CA Recap from Last Weekend

Below is a photo recap of our CA program last weekend. It was a wonderful weekend and we had fun visiting with our friends. The program was very upbuilding with excellent reminders. The speakers all did a fabulous job. Our DO announced that they had been called away from their assignment and would be receiving a new assignment in the Education arena. He will be missed.

Here is Henry and Nana posing before the program on Saturday.


And here is Henry posing with Papa.


I snapped this because they both seemed to be enjoying themselves so much. Turns out Henry had talked Nana into telling him the story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"


I take this picture every year as a point of comparison.


Here is the same picture taken during his first CA. It was March 2005.


Me and my baby!


Henry and Papa looking up scriptures. (The DO is in the background.)


Henry had a friend sit with him for the first time. Then he sat with another friend for the afternoon session.


Henry and his friends feeding the fish in the pond on the assembly hall grounds.

Henry enjoyed volunteering to help with our cleaning assignment during this assembly as well. Both days, we were assigned to help clean the dining room after lunch. Henry loved being in charge of the squirt bottle and several of the friends had him spraying the tables. He was also most excellent at putting the right number of chairs back at each of the tables after the vacuuming was complete. At the end of the program on Sunday, we were assigned to clean the water fountains. Henry really enjoyed this assignment, as well, as it also involved being in charge of the squirt bottle.

We also remembered to bring his wallet on Sunday and he extracted a sum of his choosing to place in the contribution box. I was quite proud of his willingness and generosity.

And each night after the program, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner with our friends. It was a perfect weekend, all the way around.

The Summer in Review...a Picture Parade

Since I have been so remiss in posting this summer, I thought I would provide a recap of our very busy summer using pictures I have of the different events.

First up, after finishing kindergarten, Henry teamed up with a couple of girls from our congregation to host a "Let's Get this Summer Started" swim party. A fun time was had by both the old and the young in attendance. We really had perfect weather and enjoyed the company of our dear friends from Austin. Here is Henry with his co-hostesses in front of the fabulous cake the other mom made.

In the month of June, while we had an extremely busy month, I don't have a lot of pictures to show for it. Here is a picture of the "girls" from the girls only trip I went on to Disney World. We're missing Tammy, as she was taking the picture.

Here are some pictures of Henry from our District Convention. Henry did great. Someone had sent me a kids version of a notebook for the program and Henry enjoyed following along. Of course, the highlight for him was the drama on Sunday. (A funny side story here: When I reminded Henry on Sunday morning that the drama would be that afternoon, he declared: "There's two kinds of drama. First, the one that is like a play like we will see today, and then there is the drama that I create when I am in a crabby mood." Yep, buddy, you got that right!)

Before Henry and I took off for our month in Chicago, Leslie wanted a special day for her and Henry. She arranged to take him to a special dinosaur exhibit. She knows a way to a boys heart. They had a great time.

So Henry and I headed off to Chicago for the month of July. The very first weekend we were there we realized our timing would coincide with another JW family that I have corresponded with via email. Another single mom with a great little boy from Kaz was going to be in the Chicago area and we were able to coordinate our schedules to enjoy dinner together at the Rainforest Cafe. And thus, another great friendship was born. Amanda, it was great to meet you and your mom and your wonderful little Bo. We sure enjoyed our evening with you and hated when it had to end. Here's a photo of the new friends:

We also got to spend the day with a friend of mine that I had lost touch with a couple of decades ago. It was wonderful to spend a day with her and her husband while visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo. We had a surprise encounter while we were there with Ms. Lori from PBS Kids.

After we got home from Chicago, we had three more weeks until school started. So Henry attended a summer camp hosted by the park district in the town that we live. He got to do a lot of fun things while he was here, like go to the movies, go to the Museum, go to the Kemah Boardwalk, swimming, and a lot of just hanging out and playing with other kids. Here he is headed off for his first day:

He also got to attend Jack's "First Day of School Party" at Jumpin Jacks. This is a big room filled with an inflatable jumpie, a HUGE inflatable slide, and an inflatable bungie race track. Again, a great time was had by all. Here is Henry, along with the Host with the Most, Jack!

Henry also managed to lose two more teeth, both on the bottom, this summer. Here is a shot with a nice goofy grin that highlights those new holes in his head:

And finally, to celebrate the end of summer and the start of school, we had a small gathering at Chuck E. Cheese with Henry's best friend, Jack and family. In case you hadn't noticed, we celebrate at the drop of a hat!!

Look for "First Day of School" pictures coming soon....

Graduation...the recap

What a fabulous day. Everything turned out perfect.

I feel like Henry and I are so fortunate to have such a wonderful group of friends and family. Let me start by saying that EVERYONE I invited to the graduation and after party came. And everyone was so generous with their love and kindness towards to my son. I'm overwhelmed!

The program was wonderful. Henry's class sang "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" and "YMCA". Henry had been practicing his songs for weeks, complete with hand motions. I have tons of pictures, but feel uncomfortable posting when there are other children. So I've cropped some down to exclude the faces of other children. But you can see that he was really into it.

After all of the classes performed, then the graduation ceremony commenced. There were a total of 14 from the school that graduated. Again, I'm going to crop to only show Henry out of consideration to the rest of the kids. The group also sang another song after the graduation.

As he waits in line for his turn (conveniently standing right next to my seat):

As he receives his diploma (that's his teacher off to the right):

Humming during the special graduation song:

And a few shots after the ceremony:

After it was over, we booked it home for the after party. All three of Henry's teachers stopped by for a few minutes. We felt very honored that they could join our little celebration.

Since it was late evening by the time we got started, I kept the foodstuffs pretty simple. We had cake, of course. And I also served queso and a yummy artichoke cheese dip. I also put out both fruit and vegetable trays. Below are some pictures of the food setup (although missing most of the food) and the decorations, including the cake and another small surprise.

The balloons, a part of any celebration:

The place where the food was ultimately laid out and devoured from:

The cake with the little graduate on it:

And a surprise gift we had for all of our guests...yes they are real and you can eat them:

Everyone seemed to have a great time and the only thing that was missing was our loved ones who don't live local enough to have participated.

Thanks to everyone who did come and for the exceptional generosity of each and every one of you.

And for all of those who worried about me, I made it through okay. I did shed a few tears, but more so, enjoyed the evening and the company of my dear friends.

Wordless Wednesday

Busy Weekend

So, we had quite the busy weekend at our place. It started on Friday. Of course we ate dinner at Gringo's...that's what we do. But we had a special guest this week. Usually Nada is our special guest, but she couldn't make it this week, so we had a different special guest. It was a member of the "cutest baby in the universe club"...Leslie's nephew David.

Saturday, we have a full schedule, starting with the Children's Symphony. The theme for this presentation was Aladdin and the Arabian Nights. It was the last show of this season. I had sort of decided against renewing for next year, but as Henry and I chatted before the show began, he told me how much he enjoys the Children's Symphony. So we ran out to the renewal desk and signed up again for next year. Because we renewed, we got to have a photo taken with the Conductor, dressed in his Arabian garb. Of course, all I had with me was my cell phone, so sorry about the quality.

From there, we ate lunch at a Burger King in "down town city", as Henry refers to Downtown Houston. I am sad to say that we've now eaten enough fast food that Henry has started having a "special order" versus just taking whatever Mommy gets him. We had a few errands to run, including a new haircut (thanks Aunt Leslie!).

And then, we had our first Astros game of the season. Since the Comets are no more, we decided to get a six-pack ticket package from the Astros. Henry really does seem to enjoy any kind of sports. So we were barely home for just a few moments, when it was off to the "ole ball game".

Leslie had gotten Henry a mitt and you would think the thing was glued to his hand. (As a matter of fact, I had to ask Henry to remove it this morning while he was eating breakfast!!). It was a good game, but we only lasted until the 8th inning. It was getting past the little boys bedtime and he had lost interest in the game. So we headed out while we were down 7-4, thinking it was a lost cause anyway.

As we climbed in the car, we tuned the radio to listen to the rest of the game. Much to our surprise, the Astros had rallied and managed to tie the game. It ended up going into overtime and finally ended with a loss for the Astros in the 11th inning. Whew, glad we didn't try and stay for the whole thing!

Here are some pictures from the game:

Sunday, Linda asked if we could go eat with her after the meeting. That's always a treat for us, so we let her pick where we would go. She chose Benihana...a place I would rarely say no to. The kids had a blast! Notice the creative use of chopsticks by Henry and Sara. And you can tell by the leftover rice on Samuel's face that he enjoyed it.

Whew, what a fun and eventful weekend!!

Pot Luck....what's been going on

Yeah, yeah...I'm way behind and it does seem like a lot has happened since the last "real" blog entry.

SNOW

First of all, it snowed last week. That's a big deal here in the Houston area. That just doesn't happen that often. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos, but it was real snow. Huge, chunky flakes. I have a snowball in my freezer to prove it.

MEGAN

We were invited to dinner at Allison's on Friday. Megan was cooking. We saw this as an opportunity to help Henry appreciate the nuances of being invited to someone's home for dinner. So we allowed him to select the flowers that we would take as a hostess gift for Megan. He was quite picky and looked everything over quite carefully before selecting a small glass vase bowl/vase, with just roses and a few carnations "floating" on top.

Henry had so much fun playing with the other kiddos, even though they were all much older than him. Fortunately, he is quite used to playing with his older cousins, so just fell right in step with whatever the older kids were doing. He jumped on a trampoline in the backyard...a first for him. Towards the end of the evening, the kids all ended up in front of the TV and Henry was right there among them. Here are a couple of pics:

Oooooh, and I don't even know where to start on dinner. Megan had prepared one of the most yummiest of Chicken Picata's that I've ever been privileged to get to eat, complete with the lemon butter, capers and artichoke hearts. It was served with a side of angel hair pasta, steamed veggies, and a lovely garden salad. (There was supposed to be garlic bread, but we forgot it in the oven, so we ate it as a pre-cursor to dessert). Oh, and speaking of dessert, it was my most favorite...creme brulee. Megan had made it from scratch, complete with torching the sugar on top. Here she is in action:

MISCELLANEOUS

Here are a few pictures of the boy that I've taken over the past couple of weeks:

Here he is at bookstudy with Nana and Papa. This will probably be the last official "bookstudy" since we will be out of town for the next two weekends. When we return, it'll be the first of the year and we'll be under the new program. The end of an era...

Here he is dressed for the meeting one night. I think he looks so cute with his t-neck and sports coat:

And here he is dressed for the children's symphony. Not that I'm biased or anything, but I think he was one of the best dressed young men in attendance. Especially when he was wearing his coat:

JOKERS AND PEGS

For those of you that have never heard of Jokers and Pegs, you are missing out on one of the best games. You can check out more about it here. Anyway, after another yummy dinner at the house of one of the families in our congregation, we decided to finish off our Sunday evening with a round of J & P. Now, we've been playing this for the last two winters while my parents are in town (and other times, too). Henry is always relegated to "helping" someone, or playing on his own terms, with his own cards, board, and pieces separate and apart from the adult game.

Since he is such a game-playing little boy, I had decided to see if he was up to playing on his own. He was so excited when he realized that he was going to have a spot at the adult table, get to play on the "real" board with his own pieces and his own cards.

Before we started, I wanted to see how much of the game he understood just from observing all of the adults playing for the last few years. I started in with my questioning:

• Me: How do you get one of your guys out of start?
• H: With a face card!
• Me: What do you do with an 8?
• H: Move backward.
• Me: What do you do with a 9?
• H: Move one guy forward and one guy backward.
• Me: What do you do with a 7?
• H: Move a guy 7, or split it between two guys.
• Me: What do you do with a Joker?
• H: Knock somone off.

Okay, wow, he seemed to have it down. This is the first time I've played without having my trusty little cheatsheet to help me remember what all of the rules were. He actually played fantastically on his own. I did kind of keep an eye on his cards, but there was only 2 times that I needed to intervene with any kind of guidance in what he should or shouldn't do. Unfortunately, he didn't win his first solo game of J & P, but he (and all of the rest of us) sure were proud of how well he did on his own. Of course, he had us all in stitches through most of the game with his take on things. Here are a few of his gems:

• Papa, guess what? I might knock you off!
• Mama, I'm gonna play this joker. Sorry, Mama! (as he knocks me off)
• 1, 2 ~ I'm gonna get you (as he played a 2 and came close to knocking Papa off)
• 1, 2, 3 ~ Sing with me (gotta love the exuberance of youth)
• If I could, I would double-wham you (to Aunt Leslie and Nana when he landed between them)

Well folks, that's all I can think of right now. We're heading to North Dakota at the end of the week to see my Grandmother. I'm hoping that we have enough warm clothes to survive the sub-zero weather that is going on there.