He's still obsessed with bridges. Notice fine attention to architectural details in his creation. You just don't see many three-legged bridges around these days.
(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Our little sous chef; an expert in all things chocolate.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

The new reading nook. His tent in our living room.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

More bedtime dancing.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Dancing with Hoppy before bedtime.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

A pirate, a pirate, a pirate says, "Arr."

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Last of the sprinkler fun.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

More sprinkler fun.
(c) 2007 Scott Everett

A leaf mask. Peek-a-boo!
(c) 2007 Scott Everett

As some of you know, today Andrew showed me that he is ready for his professional soccer career to start. Heading the ball should be no problem.

After church every week, Andrew and Ashlyn (a little girl about 4 months older than he) chase each other around the nursery while her parents and I discuss highly theological matters, namely, what we're going to have for lunch. Today turned into something al little different, though.

The two of them started chasing each other as normal and, just as we had decided on Pei Wei for lunch, we heard what sounded like a gun-shot from over where the kids were playing. After about a half-second delay, I heard Andrew shriek. Apparently, while chasing Ashlyn, he tripped over the welcome mat but the entrance to the nursery at which point he fell, head first, into the door. The gun-shot sound was his head hitting the door and breaking the solid glass panel. It didn't shatter, but it did spiderweb about one-third of the way up the door. I'm going to try to get some pictures of it tomorrow.

In our church, the nursery is pretty well segregated from the rest of the building. There are two doors leading into it; one from the hallway by the classrooms and one from the outside (the one he broke). After the noise and the child screaming, everyone within hearing distance knew that something was wrong in the nursery. So we had about half the church either in the nursery hallway or just outside the door, trying to see what was going on and trying to console my poor little boy. One heck of a way to gain celebrity.

We checked him out; he seemed OK. We soothed him down some. He cried for a few minutes, but quieted down surprisingly quickly. Within about ten minutes or so he wanted to chase Ashlyn again. We swiftly nixed that idea.

Later, after lunch, he was recounting the incident to me as I was putting him in the car and he said, "I bonked my head at church. I cried and screamed." I quickly assured him that whenever he hits his head that hard, he is more than welcome to cry and scream as much as he wants. It seems that he will emerge from this relatively unscathed, save the knot on his forehead in this picture (just ignore the chocolate-milk-mouth). We're just concerned that the day care will start to question us. We seem to sent him to school with bumps and bruises on his head quite a bit. He is all boy, remember.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Petting the star fish at Galveston Aquarium at Moody Gardens.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Andrew's very first school performance. His day care had a graduation for the five year olds and each class performed something before the ceremony. Andrew's class sang "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

At first we weren't sure if we'd go to this, but in the week leading up to the event, he got more and more excited. He kept singing the song and going through the hand motions (he really liked putting his thumbs and forefingers together for "Like a diamond in the sky."), so we figured that we had to go. Even at that point we weren't sure if he'd actually go through with it.

We were mighty impressed. He really seemed to enjoy himself up there. Now, his hand movements were small and below his chest, but he mostly smiled throughout the whole thing. Plus he got a star with his name on it.

Also:

The two group photos here and the first two photos here.

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Sun-kissed little boy.
(c) 2007 Scott Everett

A long, hard day playing at the beach can wear a little one out. Can you believe he still whined about leaving?
(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Sand castles with Mommy.

Swimming with Daddy.
Yelling at the water?

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

Last two pictures from the train museum.

This was one excited little boy. The whole trip down to the coast, he kept talking in the car, repeatedly asking if we were going to the beach. He barely slept on the 4 hour drive (not my son!). We kept telling him that we had to get there first.

When we finally got to Galveston, he asked when were going to the beach. We decided that we'd hit the train museum first and you've seen those pictures. After we left the museum he asked, "Beach yet?" We told him that we had to check in to the hotel room, change clothes, and then we'd walk across the street to go to the beach.

We got to the hotel (Victorian Inns & Suites -- not bad), checked in, and went up to our room. We rented a suite and no sooner had I unlocked the door and opened it, than Andrew darted inside and started to change his clothes. Before we could get a single bag through the door, my son was completely naked in the living area asking if it was time to go to the beach.

After a quick change of clothes, we walked over to the beach. Now, Andrew is still very shy around other people. These last 18 months or so in daycare have helped immensely, but he's just a shy guy. Not today! We got to the beach and before Liz and I could spread the blanket out, he had his bucket in hand and was in the water ready to go. The whole weekend we had to make deals just to convince him to get out of the water even for meals.

We interrupt this beach-cast for other news. Andrew loves corn. Even better, Andrew loves corn on the cob. Andrew also loves to shuck corn on the cob. He thinks that it looks like a spaceship, so he has dubbed it, and it will now forever be known as "Rocket Corn." Best. Name. Ever.

(An aside: I was looking for some style advice from the Modern Language Association (http://www.mla.org/) and came across some new "rules" that really bothered me.

I found out they recommend that if a title begins with a numeral, it should be alphabetized as if the number were spelled out. So the nursery rhyme "3 Blind Mice," for example, would be filed under, "Three." I have always understood convention to be that numbers are organized in order (1, 2, 3, ... 19, 20, 21, ... 1,973,487) before letters.

I also found out that modern convention requires only one space follow the termination of a sentence. A style change dictated by modern typesetting. Not only does the MLA recommend this (though they do say that there is nothing wrong with continuing to use two spaces), but I just realized that Blogger here changes my posting to fit this new convention. Rest assured, I continue to use two spaces.

I know, I know no one cares. But I'm obsessive about that sort of stuff. I'm sure my sister will empathize. That's all.)

(c) 2007 Scott Everett

More tickling, and this time, he's responsible. I have no idea what he was doing to Liz, but apparently it was really funny.
(c) 2007 Scott Everett