Chriminy it’s April already. Well, the good thing is that a new Chick-Fil-A opened in Lombard this past weekend, so we went there for dinner. The cow mascot was out waving at cars – which Alex was fascinated by. But only from afar.

While we were eating, the cow came in to take a break. I asked Alex if he wanted to get a picture with it, he said no. The cow walked towards the back. In the alcove for the restrooms were 3 doors – Men’s Room, Women’s Room and the back storage room for the store. We couldn’t see which door the cow went in, so Alex asked where’d he go. I said he must have gone to the bathroom.

Periodically throughout dinner, Alex would look back and check the doors. When we were done eating, he wanted to play in the kids play area, but we told him he had to wash his hands first. So Alex and I headed towards the bathroom, but Alex was very cautious and hesitant. I opened the door and Alex checked it out from way back to make sure the cow wasn’t in there.

Finally I got him to go into the bathroom and realizing the cow wasn’t in there, he said to me, “I think it’s a girl cow!”

A little while later, the cow did come out again, but Alex did not want to get close. The cow waved at him as he shied behind Sara, but that was about it. Oh well. Hopefully he won’t be scared of Disney characters this fall.

Dad! I need some coffee. Because when I wake up I feel like my eyes are going to close.

Alex: “See dad? No bumps! That means I’m not cold.” On noting he wasn’t getting goose bumps while not wearing a jacket this afternoon. And I had to convince him he didn’t need to wear his winter parka today.

Alex: “I’m a monkey. ‘Cause monkeys love bananas … and brownies.”

Just overheard him playing football with grandma: “ow! My tenders!”

Do you want to start making a Christmas list so Santa knows what to bring you?

Alex: No, Santa is going to surprise me.

Alex, @ 1am, walking out of his room, holding as many stuffed animals in his arms as he could: “Daddy, I’m not sleepy anymore.”

Right…..

Time to collate those Facebook posts again.

Alex: “I got a cut.”
me: “I’m sorry.”
Alex: “Why? It was the notebook, not you.”

me: “What are you doing?”
Alex: “I’m practicing my throws so I get better!”

me: “There’s no monsters here. Monsters live in Oaklahoma.”
Alex: “Dad, can we go to Oaklahoma?”

Me: “Is that a Little Lambs song?”
Alex: “Nope. My brain made me do it.”

Looking at some house decorations:
Alex: “They have a santa and a knucklehead!”
Me: “You mean a nutcracker?”

Overheard: “He’s the world champion of the first round!”

At Home Depot, pushing Alex in those shopping carts with the 2-kid-seater add-ons at the back. Alex: “I wish Nate was here to ride with me. And Cailey can ride up front”

“Dad, did you see that girl sitting next to me? She’s my friend.”
me: “Yea? What’s her name?”
Alex: “I don’t know. The girl with the big teeth.”

Alex describing the new book our small group is studying this quarter: “See daddy? This book has words in it about the Bible.”

Just testing the capabilities of this phone taking pictures, voice texting this post, and uploading it to my blog.

I got a new phone today. Early Christmas present. It’s the newest phone from Google – the Nexus Prime. A super phone. The capabilities of this thing are amazing. Technology is awesome.

But I’m not posting this to brag. I’m hopeful this device will enable me to post things more often. In shorter posts. In fact I’m writing this post on my phone now. I hope to get more pictures and videos shot with this and quickly posted. I’m looking forward to really getting used to this machine and to use it quickly. Should be fun!

No, I haven’t posted anything in a while. I also haven’t had a free evening all year. I think I’m going to take a long hiatus from freelance web development in 2012. I’m burned out.

Since I haven’t been making videos, I got a little nostalgic and went through all of the existing ones.  I thought about making a top 10 list, but I couldn’t do it. So here’s my Top 20 Alex Videos of the Last 5 Years.

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Posting on Facebook is fine for the short term, but I have doubts that the timeline will keep everyting, so I need to start posting here for a longer diary. I got all these bits so far.

“I’m just a little bit 5. When I’m big 5, I’ll be in kindergarten”

There’s a bulletin board at his school where a teacher wrote down the kids’ answers to the question: “What are you thankful for?” Alex was the only one out of 20 who answered: “My dad.”

“When I’m 5, I’ll play kindergarten t-ball. And when I’m 10, I’ll play big t-ball. And when I’m 100, I’ll play big baseball!”

“The question mark holds our spot.” me: “You mean bookmark?”

“Am I 5 already? … Am I going to be in Kindergarten?” me: “Well not on Monday…”

“Daddy, guess what I’m dreaming about? Pianano”

Wow, what a couple of weeks that was!

It started on Tuesday, June 28 when Andrew stopped by our house and surprised us. Their family wasn’t due into Chicago until Sunday night for their annual vacation up from Houston, so this was a pleseant surprise. Turns out he just finished his final interview with Willow that day and got offered a job. (which he accepted). The process had been ongoing since May, and it was finalizing this week (he signed the contract on the 8th, so we were asked not to say anything until then).

Saturday, the 2nd, we headed up to Hutchinson Lake to spend family time with my cousins and aunts/uncles at my uncle Van’s cottage. We left later than we expected and got stuck in heavy, heavy holiday traffic. What is normally a 2 hour drive took us 4. We were less than happy with that. We were offered the opportunity to spend the night at their cabin, but we weren’t fully prepared for that, so we did head home later in the evening.

But not before having a couple of hours of fun playing in the lake and playing baseball on the lawn. We got Alex a life vest and that gave him a huge confidence boost. It was tough to get him out of the water. Sara, Alex, and I all climbed on a jet ski for a short excursion around the lake. We went out past the 7:30 “no wake” time cut-off, so I didn’t want to spend too much time out there lest we got Van in trouble. But we had a nice 10 minute trip with short bursts of speed and Alex had a lot of fun doing that. Next time we’ll have to get there much earlier to get some boating time. The plan to try to drive during nap time just sort of backfired on us.

The water was only up to his waist all the way out to the boats.

Sunday was relax day.  Although we did go to the baseball field and that was when kids were shooting off fireworks on the next block over which Alex was sure they were being fired off for his “home runs.”

Monday was the holiday. At noon, the parade came down the side street and turned east (so not technically in front of our house). We walked to the corner and put our chairs in the street for a good view. Alex loved running out to grab all the candy that was being thrown out. We haven’t eaten any of it yet, it was just more fun to chase it all down.

Monday evening, Andrew & Cathi and the kids came over for a BBQ. The kids swam in the pool a little bit too. Alex became a daredevil by jumping off the cube into the pool.

We walked to the park on the praire path to kill some time and energy (and to walk by any houses that may be for sale). Then around 9, we walked down the street to get a seat in the grass at the church for fireworks viewing. It was late and the kids were tired. We wondered why we were doing it. Oh well.

Tuesday was back to work. Tuesday night was the U2 360 concert at Soldier Field. Hmm. I just realized those pictures are on Sara’s phone still. Well, here’s one from Cathi:

It was a great show. It ended late and getting out of there was tough (can’t go East!) We got to bed at 1am on a school night. I’m way too old to be doing that! But it was fun anyway.

Wednesday evening was BBQ at Emily & Dan’s place. Good to hang out with them again, too. Thursday night was my softball night. Friday night: day off! woohoo!

Saturday we drove up to Warren Dunes State Park (90 minutes) to meet up with the whole Bemis gang. This has become an annual tradition as this beach is perfectly between GR and Chicago. Traffic wasn’t near as bad as the week before, thankfully.

So we spent the afternoon playing in the water, getting sunburned and having a good time.

Alex surfing on a boogy board

Burying Andrew

14 Kids from 6 families

The Women

The Men

So that’s how July started. I need a vaction from all that!

I was reading this story to Alex last night about a boy who keeps pleading with his mom to let him stay up 5 more minutes. But Alex looked at this picture and asked me “Who’s the grandma?”

I guess that’s the outfit grandmas wear?