My Awesome Nephew Jonah

My nephew has a very cool blog, and he challenged people to write a little essay in Webdings. Here is what his looks like:

My favorite thing about summer is that you can swim all day and you dont have to go to school. My least favorite thing about summer is that you are so hot and the annoying buzz of the cicadas makes you crack up. The bug I hate the most is the killer bee, no contest. MY favorite letter in the alphabet is the letter x because you have to pronounce it differently when it's in different spots. My worst night mare was when I dreamed I got eaten by a shark in my own pool.

But when you put it into Word and change the font, this is what it says:

My favorite thing about summer is that you can swim all day and you dont have to go to school. My least favorite thing about summer is that you are so hot and the annoying buzz of the cicadas makes you crack up. The bug I hate the most is the killer bee, no contest. MY favorite letter in the alphabet is the letter x because you have to pronounce it differently when it's in different spots. My worst night mare was when I dreamed I got eaten by a shark in my own pool.

So, Jonah, I'm taking your challenge. Here is my little essay:

Okay Jonah—here I go. My favorite thing about summer is feeling the SUN on my face. It runs away from Oregon at least 6 months out of the year. The thing I like least is when my kids get bored and whiny. The bug I hate the most is the earwig. The movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn makes that fear even worse. My favorite letter is B because it feels so great exploding out of my mouth, and my name starts with B, and the B book was my favorite as a kid. My worst nightmare is going to teach one of my college classes and I am naked and can’t remember the material. Or, I am a student and I have to take the final of a class I never remembered to go to all semester.

If anyone else wants to take Jonah's challenge, let him know you did. His blog is:

http://bloggernamejonah.blogspot.com/

Life Always Gets in the Way

I'm realizing that I've neglected this blog way more than the usual neglect. It's not my fault, really. Sometimes I just don't have anything exciting happening in my life. (Peanut's latest foray into eating poop simply does not a blog post make)
So, imagine my excitement when I realized my summer was jam-packed with entertaining, blog-worthy events: a week in Sunriver, a week at Girl's Camp, a son traveling to Beijing for the Olympics, the sun showing its face in Salem, Oregon. I'm feeling giddy even now, reliving the giddiness of it all (giddy, giddy, giddy).
One small little factoid escaped my attention, however, with all those endorphins mixing with adrenaline and seratonin (now there's a high you can take to the bank), when you are busy LIVING life, you don't exactly have the time or the inclination to be BLOGGING life--at least I don't. Maybe that's what fall is for--kids go back to school, life slows down a bit during the day, and I write my "What I Did Last Summer" essay.
In the meantime, here are a few photographic highlights to serve as teasers of posts to come.


My diplomatic summit with the Ambassadors of Philomath and Falls City


At a Charity Benefit for "Homeless Heroes on Hootch"


Kyle wondering if the Great Wall of China were to fall down, and there was no one there to hear it, would it make a noise?