July 2002 Pictures
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Yeah! July 4th means hot summer nights and fireworks! We
and the Crosses went to one of the area's big displays. After waiting about
3-4 hours for the show to start, Caitlin fell asleep right in the middle of
it.
Devin enjoys twirling a sparkler. Later he tried to burn bugs on the ground. After burning through three dozen sparklers, you kind of run out of things to do with them. |
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Both children spent some time this month cleaning up their
own messes. Caitlin sweeps Snap, Crackle, and Pop under the rug.
Devin tries to capsize the Tidy Bowl man with a spray of Clorox. |
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Devin is really starting to get into activities involving logic and building. Here he plays a very challenging computer game (even for adults) called Alchemy. He also enjoys building things with his Lego's now. |
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Angela turned __ on July 13. Here Caitlin gives her a homemade birthday card at her party at the Cross's house. For Christmas, Angela got her dream-gift in the form of a band saw. For her birthday, she requested and received a router with assorted bits. I know, you're thinking, "this girl's awesome"...and she's all mine! |
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We spent an absolutely wonderful Saturday at Lake Granbury
at the Fincannon's lake house. The weather was in the low-90's with a breeze
and partly cloudy, the water was the perfect temperature, combined with
water-skiing, jet-skiing, swimming, good food and friends.
Devin and Caitlin went right to jumping off the high-dive into the lake. That's 8 - 10 feet from the water, and they didn't give it a second thought. |
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I got to cart Devin and Caitlin around on the jet ski. They really enjoyed that. |
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Angela dug my Kanski out of the attic and I dusted it off to give it the old college try. I say that because when I was in college and in peak physical condition, I could ski for 30 minutes straight with no trouble. Those times are no more. But I got right up on the first try. It's like riding a bike, except it's not a bike, it's a 6 foot long, 13 inch wide ski with a metal frame/canvas seat on it.. |
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Angela and Stephanie and some other unfortunate girl went triple-tubing. They had a blast bumping into each other. |
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Stephanie Cross brought a second cake for Angela's birthday out to the lake. |
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Devin and Caitlin dress up for sports night at the church's "Shades of Summer" Wednesday night activities. They also got a little basketball practice in, except they don't call it practice, they call it fun. "Practice" is for us adults. |
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Here's one you fellow computer geeks will appreciate; I
know I was amazed and perplexed. Angela found this seemingly innocent marble
game at a flea market or somewhere. Devin loves it. You move the four
sliders on the left, then drop a marble and watch where it goes. Depending
on how you move the sliders, it will go to a different slot. Upon further inspection, it's a "binary teacher" game. The bottom slider represents 1 (20), the second slider represents 2 (21), the third 4 (22) and the top slider 8 (23). Along the bottom, each slot is numbered 0-15. You move each slider either left for "1" or right for "0". Then, do the binary math and you can predict which numbered slot it will go into. Isn't that just the coolest?! Ooohhh yeah. Now does somebody have some tape for my glasses? Also, my pocket protector needs cleaning, got some Windex? |
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At another "Shades of Summer" Wednesday night at church, we got to see an "Extreme" motorcycle stunt rider. On the very first jump, he overshot the dirt pile and slammed into the ground, breaking 4 spokes on the rear tire. He continued to do stunts with a wobbling rear wheel and a dented ego until the local Suzuki shop showed up with a replacement for him. |
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By far the biggest event of this July was the visit from
the Tooth Fairy. This remarkable nocturnal creature retrieved Caitlin's
first-ever removed tooth and replaced it with an entire paper dollar! I am
happy to see that the other-worldly denizens keep up with our world's
inflation and factor their payment accordingly (I believe I received a
quarter for my first loose tooth), but apparently they also keep up with our
world's corporate abuse, as I seem to have found from my accounting that I
am exactly 1 dollar short in my bank statement after that very night! Here comes another old-man story. When I was a kid, my dad would tie some string (probably dental floss) around my tooth, sit me on a stool in the entryway, tie the other end of the string to the front door doorknob, and then close the door briskly. But, this method of tooth extraction was not to be heard of in my house this time. We had to wait for Caitlin to work it out at her own pace. I really was looking forward to using one of the few things that I learned as a kid that has a practical application for when I am a parent, but I was thwarted. *grumble grumble* |
