Astros Game!

As you know, Tobias is a baseball player now. So, we had to go to a baseball game this trip. Granddaddy took us to the Houston Astros vs the Pittsburg Pirates. We had great seats (as you can see in this picture) and a great time! I had only been to one game myself, and that was a long time ago (1999 I think…). This was Tobias’  first. Unfortunately the Astros lost 2-3, but it was a great experience! Check Tobias’ hat… a true fan :-).

S’mores

S’mores, the traditional american treat associated by Lisa with girl-scout camping trips, but perfectly do-able for desert after a cook-out in Nonny’s back yard… (a reference, especially for my non-American readers: s'mores. Needless to day that this first s’more was not his last! We had them quite a few times after this and I tried some myself as well. A bit sweet, but very nice. I had one this time and it was not my last one either :-).

Fishing

We took a vacation to Dickinson this year to visit Nonny and Granddaddy. While we were there we went to Rockport for a couple of days. Rockport is a little fishing town. Needless to say we did some fishing. Actually, we did quite a lot of fishing. I never really expected to catch anything because when I was a child and I did my fishing I never caught anything. I now know that that was probably a result of my choice of bait and location. Anyway, my picture of fishing was: boring…

It turned out that if you fish in the Gulf of Mexico and use shrimp as bait it is not boring at all. We caught over 30 fish (piggy perch I was told…) from this pier at our hotel in Rockport! I have to say it was a surprisingly interesting experience and Tobias just loved it. At first I had to put the bait on the hook, which is quite an endeavor if it is your first time doing so, and kind of disgusting too… Within a couple of minutes I heard: “Papa, HELP! I think I got one!”. Sure enough, he did.

Then came the next challenge of taking the fish off the hook. That too is quite a challenge if it is your first time… but it worked. Before we put it back Tobias looked at it and said: “Bye fishy, I hope your lip will get better soon…”. In the course of the next two days all 30+ fish we caught got the same wish before they were thrown back in :-).

After we got back to Dickinson we went down to Galveston to fish there. We caught a couple of fish there too; catfish (tiny ones…).

We had to leave the fishing rod there, but now Tobias wants one here too. I hope his experience here does not turn into my childhood experience of fishing. The first signs are good because he went fishing with my dad after we got back and caught three fish…

B-Diploma!

My goodness, Tobias had a hard time getting his B-Diploma. One excercise in particular was hard: swimming 6 meters under water through a hole...

Well, on the day of the exam we were all nervous about him getting through the hole, but he did! After that there was no question about him being able to do the rest. He is a good swimmer and he enjoys swimming. He is also very able to swim through that hole, but for the longest time he was not convinced of that himself. So, he would look up to see if he was there yet way to early and as soon as he looks up he comes up...

Anyway, he got it right this time and he got his well deserved reward: his B-Diploma!!! The next day we went for our Sunday swimming session, but this time not to practice "the hole", but to have  fun in a pool with lots of fun stuff like water-slides!

Avondvierdaagse

There is an annual event for school children called "Avondvierdaagse". It is a walking event where the children walk for about 5 km for four nights in a row. Tobias' school participates and children from groups 3-8 can join. So, this year was Tobias' first opportunity to walk, and he did.

Of course, we were not sure what would happen since up until now we had only viewed it as an annoying annual event. They walk through our neighborhood just around the time you get home from work and sometimes you have to wait for like half an hour in order to be able to get home.

Well, I guess time changes things, because this year Lisa even walked with him one night, the final night (I was supposed to, but I sprained my anckle pretty badly playing tennis...:-( ). Anyway, Tobias came home very proud and tired every night and we would take his shoes off, have a drink and massage his feet :-). It was quite hot so he had to drink a lot and his feet got kind of sweaty and soft, the perfect ingredient for blisters. Fortunately he did not get any and he had a wonderful time.

Look at his proud face showing off his ("first real") medal!

Breakfast in Bed

 There are those moments that need to be cherised rather than documented. This was one of them, but I could not help myself for it was so sweet! One Sunday morning we were lazily waking up. Tobias came to our room, like he does every Sunday. We cuddled a little and then Tobias asked if we would like something to eat. I said "Sure Tobias, I'll have a cheese sandwich...". Initially I thought he was just joking, but when he went downstairs I was expecting him to come back up with one of his toy sandwiches, like he has done before.

Much to my surprise he came back up with an actual cheese sandwich! He then asked Lisa and Lorelei what they wanted and ended up making everyone a sandwich (one by one). So, we had breakfast in bed prepared by Tobias!

After receiving my sandwich and realizing what he was up to I could not help but go downstairs and take a look (and this picture...).

Skater Boy

 I used to be quite the skateboarder one day. Not that I was a very good skateboarder, I was just skateboarding a lot. I used it for transportation, built ramps, went to skate parks and all that. That was a long time ago, but the skateboard was still in my parents' garage.

When Tobias and Lorelei spent the night there a few weeks ago Tobias found the skateboard (or rather it was found for him :-)) and played with it. When we picked them up Tobias wanted to take it home. He has been wanting to skateboard a lot since and I have to say, the progress is quite stunning. He's still a bit insecure, but he is doing it!

Check the "old skool" style of that thing :-). Still, he looks pretty cool, right?