upon them. The movie has no visual, its a dark room, but the audio is funny.

Girls Night In Audio / Movie

Reminds me of when I was 13 and scared my little sister and her friends in North Carolina by tossing things at their tent in the backyard from the upstairs window. How sad that this hit the same “fun” button in my head

Matt

Saturday, March 29th, 2008 Daily Posts 5 Comments

Hope you are getting email notifications

If you registered before, and are not getting updates, please let me know. It may have broken along the way. The upgrade seems to have worked. Next up is a post about the annual girls night out (well, in).

Matt

Saturday, March 29th, 2008 Daily Posts No Comments

Bear with me…

I just upgraded the site to 2.3.3. We had someone sneaking around leaving evil spam and such, maybe spoofing as us. So if the site isn’t working right, just keep checking back…
Matt

Friday, March 28th, 2008 Daily Posts No Comments

Olympic Skier part 1…

Hi all,

Friday, we played hooky from work and school and went up to Snow Valley to try Kaitlin out on skiing. It was only an hour and a half away. Outside temp was about 45 to 50, no one was there, we are on the tail end of ski season out here. But the snow was more than sufficient for us. Becky and I haven’t skied in probably 10 years . Kaitlin of course hadn’t at all, but last year we went sledding up there. We thought that we should get her up there again, and figured we’d do ski lessons to see if she liked it / was ready for it.

Surprise, surprise…

We dropped her off, fended off the guilt. The class was so thin…only her and Zach, her instructor! So the group lesson fee turned out to be a one on one lesson!

I saw her about 20 minutes after the class started (it was only 2 1/2 hours). She slid down a 3 foot hill with a 10 foot runout. I was happy, she didn’t wreck and seemed to be liking it. Then the crazy started…

Becky and I were on separate lifts going up (you can see the ski school well from both of them) and we both saw the same thing happening and almost called each other (we compared notes later). I didn’t call because Becky is afraid of heights a little and Kailtin…looked like she was being directed towards getting on the ski lift with the instructor!! I was freaking out a little frankly. I figured at the end of the class then maybe they would do that if they were doing well, but this soon??

Long story short…K did great. Here is her report card…checks went thru “Intermediate” to “link wedge turns”.

She had a little link tied between the front of the skis. This helped her not lose control. But after ski school was over, we went down together 3 or 4 times without it, and she did GREAT. Didn’t fall ONCE!!! (And wasn’t afraid to!) So I’ll leave you with this movie and picture. I’ll follow up later with the funny story and video of Becky happening to fall a little in front of K. K started laughing and pointing saying “that’s funny”, without missing a beat on skiing the whole time! It wasn’t mean spirited, she thought Becky was playing around :) And really, it wasn’t a big fall…she was trying to get a better view of K skiing. It’s really exciting to see your daughter do so well…I’m lucky I didn’t run into her instructor while filming!

BTW, in the video (it’s big, 5 MB), she is signaling where she is turning to!

K skiing 1

Matt

Sunday, March 16th, 2008 Daily Posts 1 Comment

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