Rocky Goes to School

Drew is at work with me today because school is closed for a teacher workday - so let's see how productive a day it is.  We've been here 45 minutes and he's already driving me nuts.

But on Friday he had his preschool Halloween party. And of course he went as none other than Rocky Balboa.  He even lead the class in the flag salute/pledge.

Parents were invited for snacks, Scooter the clown and to fill the kids trick or treat bags!  It's always fun to see Drew at School!

Yes that's Daddy handing Drew his tricks or treats.

VIDEO: God Bless America

The World Series brought out more than just baseball... it brought out our little singer.  We had no idea until the 7th inning stretch that Drew knew "God Bless America".  Dave recorded this while I was in Philadelphia last week.



He's since recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the entire song of God Bless America

Zippity Do Dah

We had a double dose of birthdays this past Saturday.  One for a preschool friend and the other for cousin Kady (of course I didn't pull out the camera for Kady's party - I think I was feeling a bit of jet lag after a week in Philadelphia.

But at the party for his preschool friend, Drew enjoyed an afternoon of zip lining!

I think ziplining was a hit!

Crossing Items Off the Bucket List

Since I started running in 2006 I had my goals on running in a half marathon.  Well this past weekend, I did just that - so cross that one off the bucket list!

I rolled my ankle about 2 weeks ago and did 4 runs in that time - two of them made things worse forcing a 6day break. I did two, two mile runs while I was in Philadelphia last week.  So needless to say I was out of "shape".  I was forced to walk off and on from miles 8-11 -- I figure about 2 miles total.  But I did cross the finish line!

 

That was my prize at the end.  My little buddy - who said he was so proud of me!

My official finish finish time - 2:40:32!  I have another 1/2 marathon on the horizon.. this one through Disneyland at the end of January.  So time to start training yet again!  My goal is to shave about 10 minutes off my time.

Double the Pleasure

A little more than a week ago we took Drew to not one but two pumpkin patches in one day.  Of course it lead to an allergy nightmare, but we had fun nonetheless.

We started in Livermore where they have the better photo ops. I have so many pictures I'll save you the dialogue.

That's Drew head butting a pumpkin... don't ask....

Drew had to read the signs and find out all the chicken trivia.

And then we went to another pumpkin patch... Delosso Family Farms in Lathrop.

Playing Tourist

This week I'm in the city of brotherly love for work, but I did manage to get a little down time to play tourist. Being the history buff I am, I love coming to Philadelphia and seeing the sites - I wasn't an American history minor for nothing.

In the past two or three years I've been to Philly at least five times - twice this year alone. But I've never been inside Independence Hall - for one reason or another. Well this trip I hauled my way down there determined to get a ticket - and I did!







For those who haven't studied American history in a while, it's here that our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence as that painting shows.









Recognize this room? It's the room from the painting above.



And then we headed upstairs to the long gallery. This is where the Americans held parties and when the Brits occupied the building, used it for a jail and weapons room.









It was awesome to go inside and see a piece of history.



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The Best Mail Ever

I'm headed to the airport as I write this, but on the way to BART I grabbed the weekend mail. Among all the bills and other junk mail I found the coolest thing EVER!







The best piece of mail I've received -ever! And he was so proud to tell us about it.

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Preschool Pumpkin Patch Day

Holy photos batman! I knew I took a lot of photos intending to share them with Drew's preschool photo share site, but there were a lot of great ones of him too.  Sorry for the photo-fest you're about to receive...

Yesterday was the pumpkin patch day for Drew's school and I managed to get a few hours off work to help out.  Well helping out in the bigger class is more along the lines of watching and assisting when needed.  We started out by going on a bear hunt (I was in this hunt so I didn't get many pictures, and those I did get were blurry from all the running kids.

So here the kids are getting their cookies so they can make pumpkin faces with frosting and candy.

Drew had to be told many times to not eat anything before he decorated it...

I'm not sure what the sticker dot is all about - he told me he felt like putting it there.

Notice the bites out of the "smile"... clearly patience and four year olds don't go well together.

After decorating and eating their cookies and having snacks, Drew and his pal Troy wanted their pictures taken while acting goofy.  Some things don't change at school either.

Then after getting the kids high on sugar it was time to quiet them down for a story.

After stories, they each got a bag with their name on it and were given instructions that they had to pick ONE pumpkin, ONE gourd, and ONE corn.  And the pumpkin had to be just right.. big enough that their own muscles would carry it.

See what Drew did with his bag? 

Yes that's my son with a bag over his head.  He's his father's son, what can I say?

What was great about this event is they brought the "pumpkin patch" to us - no field trips!  They set it up in front of the church where he goes to school.

Of course Daddy arrived as I was trying to get Drew to look at the camera.  I don't win out to Daddy shouting "GooGoo Necks!  Oh GooGoo Necks!" (One of Dave's many nicknames for Drew).

Mommy and Drew

And Daddy and Drew staring into the sun.

They let kids stick their hands inside the pumpkins... of course mine was the one who nearly threw up from doing so.  Guess we know that Daddy will clean out our pumpkins again this year (I'm allergic and Drew pukes).

He was much happier decorating his pumpkin!

Afterward he told me I had to join him on the turtle/dinosaur.

Where he instructed me in his best airline pilot voice to "fasten your seatbelt because we're goin' on a ride". 

Of course we can't forget about Rocky...

It was a great afternoon at school.  He was a bit disappointed because we were leaving and he had to stay behind.  Gotta love the warm temps we had!  Low 80s and it felt every bit of it.