Back In The Swing Of Things...

Well... The boys have been back in school for a couple weeks now and all is well thus far. Aaron is learning cursive writing and some new outdoor games thanks for Mr. Shafer. I had e-mailed Mr. Shafer about Aaron's homework and Mr. Shafer told me about Friday's game, "Predator v. Prey that Aaron apparently had a great time playing out on the prairie. So when Aaron came home that night, I asked him to "tell me all about Predator v. Prey" and he got this confused look on his face mixed with a grin trying to figure out "How did Dad know about that?" Daniel hasn't talked much about school, but has apparently been enjoying it nonetheless. He has made new friends this year including a boy named Samuel who moved from Fargo this school year. Although the Widerski boys moved away, the boys haven't seemed to miss a beat in terms of finding things to do around here with the other neighborhood kids. I restarted the weekly lunch tradition yesterday with Aaron having "the usual" chef salad. It was particularly delicious that time as they had homemade applesauce, the best I've had since Grandma Judy's in Crystal and for $2.90, it's a good deal. Aaron has a whole new set of teachers in addition to Mr. Shafer and since Ms. Knuttila retired, Aaron has Mr. Wiggs for music and Daniel has Mrs. Johnson and later in the year Mr. Wiggs. There's one less Drevlow they have to attend school with, as Brett moved on to Franklin this year. Speaking of Brett, he is the only string bass player in the orchestra, so he apparently has his pick of all four bass instruments. Therefore, he has one he keeps at home and one at school so Joe doesn't have to cart on around everywhere, which is nice. I can't remember who it was that told me, but I figured out why Joe has done so many things like piano, knitting, string bass, etc. It's because he has his kids teach him everything they learn at school. Kind of a novel concept for an Ivy League grad, but a great idea for lifelong learning.

We started the new choir season at Trinity with a new director and we've sung at one service already, last Sunday. We've done pretty well so far and last Wednesday was a very pleasant surprise. After "retiring" so to speak last year, Ormond unexpectedly returned to the fold and sang with us last Wednesday night. We had so many guys that we overflowed two guys in a second row behind the first, Terry and I. We practiced Simple Gifts again and several new ones I haven't heard of before, but we seemed to pick up on them all rather quickly. Mike was finally back from a long summer of work, so it was nice to have a full tenor section again. I had learned one song last year as a bass and a couple weeks ago, I had to sing it as a tenor and was pretty well lost. It was nice to fall back in my comfort zone as it were and sing bass again last week. We're still working on getting the youth room in order down in the basement level trying to mount a television and DVD so the kids can watch a football or Twins game or have a movie night before long. It's a one day at a time project, though.

Aaron has started his 4th/5th grade flag football season with two practices now. He had his second practice today at the old Prowler Field where "Uncle Bill" used to play. They've kept the field in pretty good shape over the years with a nice lush grass surface and yard lines carved out with a short length mower instead of the white paint. Today's practice was a bit wet, though, as we experienced a bit of a Minnesota downpour halfway through. Daniel hid under my shirt for a few minutes, but nobody seemed to mind the rain much. It was a good two-hour practice and Aaron had a great time. It's a great activity for his fitness level as the coach had them warm up well before practice and run some 40-yard sprints back and forth. Between that and running drills with him during the week, it's a pretty nice fitness program. I think his first game will be a week from today. We had lunch at McDonald's today and after bumping into Aaron's 2nd grade teacher and finishing up our meal, in walks Mr. Lehrer, so we had a nice chat with him before heading home.

After getting home this afternoon. I watched part of the Washington Huskies v. Fresno State Bulldogs game and believe it or not caught some of the bullriding coverage from the Ellensburg Rodeo of all things. Pretty neat to be sitting on the couch here in Minnesota watching shows out of Washington. I heard the Cougars did well this weekend too at Qwest field beating Baylor 17-15. A nice weekend of Washington sports. Now we're watching a homemade DVD from Dad (thanks!) before bedtime.

Before signing off, I had to pass on the funniest thing I saw since the last blog update. You've all probably heard of the funny ironies entitled something like "Only in America..." In particular, the one about how we will order a Big Mac, super-size fries, and a DIET Coke. Well, I finally saw a prime example of that irony last week on a trip to Wal-Mart. There I am in the checkout line with the boys and as I stand there while my items are being scanned, I just casually glanced at the stuff on the conveyor belt behind me. The first item I saw was two dozen assorted glazed and jelly donuts. I look further down to see two gallon pails of ice cream and some other majorly fattening item I can't recall at the moment, and next to that....Yep...you guessed it...two South Beach Diet entrees. Pretty funny.

I think that's a lengthy enough blog update for now. Hopefully nobody's fallen asleep yet... :o)

Buttons and Other Back-To-School Musings...

I never thought I'd be able to say this or for that matter this soon, but Daniel appears to have made a major breakthrough. After years of being vehemently opposed to buttons of any kind on anything he wears, we were at the store getting some back to school clothes Saturday evening and he spotted what he apparently felt was a pretty cool shirt. It was a button down shirt, though. Despite the length of time he has refused to have anything to do with buttons, the design of the shirt was apparently "cool" enough to override his aversion to buttons and he insisted I buy him the shirt. No, I wasn't dumb... I had him put it on in the store to prove he could tolerate the buttons and he wore the shirt again today, so perhaps he finally has more options in the clothing department. Maybe he can finally wear his Mariners jersey??

As for Aaron, he is all geared up to head back to school. I got him a mouthguard last night for flag football and as I was sitting here with the computer, I heard sounds like a quarterback and looked up to find Aaron practicing football stances in the living room, calling out plays (Blue 42! Blue 42! Hut, Hut, Hut!) and running through the dining room, mouthguard in place. He really cracked me up, but then what's new? :o)

We continue to be plagued with the late summer onslaught of yellow jackets. I have two bowls of Mountain Dew out on a table in the front lawn along with five traps of three different kinds. Just roughly estimating, it appears I've trapped upwards of 3 to 5,000 of the critters and they keep coming back for more.

I had a nice chat with the neighbors just the next house north of me last night, Jason and Lacey, not really having talked to them for most of the summer and found they have apparently bought the rental house there and plan to stay another 5 to 7 years to build equity before building a home outside of town here. Lacey is expecting and she was telling me how they have appreciated my yellow jacket traps, as they have noticed they have been largely leaving them alone over there ever since I put the traps out. We also tried to figure out unofficially what our property lines were, as they're hoping to build a privacy fence like mine so when their baby comes along they'll be able to safely play in the back yard. I guess I'll no longer be the odd man out on my block with the only fence.

It's half past midnight now and I gotta get all the school supplies sorted out here and put in the individual backpacks so everything's ready to go in the morning. The boys were so excited to get back to school it was hard to get them to go to bed.