Five Brown Kids

The kids work out, the moms work out and then we eat dinner out on the picnic tables next to the playground.  Ahhh.... perfect.  And my kids are wonderful babysitters!

It's spring... 80 degrees and the dogwoods are blooming. Also it's that fun time of year when the pine trees drop a ton of yellow pollen. It gets everywhere and covers everything. In this picture crossing Jordan Lake you can see a yellow haze- not an inversion, not smog- just yellow pine pollen floating down. I am no stranger to allergies, and in a couple of weeks some blooming thing will make me wish I was dead - but this pine pollen doesn't really bother me. But Tyrone- ask him how many times he's washed his car this week?!

Heading to Worlds Baby!

Last fall Taye visited the downtown modern art museum with his class at school and loved it.  More interesting art than the regular art museum.  When an opportunity came up this semester to be a student docent there, Taye jumped at the chance.  He walked over after school with a teacher and some students for a few days of training and then worked the downtown "First Friday" events for  February, March and April. Emily was totally intrigued by all this so one Friday evening after I'd dropped Taye off we parked our cars in the busy warehouse district, ate dinner at a funky, one of a kind, local kale and organic tofu in a spicy curry sauce type of place, wandered through a small art gallery and then visited the museum to spy on Taye.  He was doing a great job - in this stolen picture I caught him talking to a newspaper reporter. I will say this about Taye - he is not boxed in by an any preconceived notions of what an 11 year old brown kid should do.  What...

The Ricks arrived late Thursday eve.  We had a wonderful weekend together.  The kids!  Are so happy together.  Those boys get up early and start playing and it's hard to get them to stop.  They bike and explore and otherwise occupy themselves.  It's almost a parenting free weekend.  Tobias was happy playing with Scotia's neighborhood girl friends.  They moved from yard to yard all weekend.  Courtney and I were happy to lay low, catch some sun and watch kids play.  We also enjoyed a grownups card night, a visit to defy gravity, a bike down the greenway to meet friends at a park and Easter dinner at Emily's fine house. Courtney caught the boys trying to sneak out of the house Saturday morning at dawn to scope out the neighborhood egg hunt.  It doesn't take much imagination to see where this leads.  One year it's finding the golden egg, the next year.....