Another batch of random photos:

A witch makes toast:

Sheriff Woody from Toy Story with a pirate twist:

Running for congress in Cadillac, Michigan:

Shrugging his shoulders:

(Cute, but usually not quite timed right.  We're working on it...)

Life Lessons

While we were at Cadillac Lake, Alan and I took the opportunity to share some life lessons with Coop.

Alan worked on fishing:

Coop was mostly interested in pulling lily pads out of the water, but he humored his dad a bit:

At one point, Coop picked some worms out of the tub and just tossed them in the water -- a much more effecient way to feed the fish than to mess around with the hook, I suppose.

But we caught one little fish:

I chose a much more useful and enjoyable life lesson:  dunking Oreos:

Cadillac Lake, Michigan

These handsome men:

are the Nugents -- Joe, John, and Tim.

We spent a couple of fun days with them up in a cabin on Cadillac Lake, Michigan.

Coop was excited to have some new people to play with:

Especially since they were willing to play pirate swordfight with him:

We got suited up for a boat ride:

Coop spent the entire time like this:

Too loud for his taste.

And the rest of the weekend, Coop mostly spent running down

and back on the dock.

And he never once fell in.

One last picture, just because I took it and I think it's great:

John and the boys jumping off of a breakwater (a big wall).

Transitions

So Coop finally started preschool last week.  I was ready for that next step for him, but we were also sad to leave Miss Brenda, who's watched Coop for 2.5 years now.

We took her flowers on our last day:

And we picked out a little cactus plant to take to Coop's classroom on the first day.  (The parent handbook said we could bring a flower or something to put on the snack table to share with everyone.)

Here's the "first day of school" photo:

And here he is at his preschool, Raintree Montessori School in Lawrence.  It's a sweet place, and I think he'll really love it.  Frankly, it's the kind of place Alan and I would like to spend our days, if we could!

I promised myself I wouldn't add to the stress of the first day by forcing Coop to take a picture at the school (on one of my visits, I saw a mom taking pictures of the little girl and the dad video-taping the mom taking pictures).  But he was perfectly willing to pose out front.

And here he is (at the end of the day -- notice how hot and red and sweaty he is!), showing me the place on the shelves where he can store his things:

So far, he seems to really like it. 

It can't hurt that they go swimming twice a day!

In other "transition" news -- Coop got his first black eye.  He and Parker collided while running circles around Parker's house.  Cooper is just slightly taller than Parker so Parker's forehead caught him right on the cheekbone.

This is about two hours afterwards:

And the next morning:

And the day after that:

Still noticeable a week later.  Alan tried to teach him to say "You should see the other guy," but so far, he doesn't think it's funny. 

Poor kid.  We've had a big summer of injuries -- the collarbone, the goose egg, and now this.  Plus a few smaller forehead knots in between.  When is the stage when he sits quietly in the living room reading with us?

Head gear

A (clean) take-out food container for a hat + blanket hair:

A witch hat (one of the top choices, lately):

The witch hat, incidentally, is usually accompanied by a witch cackle and some fireballs (ala the Wicked Witch of the West and her fire-shooting broom):

 

Sun hat for beach play:

By far the favorite, the pirate hat with skull and crossbones:

More pirate regalia -- sword and telescope:

(Hook coming soon.)

Last photos from San Diego

One of my college roommates lives in San Diego, and she drove over to the hotel to see us!

I hadn't seen Laurie since graduation, so it was fun to catch up and introduce her to Cooper!

Exhausted after a hard day of vacation:

We spent most of Monday in various airports, and at one place, our plane was delayed so we had about 3 hours to kill.  We rode the escalator probably about 127 times.  Cooper carrying Jenny's princess rolly bag, and me following behind.

On the plus side, he learned how to get on and off an escalator by himself.

My other airport trick:  the new ipod that I got for my birthday.

I had downloaded a Scooby Doo episode, and Coop watched it four times during the course of our trip from San Diego back to Wichita.

What a great trip!  No agenda other than eat, play in sand, rest, repeat.

Perfect!

More from San Diego

A pedicab ride with Cousin Jenny:

Silly Vanilly ice cream with sprinkles.  It's bright blue, but tastes just like vanilla.

The Hotel Del has a fabulous old elevator with a metal gate door and an elevator operator inside to push buttons.  It worked when we checked in on Friday, but by Saturday morning, we saw this:

Oof.  We were on the 5th floor.  And there were 115 stairs from the bottom floor to the top.  (It was fixed about an hour before we checked out of the hotel on Monday.  Of course.)

Coop got lots of practice walking up and down stairs, and he did a nice job going up stairs using alternate feet and not holding on.  (As opposed to both feet on each step and/or holding on to a railing.)

(And yes, I fully realize that this is one of those developmental things that only the parents care about or even notice.)

One more, we walked down to the Coronado yacht club to look at the boats.

Jenny and Coop hanging on Cousin Jon.

Family photo:

Sandy San Diego

Although Cooper didn't really care for the water, he LOVED the sand.

Waiting for the elevator to take us down to the beach:

Turns out, he and Alan both could happily be beach bums for the rest of their lives.

They spent hours digging in the sand.

Here, you can see the monster truck track and a farm Coop and Alan made.

Can you see the little sticks in the middle?  Those are coffee stirrers transformed into a spaghetti farm.

We had a fun time burying Elizabeth:

We made her into a strong man.  I was in charge of the freaky, out-of-proportion right leg.  Oops.

And, by far our best work, a mermaid: