The groovy artist in my family

My brother Evan lives in California and is a really talented artist. In the past few years he has really developed his professional art and has had some gallery showings and people are starting to buy his work! He has a very funky style and often makes a statement with his work. One of my favorite things that he has done was a great comic book of a trip that he and my stepmom Terri made out to SLC, Utah a few years back when I lived there. It was a humorous tale of the time we spent together doing stuff like skiing and snowboarding-his first attempt which ended badly. One of his more recent projects is a line of t-shirts featuring a few of his pieces that can be seen and purchased at cafepress.com http://www.cafepress.com/evantreece. Here is my favorite!If the image is too small to see well here is a description: It is a fish with a thought bubble of her consideration of why on Earth she might have use for a bicycle...you get the Gloria Steinem reference! I love the fact that this comes from a male artist. He is such a cool kid. I'm going to post a few other links to his work-some of it might be a little objectionable to some of my audience so I need to select items to feature rather than pointing you to his entire shock-value collection. He can be rather expressive!

Where did the summer go?

It is amazing how fast the summer always seems to fly by. We spend so much of it traveling (which I can't complain about at all) that sometimes I feel a little cheated at the great lazy days at home part. The boys went back to school last week and our posts have been so infrequent that here we are once again doing a huge catch up entry showing where our summer went.

Well, if you know me at all you know that it went to the beach and the pool...

And it went to the park and the zoo...

Some of us learned how to ride a bike and inline skate!

We made cookies and treats...

We had brother sleepovers--not quite ready for sleep overs away from home so we improvise!

We had a great time at Cookie and Poppie's in California... (Paddleboating at Dennis the Menace Park in Monterey)

And then last Wednesday, our summer went to Kindergarten and Third Grade...does this kid look excited or what? I think "or what" would be his answer. Landry said his teacher was "sort of nice but didn't have a really good smile." When I asked him what he meant by a really good smile his adorable son-of-the-year response, "You know mom, like yours." Ahhh...I guess that made up for McCall's endless comments as we took him to school about how few other mothers were actually present. Do parents really stop taking their kids to the first day of school in 3rd grade? I think my mom came with me to every year of grade school. After refusing to kiss me goodbye and barely tolerating this one photo, McCall said, "Okay Mom, you can go now and for sure in 4th grade you are not coming inside with me." Wow! I was speechless and cried all the way home. I can laugh about it now but do any of you feel my pain this time of year? Should they really be allowed to grow up? I told Landry when we got in the car that I would give him $100 if he would stop growing and he considered it for a second and then said, "No way! I wanna be big!"

At Last I am a Member!

I am thrilled to announce that I have become a full-fledged member of the Good Mail club! I love having friends that are so thoughtful already, only to be reminded by a sweet note or gift in the mail. Today I must make a list of the several items of good mail I received this week-one even quite shocking!

1. A sweet card from Kristi with a notes of congrats on our baby boy news.

2. A funny card from my parents with a note about sending good and happy thoughts to our monkey boy. (we have been calling Baby Vu-Monkey Baby since the get-go because we expect that he will have Mike's fuzzy black head of hair that I love so much) The inside of the card reads: "I think my monkey likes your monkey."

3. A wedding invitation and gorgeous photo of some dear friends. Note: This is the first of my very own designs made professionally and not just for my own pleasure and use that is out in the world!

4. A package with a bundle of cuddly flannel baby boy receiving blankets from Jill to celebrate our baby boy news. They are so soft and make me hungry for the little warm body to fill them with!

5. A very unexpected letter from a dear elderly friend of my husband Mike sent days before his death (cancer). We knew he was about to pass and had been thinking and talking about him when a friend of his called Mike to get our address a few weeks ago. This kind and generous gentleman sent us a significant monetary gift that we were stunned by. In his honor we decided that we will only use the money for things for the baby since they will be "passing in the night" so to speak. We were so touched by his kindness and I am warmed by the knowledge that Mike was considered such a close friend to a dear man.

It is so wonderful to have such thoughtful and inspiring friends in our lives. Thank you all for thinking of us!