Not Really a Rant

Okay, this is not rant worthy, but I wrote another great Year in review letter, and I thought I would post it.

Greetings,

Christmas has come riding in on the sounds of bells, carols, and our five-year-old Michael Winslow wannabe. The aural collage that is our Dude paints sound-scapes of game show buzzers, fire-in-the-hole explosions, and hyper-realistic machine gunfire. His kindergarten teacher marveled at his unique ability at parent conferences. We are quite sure she was complimenting his creativity and not his ability to disrupt class.

Evan’s first year in kindergarten is going well. He loves school, though he did confide in me that he wanted to spend some time playing with his toys. Homework has wormed its way into our routine with bi-weekly worksheets. Next year, he plans on attending Mizzou where he will study law enforcement or art (maybe he’ll be a police sketch artist). We are hoping for artist, since he thinks that a police officer’s job consists entirely of shooting his parents and arresting people “for going naked.”

Dude’s other favorite catch phrase is, “EXTERMINATE.” Colette and I are doing our best to mold Evan into a nerd. This entails watching several episodes of Doctor Who a week and attending Robotics competitions and Rock & Mineral Shows. For Halloween he chose to dress as a Dalek. For those of you lacking geek cred, the Daleks are the most powerful enemy of The Doctor.

Keeping with the nerd theme, Evan celebrated another birthday (as he is apt to do) with a Dirty Jobs/Mythbusters party. Kids (and parents) were excited to launch rockets, eat Pop Rocks with Coke, dig for fossils, and sort recyclables. Evan and his friends also had fun pummeling a piñata shaped like Buster - the much abused crash test dummy from Mythbusters (I was a little concerned about hanging a life size dummy from a tree in our backyard, but as far as we know there were no calls to Human Rights Watch.)

In order to develop his body as well as his oversized intellect Evan participated in soccer for the first time. We were excited because now Colette can officially be called a soccer mom (prior to this we were in demographic limbo). The highlight of the season can be boiled down to one of two plays. We will let the readers decide. In the first episode Evan was dribbling the ball down the field when suddenly a swarm of white jerseys converged on him. For what seemed like 30 seconds, but was more likely only 5, Evan disappeared from view. Then, amazingly, he emerged from the maelstrom and scored a goal. The second episode occurred when Evan was pulled from a game for a substitute. He started throwing a tantrum for what seemed like 30 minutes, but was more likely 5. Please submit your vote to evanholden.blogspot.com.

Swimming has flooded most corners of our lives. Evan is a member of the Clayton Shaw-Park Swim Team, an affiliate of USA Swim. He is the youngest and smallest kid on the team. He attends practice three days a week and just participated in his first meet on Dec. 7th. He nearly won his heat in the 25 m backstroke and performed admirably in the freestyle. Evan loves the water so much that we also have a membership at an additional recreation center so he can swim for fun.

His aptitude for aquatic endeavors caused some concern when we went on vacation in August. Our destination was Corpus Christi (Birthplace of What-a-burger) and we were afraid that Evan would hit the surf and just keep swimming. Our first stop was Kansas City to see a Royals game. The next morning we were off to Arlington to see the Rangers take on the Mariners. Then it was on to San Antonio with a brief lunch in Austin. The Alamo and Riverwalk were a let down, but our trip to the missions run by the National Parks Service was fun and informative. Evan earned a junior ranger badge to add to his collection.

The next opportunity to be inducted into the NPS was at Padre Island National Seashore. .While on the island we woke up early one morning to see a sea turtle release. We also took a boat ride to see dolphins, played on a boogie board, got slightly lost and ended up driving on a beach, and went horseback riding. To finish off the trip we made a last minute (maid) detour to Houston to see the Astros take on the Mets.

We also took a trip to Kentucky and Mammoth Cave National Park. Evan picked up more horse riding experience and another junior ranger badge after exploring a small portion of the cave, which is, if nothing else, big.

As for Colette and I, we are still both teaching.