Here are four of my favorite shots (click on them to enlarge). At the bottom is a link to the slideshow on Flickr, to see more.

Perfect

She's Ready!

Chris and Scottie

Pretty girls!

Cheese!

Check out the full slideshow

The slide show below consists of pics from our first few days visiting Denver, including pics from Dinosaur Ridge. I had to get funky with filters on a few of them, but ended up pleased with the results. So check ‘em out and enjoy. Wedding pics will be next!

The funny face never goes out of style

‘m so glad that April is over. It was a really crappy month for the Johnson/Conger families, and we ended the month with Jonah missing Easter because he brought home some strep throat (the gift that keeps on giving), and Chris and Zachary went down hard. Fortunately for Zachary, he was feeling almost 100% by the end of the week, and played a great baseball game Saturday. Unfortunately for Chris, the strep bug gripped him tighter than an upside-down pole dancer grips her pole, and he was a miserable mess for almost 3 days.

Which brings us to sushi and bowling. Chris wanted all of us out of the house so he could get some rest, and seriously, who can blame him? So he requested that I go and “do something fun” with the boys–I decided on bowling. Zachary hasn’t used his bowling ball since he received it for his 7th birthday (and he’s almost 8), and who doesn’t love a good bowling alley on a Saturday night?

First, however, we had to stop at Marshalls for some new pillows, and it turns out there is a cute little sushi place in the same strip mall. I made the decision that we were going to eat there; it was, after all, right across the street from the bowling alley. Turns out it was a pretty good decision. The sushi was really good, and I actually got Zachary to try some, which he enjoyed except for my wasabi-laden soy sauce. The dinner entrees were yummy, the ambiance was great, and the boys and I had a really enjoyable dinner.

Next stop, bowling! Bowling with an almost-8-year old, and a 4-year old can go one of two ways: great or awful. This time was great. We got there about an hour before cosmic bowling, and we bowled a few games. Then cosmic bowling started and instead of leaving, Zachary asked if we could bowl one more. Of course, I think he wanted to show off his awesome robot dance moves more than he wanted to bowl–we don’t have cool strobes and black lights at our house. So we stayed for one more.

It was a really fun night, and very memorable. The boys were nice to each other (which wore off the next day, I knew it was too good to last too long), and we all had a lot of fun. There were also a few laughs–Jonah never disappoints. Check out the video of poor Jonah, learning the hard way, not to follow the ball down the lane, hee hee.

If you’d like another little chuckle, check out Zachary’s smooth dance moves.

A catcher and his body are like the outlaw and his horse. He’s got to ride that nag till it drops. ~Johnny Bench

Zachary is getting a good feel for catching, and the new stance Chris has him in has definitely improved his batting. I created this little video of him at our last game against the Mets. Unfortunately, we lost. There’s always next time!

For those interested, this video was taken and modified entirely on my iPhone 4. The video was shot using the regular iPhone 4 camera, and then modified using the Silent Film Director app, where I sped it up a bit, added a 70s filter, and my own music.

It’s also very interesting to see how Chris and I have influenced him, and his vocabulary. We never really talked to him like he was a baby or a child, which is evidenced by his use and understanding of words and terms well beyond his age. This can be a great thing, but every coin has two sides, and many words have multiple meanings. And it can often be amusing to hear Zachary’s definitions of words he thinks he knows.

A perfect example came from a Goosebumps book he was reading the other day. I randomly have him read out loud a few pages of the various books he reads to check his comprehension, and he came across the sentence “The window was framed by large, black, ominous shutters.” I made him stop there, because I was sure the word “ominous” was going to trip him up. As it turned out, however, I was wrong. He very clearly defined ominous as “scary and evil”, which, while technically defined as “…foreboding or foreshadowing evil…”, Zachary obviously got the point.

No, ominous did not trip him up at all–but he still had an odd look on his face, like he didn’t quite understand the sentence. After a moment of thought I realized the word that was causing him problems was “framed”, so I asked him if he knew what that word meant. He told me he did, but he didn’t understand what it had to do with a window. Now it was my turn to look perplexed, and I asked him to tell me what the word “framed” meant, to which he replied, “That’s when someone tries to get you into trouble by blaming you for something that you didn’t do. So what would someone be blaming a window for, anyway?“

Priceless. My 7-year old doesn’t equate “framed” with enclosing something, like a picture or a window; no, he understands the nefarious act of falsely accusing someone of something. Where did I go wrong? (That’s a rhetorical question. Heh, one of these days I’ll write a post about that word.)

back to diapers

Today will be an interesting day for Jonah at school; today Jonah goes back to wearing diapers.

For the past few months Jonah has stopped pooping in the toilet at school. He has no problem peeing, but when he has to poop, he finds a corner in his classroom and does his business in his pants. He’s been doing this at home, as well, but not as often–at home he at least tries to get to the bathroom.

It’s kind of turning into a game, to get to change his clothes. -Mrs. Kim

When this first started happening we thought something happened in the bathroom at school that suddenly traumatized Jonah, keeping him from wanting to go poop there. But after several weeks of pleading, bribing, scolding, ignoring, and being all around frustrated, it’s become pretty clear that he’s not traumatized, and he knows when he needs to use the bathroom. The kid regularly squeezes out some seriously monster logs, so it’s not a physical issue. It appears to be some kind of game for him, or a battle of the wills. What Jonah doesn’t understand is that I’ve been willful 36 years longer than he has. My will win out.

So, as promised yesterday if he didn’t do better pooping at school, Jonah will be put in diapers today and will go back to the other building, in the toddler’s class. So far the only thing to upset him when we talk about pooping in his pants, is the threat of diapers. So let’s see if that does the trick. Besides, you have no idea how sick I am of cleaning out poopy underwear that’s been sitting in a plastic bag all afternoon. Ugh.

If anyone out there has an idea as to other solutions to this problem, please share. I’m all ears!

Zachary gets to work

Chris and I went back and forth, and while money wasn’t the issue (we had a generous benefactor the past two years), we decided we wanted Zachary to attend the school that was just down the street and has earned a great reputation over the past few years, instead of shuttling him 30-40 minutes each way, every day. We also want The Goose to start creating the kind of friendships that span elementary school, middle school, high school, and beyond. He would not be able to do that if we kept him at FLEC–once he hit high school we would either have to move to keep him in a high school with his friends, or we would have to pull him away from all of the friends he’d made over the years. We’d rather pull him away now.

Of course, that’s not to say that we won’t move before he’s out of school–in fact it would be really odd if we were still on Lake Alden for the next 10 years, but you never know. I like my home. We also have to consider Jonah. There’s no way to afford FLEC for both of them, when Jonah starts kindergarten in a few years, so he will likely start Apopka, where Zachary is now.

There are a few other, personal reasons, for the switch, but this post isn’t about me.

As for totally screwing Zachary up before he moves out on his own some day, only time will tell. I have plenty of other opportunities to mess him up major decisions to make on his behalf between now and then.

The afternoon’s love fest started with Zachary trying to watch the cartoon that Jonah was watching and Jonah blocking Zachary’s view. After a few renditions of “get out of my way!” followed by grunting and heavy breathing, I was not surprised when the high-pitched shrieking reached my ears.

When I got to the living room I found Zachary looking contrite and trying to console a wailing Jonah. Okay, he was really trying to talk him into not squealing on him. Which of course, Jonah promptly did. It seems that Jonah had been standing on the couch, and when he wouldn’t get out of Zachary’s way, Zachary pushed him. Off the couch.

From these pics it’s hard to see how big and dark the bruise was (the little bugger won’t stand sill!), but it’s several days later and he still has his “trophy”.

I’m sure this is just the first of many brother-inflicted wounds to come. I think it’s time to invest in a first aid kit. Or a stand-by EMT.

Fast forward a few months and a trip to Downtown Disney for the Goose’s 7th birthday. We’d already spent time building his RC car and were just wandering around when we went in to the Vinylmation store. While Zachary colored his VM coloring page to look like the VM he liked, I walked around. I decided to take the plunge and bought three boxes from the Urban 3 series. Now the intriguing thing about this whole VM craze is that you buy the boxes “blind” and don’t know what you’re getting until you actually buy them and open them up. Of course this is a brilliant marketing scheme by Disney but we won’t get into that here. I actually chose well and the first two I opened were vinyls I wanted. The third, not so much. But the nice thing about buying these in the store is that you can exchange ones that you don’t like. With the guidance of the nice sales man I ended up with the Palm Trees vinyl that Zachary had colored. Yay for me!

Unfortunately now I’m hooked. It turns out these things can turn into collector’s items after a while since the collections are discontinued after awhile. And they’re pretty damn cute. In addition to the three I purchased at Downtown Disney yesterday, I managed to pick up a few on eBay as well. Not the coveted Balloon “chaser” which is going for over $300 these days (yes, 3-0-0), but a few cute ones I will enjoy.

Vinylmation Penny Machine Park #2

Cast Member Mickey

Oil in the Gulf

I‘ve done a really good job of burying my head in sand, so to speak, regarding the horrific BP incident in the gulf. Of course the media is doing a great job of helping me in this regard. I honestly believe we have not seen half of what is really going on. Notice how it’s always the same video shot from BP, or the same isolated beach shots? I’m guessing that like myself, most people want to stay blissfully ignorant as to the oil leak in the gulf. With ‘top kill’ failing miserably, however, that is increasingly unlikely.

I drive past a BP station everyday and have never given it much thought until (obviously) recently. I don’t recall ever getting gas at a BP, mainly because RaceTrac and 7-Eleven are on the routes I take in my everyday routine. When I drive past BP now, however, I get a sick feeling in my stomach that lasts until I get home, and the same thoughts run through my head: I may be a hypocrite, but I have to drive (especially in central FL). I refuse to stop at BP, however. As I was thinking this the other day I was surprised to see how many people were still getting gas at BP. I would think that with this oil disaster people would be shunning BP gas stations like the plague. I was disheartened to see this isn’t the case.

I know my personal ban on BP won’t change a single thing but it gives me some sense of action. I can’t say I’m driving less, because I really don’t drive that much to begin with. Mass transit, which is all but nonexistent in the area I live in, is also not an option. I guess I’ll have to take my small victories and in the meantime, pray that God, or Buddha, or Allah or someone is looking over the Gulf and will intervene to protect what is left to protect. BP certainly can’t be counted on to do it.