May the Fourth

Last week was pretty much a blur--probably because Dan and I were both bogged down in end-of-semester grading and other deadlines. But I'm happy to announce that our grades are all in, which means that we are free! (Well, at least temporarily). My big plans for the summer? To write in my evening down time. (When I told this to my class at their final exam they all looked at me weird. I must hang around with too many writers because this seemed like a perfectly normal thing to get excited about). Dan's big plans? Also to write, but his writing will probably be much less fun than mine. Also, he has to teach a class. But before you feel too sorry for him, he also gets to go to conferences in cool places like Chicago.



The kids are still in school for another few weeks, which means we've entered into the disjointed part of the year where our semester is done but theirs isn't--which might explain why I nearly forgot to drop Evelyn off on Wednesday for early day.

This is  Oliver's new trick. Evelyn has trained him to respond to the prompt, "do a squinty face!" Ergo, squinty face. Good thing he's cute no matter what he does. He's started saying, "peas, peas" whenever he wants something which is so dang cute he ends up getting most things (within reason). And then he says, "tanks," in this  high little voice that just about sends you into cuteness shock.

Thursday we had back-to-back soccer games for the kids, which is always tricky. Oliver doesn't ever want to stay put for that long, and the field where they hold the games must be the windiest place in town. It's funny to me to contrast my children's playing styles.

A typical game for Evelyn looks something like this: the other team has the ball, a few of Evelyn's teammates go streaking after the ball, Evelyn rather leisurely lopes after them. She's also been known to skip toward the ball, which--if you were wondering--is not nearly as effective or fast as running. I think she's much more into the social aspect of the game than the game itself.

And then there's Andrew, who's always at the forefront of his team's offense (unless he's assigned defense, in which case he spends the whole time taut and alert, waiting for the ball to come his way). He cares desperately about the game, though he's also come a long way since his first year playing. He no longer cries every time his team loses--or every time the other team scores a goal (yes, there was a time when these were both regular occurrences).

Evelyn is currently counting down the days until her birthday (six, for the curious). This picture is from her much-dreaded dance photos last week. And yes, the dress really is that bright.

Today we've pretty much let our geek flag fly. Most of you know that today is also Star Wars day ("may the fourth be with you . . . " get it?) I know, the pun is obnoxious, but it was a fun excuse to pull out our Star Wars cookie cutters and take some cookies to the neighbors. Dan watched part of episode IV with the kids, they arranged their own Jedi training, and then I took the kids around the neighborhood while Dan worked on dinner (meatloaf, at Evelyn's request, since Bubby and Poppy won't be around to celebrate on her actual birthday.)