Well, another halloween, and this one even more exciting than the last; as Jeremy comes to understand each holiday better, so increases his enjoyment of it. Jeremy dressed as "the dark Spiderman" (aka Venom, for those in the know). Like his friend Jacob, who was Darth Vader, Jeremy certainly has an interest in the dark side these days. After viewing Hansel and Gretel with a particularly scary witch last night, Jeremy announced that he was a king, and the witch was his queen. It seems clear that this is his strategy for dealing with fear- although I don't know what I think about it, I am glad it works at least.
As you can see, his interest in theatrical play hasn't waned. He's a boy whose favorite way to play is to "make things talk"; for example, the race cars are a family. I have to come up with a dialogue between one car, who is named Brandon Bernstein (a real race-car driver- search for his name on our blog for photos), and the car's dad, Kenny (Brandon's father's real name). The theatrical play nearly always involves a family of some sort, and it is interesting to note that they come in all varieties. Today, when we were raking leaves, the inflatable dinosaurs were first his babysitter's family (I was Brooke, and the two dinosaurs were my mother and father), which then morphed into our family pretending to be three fathers to one kid. Sometimes there is a mommy and a mama, like our family, but just as often there is some other permutation. Although at first glance, three fathers may seem odd, but even in heterosexual families, divorce and other events have created all sorts of numbers of parents of different genders.
On another note, as most know by now Fran and I had a wonderful two week vacation in South Africa recently, where we frolicked with the cheetah, petted ostrich, and connected with some really amazing people. Jeremy had a great time with his grandparents, meanwhile. There is simply too much to put here, but I'll include the link to our 6 min video here:
Who knew? Our cruise to Alaska surpassed all expectations. We have created both a book and a slideshow of the week-long excursion - click on 'full screen' at the bottom (make sure you are at the Oursimonfamily website to get features):
We set sail from Seattle after a short but highly enjoyable visit with Cousins Eric and Alice (who live there in a beautiful house with a large and delicious garden). Our ship was a Golden Princess, with 2,000 passengers and 1,500 crew... not a small vessel, with 17 decks, several pools, even more hot tubs, three different stages for performances, and dining rooms galore. The food was certainly a highlight; Executive Chef Jeremy (yes, that was his name) did not disappoint, including such comfort items as matzo ball soup along with fancier dishes (including lobster) and amazing desserts (e.g. puff pastry swans for lunch).
The caption for the above photo is, "'A pastry for you?' Reply: 'Yes, just put the tray here.'" Highlights, other than the food, were the live shows (Jeremy liked the juggler best), seeing whales (lots and lots), glacier-watching from our balcony, and our hike on the Juneau Ice Field.
Of course, we can't forget the White Pass Rail Road to the Yukon, swimming in the heated pools, and Jeremy's 'performances' in Grandma and Grandpa's room... and much much more. You'll just have to watch the slide shows (the book above, or the link below to have photos set to music) to even get the slightest inkling of how great it was. Here's the 15 min full version: click HERE or HERE.
How can it be possible? Our "baby boy" is now fully potty-trained and weaned, and there isn't a trace of infant left in him. There seem to be even flickers of a little man inside, the way he said, "Are you nervous, Grandma and Grandpa? Don't worry, I'm tough" when he overheard them asking Fran questions about how to care for him this October. We'll be going to Africa for two weeks on a vacation we bought through a silent auction to benefit his school; Papa will also be helping.
But I digress. Jeremy had a spectacular double-birthday, first celebrating with Papa and Grannie (who has a birthday later this month), his God-parents, and other friends in California, and then in a huge party in Denver. We hadn't planned on the second party initially, but he has been invited to so many parties, and was so excited to have his friends come to his party, that we felt compelled to do it. 26 children came (plus their parents) to My Gym for what was a rollicking good time. Jeremy agreed to having folks give donations to Life is Better (the rescue that found Bella) in lieu of gifts, even though we ended up having to give her back due to Jeremy's allergies.
The first party was mellow fun at Lake Temescal, 5 min from his grandparents house with a few local friends. Jeremy especially had fun playing with Maxwell, a 5 yr old son of our friends Angee and Marta, who had brought a Spider Man costume for him to run around in.
Just a quick post welcoming any new folks to our site. This is a photo taken of our family on a hike last Sunday. I never thought I'd have the happiness that is my everyday life now- so many blessings! The greatest of these, of course, is my wonderful spouse and our beautiful son. We are in a sweet spot- our son is getting easier (finally potty trained!), our parents are alive, and everyone is in good health. We know this will not always be true, so we treasure every day. Not to mention all of our amazing friends and neighbors who enrich our lives and provide the 'village' that raises our son. L'chaim!
For those who are not subscribed to Facebook, here is a very short video of Jeremy playing catch with Bella: http://www.archive.org/details/ASimonJeremyandBella/ - clearly our first assessment of her not being a 'ball dog' were wrong; she can be quite playful, although in a very mellow way. She reminds me how a baby elephant might play.
Speaking of play, I thought I'd share some other photos of Jeremy with his friends. You can see from the previous post how fond he is of Lola; he also has special connections with Jacob (pictured above on the rock during our hike last Saturday), Luca (a photo from his playdate yesterday, below) and other friends from school. Not to mention our grown-up friends; Sunday night Jeremy went to Casa Bonita for the first time with friends Ryan and Brian. We are so blessed with good friends!
So much has happened since my last post, including a trip to NJ to visit family and friends and for Fran's speech at the dedication of her HS softball field in memory of her former coach. Other tragic news was that a child in Jeremy's class was killed by a car; Jeremy's school performed a song in her memory at the annual spring concert. A couple weeks later, Jeremy and his dear classmate friend Lola were having a play date and decided to compose their own song for her. See a movie about that HERE: http://www.archive.org/details/ASimonJeremy_Lola2011/ Jeremy also took Lola to a local theater performance (the photo above was from this first date).
Jeremy has now had his last day of school, and his first summer vacation experience begins. Our house was the 'go to' for after school fun, given our proximity to it, and we celebrated the last day with a feast of Indian food, prepared by the father of a schoolmate who was born there. It was quite fun- 11 kids in all, including the triplets (Mia, Piper, and Jack).
And now for Bella... Okay, so I know we need another commitment like we need a hole in the head, and the timing is terrible, but we just never thought that we’d find a dog who was 1) a Rottie (with the sweet big heart they usually have), 2) rescued, 3) fully trained, 4) who doesn’t lick, and 5) who is great with kids... but there she was. To my extreme surprise, I found myself literally in tears over the prospect of her being ours. Her name is Bella, she’s 4, 100 lbs, very healthy, and we met her at a shelter’s tent at the fair. We have not been looking for a dog, far from it, and know we will need to get help when we travel, but it feels very right.
Jeremy's pleased. When I told him that she didn't have a family, he said, "We can be her family". When we first asked him what he thought about getting a dog, he replied that he wanted a puppy. When we told him that a puppy would surely chew his toys and lick him, he relented and said that an adult dog would be fine. He's been checking on her every few minutes, wants to show her stuff. She hasn't licked him once, but some drool got on his arm- no hives. Keeping my fingers crossed.
A bit more about her: The rescue told us this about Bella- Animal control found her on the street with pneumonia and a serious eye condition in both eyes caused by eyelashes growing into them. It's very painful and renders the dog blind. Their guess is that her previous owner was male and a drinker (she's frightened of drunk men) and that she was very neglected. The vet thought she was 4 yrs old, and the rescue thinks she was blind for most of her life. The rescue (called "There's a Better Life Rescue") found her hours before she was going to be euthanized at a shelter. They paid to have the surgery done ($400), spayed her, gave her all her shots, and nursed her back to health. Her face had to be shaved for the surgery, so even after she was starting to feel better, she didn't look so good and so no one was interested in adopting her. Meanwhile the rescue team was really falling in love with her, and her foster parent, a single guy, would have taken her but had a life change (job, I think) that made it too difficult. She's trained, house-broken, and super, super gentle. Generally good with other dogs except if they come at her- she's a bit stupid about visual social cues, probably because she was blind for so long. She gets scared and doesn't know if they are playing or fighting.
The only thing now is waiting to watch Jeremy's allergies. We do not want a repeat of the cat experience, to say the least. Keep us in your prayers!
Below is a very tiny slideshow of a book we just created for our 2010 photos. Below the big box is a link to the Shutterfly site; at that site, there is a link in the upper right corner to view "full screen"- click on that to be able to see it well.
Hang on to your hats- this is the longest post yet, with two videos (one embedded at the end of this post), lots of photos and plenty of drama.
First, okay, I admit it; Facebook has ruined my blog. It is so much easier to post both photos and movies to FB than to a Blogger page, and I know so many more people will automatically read it... well, I just have to face that this is a different medium that reaches a different crowd. So, here's an apology to the non-FB folk who have been wondering what's been happening to our posts.
So much has happened in the last month it is impossible to review it all, but here are the highlights: we made our annual pilgrimage to Boca Raton in February, where Jeremy enjoyed his grandparents and all the swimming thoroughly. Please see link HERE for an amazing photo montage of that trip.
The day we returned from that trip, we received a call from an LGBT rights organization asking if we could be interviewed and photographed THAT AFTERNOON for a story on Colorado's quest to legalize gay unions. Our constitution states that we cannot have marriages, but a state senator Pat Steadman is introducing a civil unions bill that will provide at least some of the same rights and protections. This is especially important for those things that cannot be provided in any other way, such as the ability to take family medical leave to care for your partner.
Thus began our 15 minutes of fame: after appearing on the front page of the Denver Post with several quotes (link HERE for full story), we were then invited to testify in the hearing of the bill itself. In association with that, we were asked for an interview and pictures again, this time for the Associated Press - a story that was picked up in various forms, sometimes with our photo (below), across the country, including Pittsburg Tribune, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Washington Examiner, Denver Post, Daily Camera, Aurora Sentinal (also with photo), Beaumont Enterprise, Rockford Register Star (IL), Albuquerque Journal, Coloradan.com, StarAdvertiser.com, and the Colorado Springs Gazette. A link to that article can be found HERE.
So then comes the emotional experience testifying last Monday; the room was standing room only and we were just two of dozens of people testifying for both sides. Although we certainly didn't have the most compelling story (e.g. compared to those dealing with terminal illness, death, etc), the press liked how emotional I was and Fran's smile in the photo they took of us after we testified, so yet again we were a featured couple in this fight, which cleared its first hurdle by passing that committee 6:3.
The tweets going on during our testimony said that we were bringing one of the senators to tears, so who knows? Maybe we did help in some small way. Click HERE for some of the TV coverage that included some of our testimony. And below for links to other coverage (that included us):
The fight ain't over yet- there are still several steps (and votes) it has to clear before becoming a law. I'll do my best to keep you posted as developments arise. But for breaking news, friend me on FB!
Although I have no illusions anymore that I will capture every (important) event or trip on the blog (simply too much going on), I am going to try to be a little better about getting the special stuff up. I've received several 'complaints' from our readers that I've been too lax recently!
Today, Jeremy and I went to the Colorado Fiddle Championship at the Western Stock Show here in Denver; an annual event to root on Ari, who won 1st place in the "Small Fry" division last year (for the post on that, search this blog for 'fiddle' or 'stock show'). He did great in his new division, "Junior Jr.", and I'll try to post again with the results. Jeremy loved hanging with Ari and his sister Zoe, as well as getting to see several of his 'classmates'- other students of his fiddle teacher, Katie.
Jeremy loved the fiddle competition, but he and his teacher have decided that he needs a little break from his instrument, and so will be starting piano. Jeremy is starting to pick up some bad habits on the violin, and he only wants to play the way he wants to play. He loves performing and playing the violin, and I don't want his enjoyment of it dampened at this point by making him do the exercises needed to advance to the next level, as sad as it makes me. We will be coming back to it for sure!
In bigger news, Jeremy and I recently returned from Chicago to celebrate his Great Grandmother's 98th birthday. It was a glorious visit, including not only a wonderful little party at my Aunt Bonnie's home, but several other visiting opportunities with his two first-cousins-once-removed Mahalia and Jacob (whom he adores and resembles), their parents (my cousins), his Uncle Isaac and Aunt Gretchen, and his beloved Papa. A highlight was also playing violin for Grannie and leading all of us in Hanukkah songs.
