Gametes In Love

Grammie visited with us for a few weeks at the start of the year. It was great! One of our week-ends we took her to Tea Time.

 

Storm has come up with a very interesting innovation for himself. It’s driven by the motivating factor of coziness. Storm is all about his cozy robe, cozy pants and fluffy friends. So… his robe is now a leash for a “friend”, so that a friend is always accessible.

Observe…

 

It all started with some Advent Calendars. Big for a day… maybe two. Forgotten after that.

A fun time had with friends (and a Santa visitor). I’m not perpetuating the myth, but it’s cruel to fight it when your friends host a party. Griffin knows Santa’s “not real”…. Storm meanwhile gets to be nervous about his gift being the last in the bag 🙂

Back home. Oh the torment of having to wait for everyone to be ready. There might have been some box shaking and bag peaking to guess what’s inside. Note to self: Lego is hard to conceal through this method of deduction.

Griffin is doing a very good impersonation of our Dancing Santa.

Storm and Dad hard at work assembling his new toy robot. Dad did an admirable job (mostly) supervising.

 

7 years old. 7 guests. Still a mad-house 🙂
But I’m grateful for continuing to stumble across event places that get these kids excited for birthday celebrations. I kid you not, the whole day of his birthday party I kept answering the same question: how much longer until my birthday party. It was counted in hours, and minutes.

Griffin’s tournament changed the schedule of his second game, so it went into Storm’s party. It was a bummer, but they made it back in time for him to play a bit too.

A little story as retold by Shane…
When half the crew was ready to bail on ToT (it was getting late/they got tired), they turned back. On the way, Storm asked Shane to go ToTing on his behalf.
Shane: No way! You don’t ToT at my age
Storm: Why not?
Shane: Plus I don’t have a costume
Storm: Sure you do! You can go as a parent without a kid.

Nice one, kid! Nice one!

Meanwhile, our annual Arata Farms trips go on. It took us awhile to find our way out of the maze, and we did. I shouldn’t be surprised at all the traffic to HMB. I was hoping since it wasn’t Pumpkin Fest it wouldn’t be as bad, but, well… I think I just need to come to terms that if it’s Oct, it will be busy. Super warm day too — warm enough for the kids to want ice cream.

OH, and of course — my brothers photo w/ pumpkins 🙂

The age of 6 has left the building. Our littlest man is 7.

Today you are 47″ tall and weigh 46.2 lbs.

Storm-y, you are one super creative guy. Your Lego building still continues, but you have now expanded into some amazing paper creations (from origami to far-flying airplanes) and super cool comic book writings. Your imagination impresses me so much. It seems to have no limit.

I love that half of your projects you do for others in mind. You write your comic books for your friends. You make origami to give to others. Your desire to give people a little bit of joy [through your projects] makes me proud.

I admit, because of your creativity, I often overlook how book-smart you are too. You are blazing through the first grade curriculum. I’m sure that if your teacher allowed testing you today on the remainder of the 1st grade keywords and math-hats you’d have them all. You often surprise me when we’re out and about by reading the labels and signage around you, telling me about things

I didn’t think you’d pick up on. I’m struggling to stay one step ahead of you.

On the topic of surprises, you are one athletic kid. You don’t let us onto this, but you are good at sports as much as you hate to admit it. Your PE teacher calls out how competitive you are; you are a good runner, and from what I saw last night — a pretty competent basketball player. Now… can you stop grooming the out-field during your baseball games???

I’m really excited to see what this next year will bring you. Come on, 7!!!

Onto your favorites…

What is your favorite color? Blue
What is your favorite book? Captain Underpants
Who is your best friend? Owen, Lucas, Rob and Will
What is your favorite movie? Ninjago
What is your favorite song? I don’t have one
What is your favorite show? Phineas and Ferb
What is your favorite animal? Black Panther
What is your favorite toy? LEGO!!!!
What is your favorite food? Ribs. Really? Yah. Should I make them more often, then? I like Brandon’s ribs. The new kind. [note, here I was surprised and dissed all in one go! But Brandon get’s a shout out for getting my kid to like meat!]
What is your favorite shirt? Star wars
What do you want to be when you grow up? An engineer! What kind of engineer? A robot engineer.
What is your favorite thing to do? Go to the Kid’s Club at the gym. How come? Because I make ninja stars or I watch the X-bpx and the Wii. Until you play? Uhmn.. humn.

Here’s a quick view of your last 365 days (and you asked for this song yourself … even though your first choice was Gangam Style… and said “No way!”):

G: Dad, if you’re vegetarian, and you turn into a Zombie, do you eat brains? Or heads of lettuce?

Today, G you are 9. I’m thoroughly enjoying confirming that there are no more 8 year olds residing in our home (for the moment). Not that 8 was bad (quite the opposite, actually!), but it feels good to celebrate another year with you.

As I was thinking about writing this, I wanted to highlight some of the amazing ways I’ve seen you grow. I don’t know if these are changes that really happened this year, but certainly something I see more obviously today. For starters, I am seeing you develop into a caring and protective person. This is amazing! I’m seeing you stand up for your brother more, and take care of him in ways that you hadn’t in the past. Thank you!

You’re also more adventurous today. As a toddler, you were the kid that would sit on the sidelines and observe for awhile before you threw yourself into an activity (but then you rocked it!). In HI, I watched you volunteer to be the first family member to go down the zipline. Something you hadn’t seen before, and was up high. Of course, you rocked that too!

I’ve seen you struggle with writing and reading in the past year, but not quit, and accept the extra work and help necessary to press on. Of course we had to sell you on the idea of a tutor (by calling her a “coach”), but once you got the point, you’re with us. I admire this about you, and hope every day that you don’t lose this drive.

Love you Monkey!

Now… here are your favorites:

What is your favorite color? Blue
What is your favorite book? Vs.
Who is your best friend? Brayden & Milo… and me . You are your best friend? Ya!
What is your favorite movie? Fantastic beasts & where to find them
What is your favorite song? It’s raining tacos
What is your favorite show? Pokemon
What is your favorite animal? Snake
What is your favorite toy? Pokemon cards
What is your favorite food? Grilled cheese
What is your favorite shirt? My Peninsula United shirt. How come? Because it has my fidget tag
What do you want to be when you grow up? Hmn… a baseball player. What position? Hmn… First base.
Give me one piece of advice. Hmn… let me think. Umn… never stare into the solar eclipse.

Aaah, summer is coming to an end for us. Boys start school on Wednesday (tomorrow). We spent our past week in Maui, just as we did last year. Turns out — it’s a great way to end the summer. Camps are hard to come by, and if Shane and I need to take time off of work to chill with our monkeys, doing so on the beaches of Maui is a pretty sweet way to go. The kids and I loved our trip last year, so we ended up more or less with a do-over. Same hotel, same wing of the hotel, mostly same restaurants and luau. We did try a new beach for snorkling as a family this year, and also went on a submarine tour and did some zip-lining at a local fruit farm. All fun. I didn’t want to leave. Can’t wait to book the next trip!

Warning: Heavy picture post ahead. Load on your phone (off wifi) at your own risk 🙂

Griffin found a pokemon player seated next to him. He’s level 35. She just started. She got some schooling. Oh, bonus? We found a Corsola out in HI — so one more (new) pokemon to the pokedex.

Kids didn’t last through the evening. Mistake on booking on my part. We didn’t acclimate to the time shift in time. Extra bummer is that G got a shout out for his upcoming birthday… and he missed it because he went up to the room by the time they did it.

Submarine day!

Maybe next year the kids will be ready for some surfing lessons.

We saw the submarine emerge from the water.

If you look really hard, below the sunken ship is a white-tipped shark. We’re told it’s not a man eater. Prefers just women and children :-/

We also saw a spotted ray. Definitely one of the coolest things out there.

Our boat captain slowed the boat down and told us he had to slow down for a while. Imagine the whole load of passengers (me included) immediately standing to see. Ya, ya, joke’s on us — let me introduce you to Bubbles, the whale. I bet he never tired of this.

Monkeypod with the monkeys. Yes, of course there was pie.

A quick stop at Maui Brewing Co for some rootbeer (for Shane) and huge came of 4 Square (for the boys).

This is his happy dance for winning the first round. Griffin won the others.

Nubs makes for good eye cover

Our room was right over the luau. The kids watched it from our balcony just about every night. And in the morning, we got to see the pig get prepped.

First time trying dragon fruit. It was delicious!

Testing out the harness.

Griffin went first.

Storm was second. Clearly, he’s not excited at all! 🙂

Oh, and of course — TURTLES!!!! This guy (or gal) swam right at me, and then let me follow it for about 5 minutes.

Let me transcribe to you a short event in our household tonight. Backstory: I keep a secret chocolate stash in my room. It’s all mine. Mine!!! ‘cuz, you know… the kids eat it all otherwise. In reality it’s not all that secret, but it’s not kept with the rest of the treats. It’s also Milka (aka “the good stuff”).

G: Mom! I stole all your chocolate.
Me: No you didn’t!
G: Yes, I did!
[I proceed to go check on my stash. Which is perfectly safe and untouched]
G: Ha! Now I know where you keep your secret stash.

I totally fell for it. Damn it, kid! I don’t even know that this was intentional planning, but knowing him it likely was. Possible phisher in our house growing up here. Maybe I shouldn’t teach this kid to code, after all.