Birthdays!!!

Happy Birthday to both my sister-in-law and my uncle!

My uncle has some of his creations posted on Youtube. Little different.

Hope you two have a great day!

Charlie 1

Eric passed! No 30 day extension! He'll be home on Friday! YIPPEE!!!

Yawn. Can't believe I stayed up to watch the entire Oscar broadcast last night. I haven't even seen ANY of the movies! We have got to get a babysitter occasionally and go on grown up dates...

Lessee, what's happened since the last post -

Tuesday Nathan proved he was my son. He came walking home from school with his face buried in a book. Nearly collided with a tree. My parents will tell you that I tried to do all my chores with a book in my hand, like vacuuming my room. I remember once they told me to go outside and play - I sat in our driveway on my bicycle while I read. Wasn't going anywhere, just sitting on the bicycle seat with a comic book.

Went to scouts that night. Boys finished their activity early, so one of the dads took them outside to play football. Nathan enjoyed that until they started a new game. Dad gives the ball to one boy, who is supposed to run around while the others chase him, then dogpile on the runner. Whoever steals the ball next gets becomes the runner. Dad picks Nathan first. Nathan stands there surprised for a moment, then starts to run. Only gets about 3 steps before he gets dogpiled. Now, Nathan is not used to that kind of rough-housing. Tears ensued. He got a pep talk from the dad, but was fragile for the next 15 minutes or so.

We discovered this weekend that it's a lot tougher than it looks to build a house of cards. I don't remember what started us on this, but Nathan was determined to make a 3 story structure. Never quite got there, but it was entertaining.

He finally made some connections in the neighborhood yesterday. Some kids were playing in the field behind our house. Nathan recognized one and went out to say hi. From that point on, he was gone. He came in a couple times, but basically I didn't know where my kid was for about 2 hours. Eric would have been so pleased. (I know I was - finally got to concentrate on recovering my rocking chair.)

Speaking of Eric - they had snow on Sunday in Virginia. He has basically finished his coursework. I believe today and tomorrow are feedback sessions. He's just got to do his last audition on Wednesday, and then should be home on Friday. He's ready for his Groundhog Day existence to be over.

Bubbles, spoons and forts

So Nathan and I are safely back home. Nathan was excited when the plane lifted off, not so much when it was a time for a landing. I had to listen to his assertion that he was airsick for the last 10 minutes of every flight. Complete with pantomime vomiting into the bag.

The highlight for Nathan - aside from jumping from bed to bed and an extended pillow fight with Eric - was finally learning how to blow a bubble. He and Eric practiced for about 20 minutes to get it right. (I never learned how and don't really feel the need to learn now). The highlight for Eric was going to see 400-year old corroded spoons from the original Jamestowne settlement. And all I got was a lousy t-shirt, because Eric wouldn't let me tramp around in cemeteries through James City and Surry County.

We got in Friday afternoon. Eric had rented a car and met us at the airport. He looks good. Looks like he's probably lost 10 or 15 pounds. We stayed in his room at the Navy Lodge (guest housing). Now, when we visited him out there in 2004, he was staying in the barracks for music students. Basically a dorm room, 1 twin size bed, and cinder block walls. The toilet plumbing wouldn't flush most of the time we were there, so we'd have to use the toilet in the lobby. We didn't get a roll away bed, so Nathan (age 3), Eric and I all tried fitting on the bed. I finally gave up and slept on a pallet on the floor. Nathan was at the age that Dora the Explorer was cool, so we had brought 1 DVD with us. Eric and I were heartily sick of it after 3 viewings, and believe me, we put up with more than 3. This time, however, Eric is staying at the guest housing. 2 queen size beds, plumbing, and a kitchenette - he's definitely got it better this time. He actually cooked steaks in the room on Friday. (For those of you wondering why were were in navy lodging - the School of Music is actually for all the service branches. I suppose at one time, there was a school of music for the army, the navy, etc., but at some point, the powers that be decided to just have one, probably as a cost-cutting measure.)

Eric went off practicing Saturday morning for about 4 hours. Nathan played the PS2 while I got re-acquainted with my laptop - aka 'my brain'. Our sightseeing adventure for the day started at Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA. There has been a fort of some type since Jamestowne was settled, but it really is known for Civil War action. It is also the headquarters for a lot of TRADOC activity (Army Training and Doctrine), so there is an army band there that does a lot of ceremonial work.

Once we left there, we headed to Fort Story in Virginia Beach. It was a very picturesque location. Visitors would of course, know that it is an army post, but you can easily see the beachfront type construction of the homes and some office buildings. There's also several historical sites there. The English who settled Jamestowne actually landed at Cape Henry (Fort Story) first, before settling at Jamestowne. The pic of Eric and Nathan is from the spot where apparently the settlers first came ashore.

Valentine's Day dinner consisted of dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, the three of us. Now, that's romance!

Sunday, Eric took the day off from practicing, so we decided to hit the colonial triangle - Yorktown, Williamsburg and Jamestowne. Eric and I thought it was all cool - Nathan, not so much. Sightseeing at old battlefields doesn't hold much attraction for him. He kept asking why Eric had to read every historical marker we passed.

Yorktown was nice. There is a historical Yorktown, plus York, plus the battlefield. People still live in Yorktown, but just about every structure has a placard detailing it's place in history. The mind boggles thinking about what the real estate asking price is for those places! We paid $5 for the driving tour CD, which was obviously recorded about 20 years ago. The pic of Nathan standing on the brass plaque that Eric is reading from is from Yorktown. Nathan was being particularly petulant at the time and Eric was going to make him get off the plaque. I'm like, "if it can handle the bird poop, Nathan isn't going to hurt it." We did see the cutest little deer crossing the road as we were on our tour. It was like a pygmy deer, but it and it's bigger companion didn't seem too put out by our presence in it's woods.

From there we decided to go to Jamestowne. We weren't really planning on stopping at Williamsburg, but we needed food so we made a slight adjustment to the schedule. Ended up driving through the campus of William and Mary. Very pretty campus. Lots of foot traffic to dodge. Kind of like Campus Corner during Dad's day weekend (not so many as a football weekend, but definitely noticeably busy.) We ended up eating at a Mexican restaurant. The kid's menu mentioned the chicken nuggets were 'gently fried'. Nathan had to pick those, they were good, and now he looks for 'gently fried' on every menu. Nothing says colonial Virginia like Mexican food.

Finally made it to Jamestowne. Actually, there is Jamestown Settlement, historical Jamestowne and Jamestown Island. Don't be fooled - if you want to see corroded spoons from the original 1607 settlers, you want the historical Jamestowne, NOT the Jamestown Settlement, which is a re-enactment and massive gift shop and museum structure. We, of course, ended up in both places. (The Magellan GPS locator in the car could only do so much). The picture of the 3 of us is from the historical Jamestowne. It really is a beautiful location. You can see why the settlers would have picked that spot.

The cemetery comment at the beginning was for looking for George Cryer, the earliest Cryer I can locate. He paid taxes in James County, VA in 1704. Which means he was a landowner within 100 years from the founding of Jamestowne. You can't get much more colonial than that. I never thought Eric would let us explore that far from the base, so I had not done any preparation research before going to VA. It would have been really cool to find his cemetery plot, but NOOOO... He's so mean to me!

Kidding. All things work out as expected, he should be home in 11 days. Yippee!!!!

So that was our trip in a nutshell. Nathan is already showered and watching a Pokomon marathon before bed. As it is after 8:00 p.m. EST, I'm sure Eric was in bed around 6:00 p.m. to get ready for school tomorrow. I'm desperately waiting for Nathan to go to bed so I can decompress from traveling with him. Yeah for school tomorrow!!

Flying today

Okay, so I'm not a big 'signs' person. But we're leaving for the airport in 2 hours, I turn on the tv, and a plane has gone down in New York, killing everyone on board. I didn't need to see this.

I'll post again tonight.

That's what little boys are made of...

This was from last Sunday. I broke down and took Nathan bowling twice in one week. This time we brought along his BFF. They both beat me. Nathan came home on Thursday and told me that Brandyn wants me to buy a plane ticket so he can come with us to visit Eric. "Because he missed Eric so much!" Okay... Even if I had the spare cash, wouldn't even consider it. He's nice, but when they get together, they are just so active! I can't imagine herding both boys through the airports.

Let's see, that was Sunday. On Tuesday was scouts. We met at the scout hut on post and the boys painted flower pots as dual table decorations for the Blue & Gold banquet, and gifts for their mothers. Now, you get 7 or 8 little boys together, and you get the following. "I like to move it! Move it!" (The theme from the movie Madagascar). Which becomes, "I like to poop it! Poop it!" Which leads to diarrhea jokes. Then someone starts mixing paint, which leads to, "That looks like baby barf green!" More bathroom and vomit jokes commence for the rest of the night.

Thursday Nathan decided to have a bad attitude for about 2 hours after school. This culminated in him saying, "no, you need to watch your attitude, or I'll leave and never come back." (So wasn't expecting that until he was older!) When I told him those kind of words would get him grounded for a very long time, he started crying again and stomped upstairs declaring that he wasn't ever coming down for the rest of the night. Well, 45 minutes later, hunger wins again. (Like it never even happened).

Today we went to go see the Pink Panther 2. Now, I like Steve Martin as much as the next gal. The original PP movies are classics. The first song I learned to play on the piano was the PP theme. Doesn't mean that I see the need to make these movies. Nathan, of course, thought it was HI-lar-IOUS!