A Real Life Peter Brady

My son woke up the other day with a frog in his throat. This morning he woke up with a completely different voice. He’s not sick.. hasn’t been sick at all. My husband said his voice is changing. He just turned 10. I thought that happened in junior high! I remember the Brady Bunch episode about Peter’s voice changing. I always got a hoot out of that episode. Click here to see the clip.

Next week my daughter starts Kindie. It’s all happening so fast. I remember the infant stage. I was not a fan of it. Don’t get me wrong… holding your newborn infant is something that can never be matched with anything else, but I didn’t do any of it well. I was not one of those moms that could juggle the baby in the infant seat, a designer bag on her arm and look like she just walked out of the salon. I was the mom with spit-up on her shoulder and I had to have post-it notes on my steering wheel reminding me of stuff like a) don’t forget kid in car or b) make sure kid is strapped in. I had nightmares about leaving the baby in the shopping cart at Target. Get the picture?

So now, fast forward..here I am with a 5th grader and a Kindergartner! Today she is enjoying her first field trip (ever!) with her summer camp. The good thing is that my son is going too so he promised to keep an eye on her. They are going to Medieval Times where they will enjoy lunch and view a jousting tournament. They should have a blast! She is very excited about the school bus. My son is not so excited about the school bus as there is no AC but we won’t go there.

On a side note.. my son’s reading agreement with me is going well. We swapped some of the books around as he said they were not “readable” but he is on his last one and not complaining too much so I consider it a success! I am still reading Special Topics In Calamity Physics. It’s a long one and hard to get thru but I have to finish it by my book group meeting which is this Thursday. Wish me luck!

Vacation Wrap-Up

Family vacations, especially in the summer, are always near and dear to me. A time to re-group, spend time with the family and hopefully check out some new stuff along the way. This year we decided to tour a city that we have never been to. That city was…drum roll please…. Denver! We also decided to toss Boulder in there as well and even threw in Colorado Springs towards the end.

Once of the sights that I was most excited about, was The Tattered Cover bookstore. There are three locations in Colorado, but my favorite was the historic LoDo store. It is located in the middle of downtown, in a quaint, three-story building full of reading nooks and wonderful smells coming from the coffee shop. We ended up visiting the store twice.. The second time, I was lucky enough to snag a spot on the sofa so I could read to my 4-year old. It was also raining outside. It was so cozy!

I walked away with some books for the kids and a beautiful, hardbound copy of Anne of the Green Gables. Oh, I also picked up a literary magazine as well.

We visited museums, the aquarium and the zoo. We shopped, we ate.. we ate and ate. It was also my son’s 10th birthday that week so we celebrated with a trip to Water World and a nice dinner out. He said it was the best day ever!

All in all, it was a great time, but I was happy to come home. For one, it was cooler here in California than it was in Colorado, which I thought was rather odd. The locals said it was weird weather for sure! Now we are trying to figure out what we will do next year. I want a nice, relaxing vacation where I can sit and do nothing.. probably won’t happen with kids but any suggestions?

Chatting with friends about books and life…