An Overdue Checkin

We have been very lackadaisical about updating this blog.  It has been a pretty busy spring/summer thus far.  A quick update - I'm sure more detailed follow up posts with pictures will be forthcoming (famous last words). 

Jonathan has been very busy since school ended for the year back in May.  Since then he has been taking swimming, ice skating, and Karate lessons.  We signed him up for these classes through the City of Kirkland Parks Department.  He is really enjoying all three and when his Karate classes ended, we asked him if he wanted to continue and he gave a most definite 'yes' so we signed him up at the dojo for 'real' classes.  In fact, just this last weekend (7/7/12) he earned his first black strip on his white belt! 

He really enjoys his ice skating as well.  He is much more confident now on skates than when he first started the lessons.  I initially signed up for classes as well for the first session thinking he might be more comfortable knowing I was on the ice with him (though elsewhere on the rink in my own class).  By the time the lessons for the first session were ending, I don't think it mattered to him so we only signed him up (and not myself).  (I might add - you might wonder what I could learn in an skating class since I play ice hockey - well - my backwards crossovers needed a lot of work and I actually got a lot of improvement on them in the eight sessions so it wasn't money wasted). 

Jonathan is much more comfortable in the water now as well.  He used to have an aversion to even getting his face wet.  He can now dunk his head under water.  He passed the first level for pre-school and is now in level 2.  Most likely we will skip one session of swimming classes this summer just to give him a break (swimming classes are 4 days a week for 2 weeks and there is no break between sessions and he is currently in session 3).  We'll sign him up for the last session later in the summer. 

In all this, you may wonder what Ethan has been up to.  Unfortunately, he is too young to be signed up for any of these classes (which he keeps asking to participate in).  Ethan is still doing Gymboree every week and he really loves it.  When we practice Jonathan's Karate at home, Ethan is every enthusiastic to join in - and given he's only 2 1/2, he's pretty good!  Ethan is still continuing with his speech therapy and it really shows.  He is talking almost non-stop, his vocabulary has exploded, and he enunciates much, much better.  His snoring has, unfortunately, gotten worse since his tonsillectomy.  It is still far better than pre-surgery, but not as good as it was immediately post-surgery.  He just had a regularly schedule sleep study follow-up just this last weekend (the night of 7/6/12).  Hopefully the results will not be too bad. 

Dina has been keeping busy this summer starting a vegetable garden in the back yard.  While I can't stand to be doing anything remotely related to gardening or lawn maintenance (one wonders why I even bought a house in the first place instead of a condo), Dina really enjoys.it.  She is growing beans, tomatoes, pumpkins, kale, and a host of other things I cannot keep track of. 

I, on the other hand, have been pretty geeked out these last few weeks trying to catch up/brush up on my particle physics and some of my calculus and matrix algebra (I told you it was geeky).  I've also spent some time trying to improve my bass playing skills learning various parts from songs from the movie 'That Thing You Do' and various (easy) parts from various Rush songs (Caravan, Double Agent, and BU2B, specifically). 

- bob