The biggest complaint about the Cars 3 Movie!

It ended too soon! 🙂 

Jack and I went to see the movie last night, and we really liked it. It might be in a close tie with the first movie as far as storyline and characters and emotions, etc.  The second movie was OK, but I really liked the first and the third.

I totally didn’t stay until after the credits, so we missed the little Mater movie at the end.

OK, enough about that. 🙂 

Today was the first official day of camp. Jack has been outside all day, and I’m waiting to pick him up. I wonder if he will be sunburned, or covered in mosquito bites, or none of the above. 🙂

Hopefully there is nothing to report from the camp office, as they have had to do in past years ha ha.

Here are the first words out of Jack’s mouth after he got into the car.

(I predict he will have some good news, maybe about zip lining in, or the fact that he does not want to go swimming anymore because the pool is too cold. Let’s see what he says.)

Jack: I’m starving. I need food!

Well was I close? Lol… he must have worked up a good appetite being outside all day!

And in other random news…

Here’s a photo of Moca’s last trip to NYC …we are in Bryant Park…

She loves to ride the train when I take jack to NYC. Everyone loved her! 🙂

Have I been slacking? Prove it!

Well yes, if you see my post rate for this week. Kind of sporadic. Kind of every other day. The holidays have kind of taken over this year with so many work and family-related parties, etc!! Man! Are you guys feeling the same? Like “not enough hours in the day for anything” kind of thing?

Perhaps today I’ll make up for some lost time and posts.

Jack and I went out and got our tree the other day, and it’s funny, he kind of felt bad about cutting down a tree, so we opted for a pre-cut. His reasoning was if it was already cut down, it wasn’t as big a deal. The deed was done. I guess that makes him feel less guilt? He feels the same about meat. If he thinks about animals being killed for our food, he cries. But if it’s already dead and wrapped in plastic, he sometimes says “Eh”. But then again, he still chooses fish over meat and even then will choose pasta over anything. 🙂

This was our first year getting a tree without Jack’s dad, so it’s a first step in things. We both felt it when we drove into the tree farm. Jack ran over to the animals as usual…they have a couple of frisky goats penned up that will eat pellets (or anything for that matter) out of your hand, a small cow named Elvis, and some bunnies and chickens that scurried about just out of reach. Jack sighed a bit, but tried to get into the spirit of things. The day was not as cold as it usually is in December, and there was no snow of course. (Got all that out in October I’d say!) It was a new and different sort of Christmas feeling for both of us.

Jack: (worrying) Can I still buy an ornament like I always do?

me: Of course… Why would you think no?

Jack: I don’t know. (still pronounced as “Ow no” in the timeless 6-year-old fashion)

me: Are you okay?

Jack: Yeah. (he sighs) Who’s gonna help us get the tree in the house? (his way of talking about it without really talking about it)

me: Well, let’s pick a tree that both of us can handle and then we won’t need any help. How’s that?

Jack: (perked up) Yeah okay. But I don’t want to cut one.

me: Okay, let’s go and pick…

We selected the most perfect tree of all, a kind of sad one leaning against a fence…but when it opened up it was the most perfectly symmetrical tree I’ve seen in a long time.

Jack: Will they help us get it onto the car? (frown lines appear again)

me: Jack, someone will always be around to help us. With anything.

Jack: Yeah, so we don’t have to worry about anything. Right?

me: Right.

His smile returned and he skipped over to the car.

My best Noah’s Ark

Jack: Tell me again about Noah’s Ark.

me: (do NOT judge my storytelling) Well, God came down to talk to Noah and told him there was gonna be a great flood.

Jack: God wasn’t alive!

me: I guess he was back then. So God said he needed to get rid of the sinners on Earth so he was going to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.

Jack: The sinners were all bad?

me: The worst.

Jack: I bet they all smoked cigarettes.

me: Probably. So God told Noah to build a HUGE ark out of wood, and then get his sons and their wives, plus 2 of every creature on Earth and put them on the ark so they’d be safe from the flood.

Jack: Then the rest of the people and animals would die?

me: That’s what I’m told.

Jack: What happened next?

me: Noah built the hugest ark you ever saw and then some of his sons went and gathered the animals to save time.

Jack: Did they grab 2 snakes?

me: Yes they got 2 of everything.

Jack: Even mosquitoes?

me: Are there mosquitoes out there now?

Jack: Yeah.

me: Then they grabbed them too.

Jack: What about lions?

me: Jack they grabbed 2 of everything. Every single thing.

Jack: Plants too?

me: Just live creatures.

Jack: Fish?

me: (pausing…) Oh, they didn’t have to grab fish because they would survive the flood. (whew)

Jack: Then what?

me: Once everyone was on the ark and all the animals were in their pens, God sent the rain. After 40 days and nights the rain stopped and Noah peeked out a window and saw the entire earth was covered in water.

Jack: Did they have food?

me: Yeah they packed enough to last.

Jack: They couldn’t cook it though or else they’d burn the ark, right?

me: Right. They ate cold food.

Jack: Oh. Did they have lights?

me: No, they went to bed when it was nighttime.

Jack: So then the rain stopped and they sent out a dove to find land.

me: And he came back with an olive branch in his mouth and then they all knew there was land ahead. So they floated in that direction and landed the ark and let all of the animals out to go free. Then the people built houses and stuff.

Jack: And then they had babies that had more babies and then those babies had babies and everyone on Earth was made again.

me: I think that’s how it goes.

Jack: But if all the sinners were dead, then why do we have bad people now. And why do people still smoke!!!???

me: Uh…

Jack: And wait just a minute. I thought we were all made from Adam and Eve!

me: Oh look, I think it’s bed time… We’ll finish up later…

(Yikes! I will have to look into those stories and cross check my facts. Or ask someone that goes to church regularly…)

Eww, some nature got on me…

There are a lot of kids I know, or that Jack knows, that fall into one of these categories: a) afraid of bugs and critters, b) kill bugs and critters if at all possible, c) try to make all bugs and critters their friends and keep them as pets and inadvertently kill them, d) allergic to bugs and critters.

Luckily, LUCKILY, Jack is none of these! None! I think once when he was mad at me he pretended that he was going to squish an ant, and then felt so bad about it he cried his eyes out. My kind of man!

Between the two of us, we can’t get enough of being outside, taking hikes, studying little bugs and animals that we find in the woods, etc. Jack now says he wants to be a scientist and he’s always carrying around his magnifying glass and walkie-talkie. If I could only get him to say “over” when he’s done talking… SIGH! The other day, Jack went to our neighbor’s birthday party. She had a critter van pull up! Jack is still talking about the spiders and the one gecko that climbed his shirt. I wasn’t there, but I found out through photos that he even had a boa constrictor (python??) wrapped around his neck at one point. GASP!

Jack: The gecko’s name was Roxy. She was a jumper!

me: Did he climb your shirt? (Jack was wearing a shirt with the NYC skyline on it, so it looked like the gecko was climbing the building)

Jack: Uhhh, it was a SHEEEEE.

me: Sorry. Did SHE climb your shirt?

Jack: Didn’t you just see the picture? I think you know the answer.

me: Jack I’m just making conversation over here.

Jack: Less yacking and more packing.

me: (thanks for teaching him that, Dad) We’re not packing anything.

Jack: Well then just less yacking.

me: Sigh.

Not sure what kind of moth this is… but it was in our back yard.

Little garden snake in Robinson State Park

Jack with little turtle

Jack with a gecko climbing his shirt!

GASP, giant snake on Jack’s neck.

Another of the world’s tiniest toads

Blurry, but this little chipmunk lives in our drainpipe