| 6-08-02 Hello All, It�s been a while since I have written. Lots of stuff going on. The biggest bummer was the computer crashed and took with it everyone�s e-mail addresses! I am so behind on news I don�t know where to begin. I think I left off with us about to go to the Easter Egg Hunt. Well we got to the Amity Park and the hunt areas are divided up by age. The age 4 and under we decided was too easy for Cody, so we went to the 4-5 area. Cody is not quite 4. Even in the 4-5 spot many of the parents stood with child in hand ready to help out. Jon took Cody up to the rope. Cody looked around and pulled his hand away from his big brother and said � brother I can do it myself �. When the signal was given, kids and parents took off. I tried to video Cody but he soon got lost in the crowd, at first he looked a little confused and I thought, oh gosh I hope he gets some eggs. We did not see him for some time and I began to worry that he was scared not having one of us near him. Not to worry, he finally emerged from the crowd with a big smile, he had gathered some 10-12 eggs! One egg of course was the dreaded by parents, free Easter Bunny Egg. So we stood in line so Cody could get his stuffed bunny. Continuing on with Cody (Mr. Independent) news, Cody and I went for a walk the other day. He led, I followed. We were on the Super Trail, we came out on the Knoll Trail and I asked Cody which way he wanted to go. I was surprised when he said �Dad you go that way, and I will go this way�. Now Cody knows the trails well, but we were out of sight of the house and I just thought it was interesting that a three year old would volunteer to go alone on a trail in the woods! Sure enough he took off one direction and I went the other. I had to hurry because of course Cody had given me the long way around. When I got near the foot bridge, here came Cody from the top of the knoll, grinning from ear to ear. What a kid. A few weeks ago I was digging around near a fallen tree for some good dirt for the garden. I picked up a large chunk of bark and under it were about 7 snakes all coiled together. An hour or so later Jon and Cody were playing near the pond, and I hollered for them to come over and look under the bark. There were still 5 of the snakes lying under it. Jon grabbed for one of the smaller ones as Cody shrieked with delight. Cody said �I want to hold it�, so Jon hands the 12 inch long snake to Cody and we head back towards the pond. Cody was trailing and he suddenly says �Dad I did not like that snake so I fed it to Charlotte�, sure enough I turned around and Charlotte (the big white female duck), was smacking her lips! Speaking of ducks, we have not had good luck this year. Codys� duck Tozy is very ill, and Charlotte has also been stricken. One little duck died, and one more was lost, probably coyote. The other animals are doing well. The fence has been somewhat completed to keep the ducks away from the house. Other projects, we got a good deal on some fruit trees, so those have been planted. When I got home from work one night last week Lorelei informed me that she had watered the ORCHARD, she called it an orchard I thought to myself. Well I guess 16 fruit trees finally is considered by Lorelei to be an orchard! (maybe she figured I would just keep buying trees until she called it an orchard, so she just went ahead and called it that, even though she doesn�t think so, hmmm? I wonder). Adam looks like he will finish up with a 4.0 grade average this year. He has done a great job! He saved up his money and bought a used computer for his room. He has been doing a good job figuring out settings, and loading software. He is doing homework and book reports on it. I stopped to pick him up from school a few weeks ago and the road was closed off in front of the school. I thought this is strange and then I saw some kids on tractors, driving back and forth. They were having a tractor training course for the kids, to help some of them find summer work at local farms. Adam did great in Track! He is very fast! I don�t know where he gets that from, certainly not me! He ran mostly the short distance sprints. In most of the meets he competed in he was in the top 4 in the 100 meter dash. Keep in mind that he is in sixth grade, and he was competing against 6th, 7th and 8th graders. He is practicing a lot of basketball and playing the piano. Jonathan finished up the soccer season and what a great season he and his team had. Tying for first place with their arch rivals. Jon has become the leagues premier defender. He plays center defender and he loves it, which is unusual for this age. This year the coaches played the defense clear up near midfield when we had the ball, this gave us a great advantage, the reason it worked is Jon�s speed! Again I don�t know where he gets it, but Jon is one of the fastest kids in the league! One game we were ahead by 3 goals and the coach moved Jon to midfielder. Jon took the ball, streaked down the right sideline, outran everyone on the field and scored! After the game the opposing coach asked Jon what his name was, the coach said the he was going to remember that name. At defender Jon is tenacious, with our defense playing up near midfield, many times the opposing team had a break away towards our goal, there was not one time this season that Jon was not able to run down the opponent and stop the goal from being scored. His long strides and awesome speed are fun to watch. One game Jon was playing near midfield when the ball came rolling to him, Jon took a good run at the ball and let loose, oohs and awes came from the sideline as the ball was launched into the air. Now remember these kids are playing on a full sized field. The goalie on the other team fifty yards away suddenly realizes the ball is heading towards the goal! He stopped the ball, but Jon had kicked the ball more than 40 yards in the air! Jon is also doing great in school. He has been doing extra credit math all year long. At the last conference his teacher apologized that she had run out of math work for Jon! She said in all her years of teaching she has never had a student finish all the math! Well I think the boys are ready for summer. We have been working on the tree house whenever we get the chance. Our friend Jim called a few weeks ago and said he was helping some friends tear down an old building and they were going to discard the metal roofing. The boys and I stopped what we were doing, hooked up the trailer and headed out. We went into Amity and then headed west. I knew our friends the Stoller brothers were farming in the area so we stopped to say hello. Cody immediately eyed the big �trackie�. We left the Stollers to repairing their tractor and headed on towards Balston. Now Balston is even smaller than Amity, population probably no more than 400. We turned on the gravel road at took it to the end. Jim came out to greet us and introduced us to Totem. Yes you might have guessed, he carves totem poles! Totem immediately struck me as a kindred spirit. When we finished loading the roofing, Jim showed us around. What a cool place Totem and his wife have. Outside the main house was a hand pump that they used for years before they got inside plumbing. The out-house was still there and operable. A cast iron bathtub with a concrete chimney built around it was used as a �hot tub� you literally built a campfire under the tub! And of course there was a 40 foot tall solid Cedar totem pole in the middle of the back yard! All was tastefully done and functional. The boys enjoyed everything, we all drank from the hand pump, Cody ran around. Before leaving Jim had to show us his queen bee that he had just purchased. He opened the bag to pull out the little box she was in and one worker bee flew out. Jim said �darn it, there goes another one� apparently there were about five worker bees in the bag to feed the queen. He said three or four had gotten out the night before in his house, and he had not found them all. The worker flew into the truck and we tried catching him, to no avail. Anyway, the boys looked at the queen and asked Jim some questions. We said goodbye and thank you to Totem and we were off. We have since cleaned up the metal, patched the holes, painted it green, and have installed most of the roof on the tree house. We have been over to Gary�s pond a couple of times now. All the family went over the other day. Cody and Lorelei were catching fish so fast, I couldn�t keep up with taking them off the hook. Lorelei said it was too easy! The weather has been about normal for this time of year. A few days of warm (70 ish) then cool and rain. It gets light so early and stays light so late, it seems I will never totally get used to it. I don�t like coming in while it is still light, but if you don�t, you will be very tired in the morning! That�s about it for now, Glynn Jr. |