Turkey Buzzard

I am going to do some backtracking blog posts here. My son, what a boy. He comes up with the funniest things sometimes. I love that he has such an appetite for reading, and it shows by some of the comments he makes.

He would probably say his all-time favorite book series is "Harry Potter" but I actually think it is, "Hank the Cowdog".  He has read and listened to so many of these books that we've begun to decipher when his comments are his own or straight from Hank.

Camping the Northwest - Boy Scouts of America

Last school year (6th grade) was rather difficult. Transitioning from elementary school to middle school is pretty rough. In fact, many times my boy would come home announcing his plans to start a petition amongst his classmates about the need for recess. He would even cite sources saying how kids need to move and be active. One difficult day, his statement was simply, "I think I can make it through one more day, at least."

Thankfully, by the last day of school, he was "riding high" again, happy to embark on a summer of adventures and fun. He and some friends even determined they were going to ride their bikes to
school on the last day. School starts at 7:45. While middle school is all uphill from my house (about 5 miles), I think the boys padded in quite a bit of extra travel time when they set their meet-up time for 6:00 a.m. I honestly didn't think anyone would show up, so I pedaled up to the elementary school (meeting place) and sure enough, one boy was up there (plan was that four boys were going to meet and ride together). The two boys (my son and one friend) waited for 15 minutes, realized the other guys had slept in (or not been given permission to go at all), and took off for school. They arrived a full 45 minutes before school start-time and according to my son's description, just played around till school started. That is a long time to loiter and an early time to do it, but I was proud of his stick-to-it attitude.

Bear Lake

During the summer, we spent some time in Idaho, as usual. He really knows how to charm the ladies :-) and definitely worked his magic when he said after a particularly good meal courtesy of Aunt Tawna, "I consider myself a food expert and this is really good."

We had a great time river rafting in Twin Falls with Melissa and her family. It was just perfect, the day was mildly hot, our river guide was engaging and fun. The significance of the experience was that my firstborn declared, "I definitely want to do this for my career". :-) So, now that is settled.

He definitely thinks Idaho is a great place, with great rivers for rafting and cousins to boot. Towards the end of summer, we got into a discussion about wealth and what a wealthy person might look like or behaviors of a wealthy person. I talked to him about how wealthy people go on extravagant vacations. After listening to what the definition of extravagant is, he determined, "Idaho is extravagantly nice."

Our summer in the Northwest was particularly hot, at one point he declared, "If I stay out in the car, I am going to turn into a turkey carcass." Channeling a little more Hank the Cowdog, my son referred to the mysteries of dating girls and possibly marrying one about the time we all got haircuts. He came up with this very important detail regarding appearance. He claimed, "If I ever get a girl to marry me, I don't want to look like a turkey buzzard."

Summer living around here combined with high temperatures made for many creative, cold meals. A couple noteworthy comments made by my first favorite child:

"Wow, this is the first meal Mom's made in like 3 days."

"This reminds me of the school year when you made us sandwiches every day."