Fourth of July weekend celebrations started early, with the Kramers getting in town from Dallas the week before the Fourth. It was great to see them – we got to eat a few meals together and the kids got to enjoy time together – like in this picture from our outing to Deanna Rose Farmstead. It was good to see Martie and Bob and Rylei again, and I’m really glad that my leg didn’t keep me from dinner at Jack Stack while Greg was in town too. (I managed to get a pretty nasty scrape on my leg when I fell – twice – in the garage, courtesy of a big oil slick next to my car. Thankfully, the oil was from a couple of bottles of oil I’d managed to run over, and not from the car itself).

The 4th of July itself meant pool party at the Rooks’. As usual, the kids had a blast in the pool and playing in the basement with friends that they don’t get to see all that often. And the adults even got to have some normal adult conversation. The food and drink was also excellent, as usual. Though next time Miriam makes a Pina Colada, I suspect she’ll do a more thorough job of checking the provenance of the maraschino cherries.

We closed out the holiday weekend by taking advantage of Sunday’s beautiful weather and gathering the cousins together in the park for a little photo shoot. I think we got some nice shots of Rylei, Mikaela, Samantha and Jonathan together, as well as a few of just the girls, and even some of Samantha solo. After we finished taking pictures, the kids took a little walk in the park with Miriam, Grandma Marcia and Aunt Martie – and found a treasure trove of seashells on the ground. They had a ball collecting, and then later sorting and cleaning their new “collections”

Our Memorial Day Weekend fun started with celebrating Jeff Perkins’ graduation from Pittsburg State University. The party at Marcia and Chuck’s was the usual combination of great food, drink, family and friends. Mikaela and Jonathan had a blast in the backyard, playing tag and hide and seek with Cousin Margo.

On Sunday, it was on to the annual Memorial Day Weekend party at the Rooks’ house. Rain threatened on and off, but not enough to keep the kids out of the unofficial opening day of their pool. Mikaela was on and off various rafts and chasing toys to the bottom of the pool all afternoon, though her favorite thing to do was to go down the slide (even if it was a bit cold). She made it look like so much fun that Jonathan insisted on trying it too (with me catching him at the bottom of the slide).

After Jonathan took a break to play peek-a-boo in the playhouse for a while, he was gung-ho to get back into the water. After the experience with the waterslide, he couldn’t wait to be IN the water – which to him meant actually going down into the water, preferably as close to over his head as possible.

The Monday holiday was spent on a much-anticipated trip to the Zoo. We started with the kids’ favorite – the Peekaboo Tree (which was good, because it was drizzling a bit when we got there). But the rain let up soon, and didn’t interfere with the rest of our trek through Africa.

We took the boat ride across the lake and got to the hippos just in time for the scheduled zookeeper chat (Mikaela took full advantage of question and answer time). I got great picture opportunities from the boat of giraffes, zebras, oryx and cranes. We spent a solid three hours walking around the zoo, and the kids were remarkably well-behaved.

We capped off the holiday weekend with dinner with Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry. For the first time all weekend, I left the cameras at home. And sure enough, I missed a great video opportunity as Zaydie Larry played his guitar and both Jonathan and Mikaela sang along.

Today there was a special music program at Mikaela’s school. They don’t usually do “performances” with just one class. But Mikaela’s kindergarten class is a particularly enthusiastic music bunch, so we got a sort of mixture of an end-of-the-year/Mother’s Day concert. Here’s the finale:

The whole concert is available for download here. It’s about 15 minutes long – too long for YouTube streaming. After the concert, Miriam, Grandma Mouse, Grandma Marcia and I (along with the rest of the parents and guests) were invited back to Mikaela’s classroom.

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Happy Passover, 2009 everyone! One Seder down (at Aunt Judy & Uncle Lloyd’s) and one more to go (here at our house). First Seder was a big (28), fun (entering the Seder through the “Red Sea” door), night. And, of course, Uncle Lloyd shared his rendition of the Four Questions in Yiddish (Margo handled the Hebrew, Mikaela did the English). It was great Corey, Mo, Annie, Steph and Jeff could all make it in from out of town this year, though we missed having Steve, Sali, Gabe and Eli with us too.

In this picture, Mikaela, Samantha and Margo perform the annual Ten Plagues puppet play.

Tonight will be a much smaller crowd. But it’ll still be a Seder with all the fixins. Cooking is already underway. We’re going to wait on the charoset until Mikaela gets home from school today, so she can help make it. Now I’m off to get furniture put back where it belongs, after yesterday’s carpet cleaning.

We had dinner at Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry’s, so that Corey and Mo could have some time to play with the kids. Mikaela and Jonathan were in rare form. Jonathan introduced Aunt Mo and Uncle Corey to his

“hand” puppets, Tweety and Snacky. Mikaela gave a preview of her dance recital coming up in May, followed by about 15 minutes of a song she made up as she was singing it. But I think my favorite part of the evening was Mikaela and Jonathan together singing the signature song from the Blue’s Clues episode “Blue’s Big Musical.” Well, that or Corey and Mikaela eating cupcakes with amazingly vividly-colored icing.

Mikaela has been working hard on her reading all year. She’s a perfectionist, which makes it frustrating for her to sound words out. She’s made real breakthroughs lately, getting much more comfortable and confident with her reading. Last night, she decided to read one of Jonathan’s favorite books to Grandma Marcia and Jonathan (and she kept reading, even when Jonathan decided that he would rather play). I caught most of it on video

I turned forty-one years old today. I had a really nice birthday. I received a slew of wonderful birthday messages from friends and family on Facebook. I got home from work to a dozen lavender roses and a huge balloon bouquet from Miriam. Mom and Dad brought dinner over. And Mikaela made me the best birthday cake ever. Miriam supervised, but Mikaela did it all herself. She read the cake mix directions, figured out which measuring utensils to use, mixed up the batter, poured it (with some help) into the cake pans, put it in the oven and took it out when it was done (the oven mitts go up past her elbows). Miriam assembled the layers and put on the base frosting, but Mikaela did the decorating. Finally, Miriam decided that I needed to prove that I could blow out 41 candles:

We had a crazy day yesterday. Miriam had an early morning court appearance, so I was in charge of getting both kids to school (usually, Miriam takes Jonathan and I take Mikaela). Unfortunately, my brain wasn’t fully functioning yet by the time we left, and I managed to forget to pack Mikaela’s dance bag and swimming stuff for her busy Thursday afternoon AKK schedule. Miriam’s afternoon was open (she was planning on spending it cleaning her office), so she decided to run by the house, pick up Mikaela’s stuff, and then drop it off at the JCC. This is where the real fun begins.

While getting out of the car, Miriam’s finger got caught in her keychain, which in turn got caught by the car door as the door slammed shut — on her pinky! Ever the dutiful Mommy, Miriam wrapped up her hand and delivered Mikaela’s stuff to the JCC before calling me and having me meet her at the ER to get her finger examined. With an assist from Zaydie Larry, I got to the ER in time to hear the diagnosis – the radiologist saw a very small break at the end of Miriam’s pinky. In addition, it was cut all the way through the nailbed, so the ER doc put three stitches in through Miriam’s nail and put her on antibiotics. With pain meds onboard, I took Miriam back to her office for her afternoon client appointment (I used to the time to do some overdue server updating).

After the client meeting, we went together, in Miriam’s car, and picked up the kids at the JCC. It was Miriam’s car, but between the new stitches in her pinky and the pain meds, I was driving. As we pulled out of the JCC parking lot with the kids, Jonathan pipes up from the backseat, pointing at me and saying, “Mommy’s car! Mommy’s car!”

It took a minute to register, but he was concerned because he knew we were in Mommy’s car, but Daddy was driving it. So I told Jonathan that yes, it was Mommy’s car. But that she was giving me a turn to drive it.

Jonathan thought about it for a moment, and then he pipes up, “I have turn?”

To which Mikaela replied with a horrified, “NO!! That would be dangerous!”

The JCC Members Appreciation Party was our first opportunity this summer to get Jonathan out into the pool. He pretty much picked up right where he left off last year. He has a blast splashing around the Froggy Pool. He’s at least as big a fan of the little froggy water slide as Mikaela was, walking up the stairs and sliding down until he was ready to drop from exhaustion. He was so wiped out, Miriam and Jonathan left a bit early and left Aaron and Mikaela to keep playing at the pool.

Meanwhile, Mikaela was indulging her own waterslide obsession. After several tries, she finally convinced the lifeguards that she was big enough for the regular water slides. She didn’t complain even once about the long, steep, stairs she had to climb or the sometimes-long line for her turn — she was in heaven going down both the straight fast and slow curvy slides over and over and over again. She also splashed around a bit in the froggy pool, playing with cousin Samantha and Grandma Marcia. And she found a friend from camp to play with in the shallow part of the big pool. But those were always just brief diversions before she headed back to the water slides.

And who can blame her? Those slides are FUN. She went down them with Cousin Margo at first, and eventually even Uncle Matt joined in the slide brigade. When we finally headed home, Mikaela was tired and thirsty. Luckily, we’d made a Fourth of July weekend treat the day before, and we had homemade fresh strawberry ice cream waiting for us when we got home.

I watched last night’s game with Dad. We both sat, tense, as the Jayhawks’ title chance seemed to be slipping away. Down nine point with under three minutes ago, it seemed hopeless. But – just like he did to turn back Carolina’s rally on Saturday night, Sherron Collins turned the tide. His steal and 3-point shot had the momentum going KU’s way. And all of a sudden, the Memphis free throw shooters tightened up. And when it came time for a final shot, it was Super Mario to the rescue. It was almost a replay of the final play in regulation of last season’s Big 12 title game against Texas. And just like last time, Mario nailed the shot.

And in overtime, the big men took over. With no Joey Dorsey to bail them out, Memphis could pretty much only watch as Arthur and Jackson and a penetrating Rush pounded them in the paint in overtime. It was justice – payback for the Jayhawks debacle at the free throw line against Syracuse years ago. This time, we made them, and they didn’t. The Jayhawks finished 14 of 15 from the line. I guess free throw shooting does count for something, huh Calipari? Overall, the differences in the game (besides Mario’s shot) were GREAT defense by Collins on Rose and Rush on CDR, control of the boards by Arthur and Jackson, and Coach Self getting us out of the junk defense before it was too late (though only barely).

Congratulations on a great season to all of the Jayhawks. Thanks for adding some great memories to this Jayhawk’s memory bank.