Working

Tobias goes to after school care on Thursdays and this year he went up a group. That means that he mingles with bigger children and gets to do “big kids stuff”. One of those things is “working”, on wood really. They have workbenches and tools and wood and they can make stuff. Apparently he likes it because he started asking for wood and started using his toolbox we gave him a while back. At first he was working on the floor, but then I gave him my workmate and that is great. He has really been putting some stuff together… At the after school care they give them real tools, which I think is great. His tools are rather real, except for his saw. So, after concluding that the saw from his toolbox does not work properly, I went out and got him a real one. He is all set!

I have to tell you about one thing he made, tonight… Yesterday we found a dead mouse in the yard. Darwin had killed it. Tobias is so fond of animals that he felt sorry for the mouse. Apparently, this morning, he was thinking about the mouse, probably because he walked right past it (and hence, saw it) on the way to his bike. He talked to Lisa about it and it must have been on his mind, because tonight he quit playing the Wii and said: “Papa, I am going to bury Squeaky.” (The mouse was named Squeaky post mortem…). At first I did not realize what he was talking about, but he actually wanted to bury the mouse. He wanted Lisa to help him, but then I heard him say “Wait mama, first I am going to make him a tomb-stone.”. So, Lisa goes: “How?”. Tobias says: “From those planks in the garage. I’ll make something like this <he points out a rectangle> and we’ll write ‘Squeaky’ on it.”. And that’s exactly what he did. He sawed two pieces of wood, made a cross and wrote Squeaky on it. It is now sitting over Squeaky’s head right by our rose-bush…

Did I ever mention how sweet my boy is? He’s very sweet… :-)!

Camping

I guess we could start calling it a tradition… Tobias and I went out camping again this year. We went to the same place we went last year, except this time we went for two nights. Also we went a little bit earlier in the year which made for nicer weather… I took the Friday afternoon off. I got home around noon or so and we started packing up our stuff. Last year I had to pack all my stuff and Tobias’ stuff on my bike, but this time Tobias had bike bags as well. Also, we had bought our own little air beds, which was nice.

It is so great when Tobias gets so excited about stuff! I had promised to go again, but I hadn’t told him when. I told him about a week before we left, primarily because the weather is so unpredictable and it would be such a disappointment if we would not be able to go because of that. But, from the moment I told him he was bursting with anticipation and enthusiasm! And rightfully so, because we had a great time, again!

Since we were somewhat earlier in the year it was light a lot longer, which enabled us to stay outside longer. As a result we did not play as many games inside the tent, but we did get to see a lot outside. One of the things we saw was a couple of baby-owls learning to fly, which is quite a noisy thing to witness :-). Also, we saw shooting stars. There is not a whole lot I can think of that is better than laying on your back cuddling with your son, looking at the sky and seeing shooting stars… He had never seen one before so the excitement was high and the enthusiasm and thrill indescribable… Let me just say that I treasure those moments and memories.

As you can see in this picture we did not bring much in terms of cooking… We just biked from our campsite to Oudewater to get groceries and got ourselves an instant barbecue :-). We just grilled some meat, had some bread and of course we could not go without roasting some marshmallows. In fact, we made s’mores, despite the fact that we are unable to get graham crackers here… (we repeated this “ritual” the next day).

Basically we had the trip there on Friday, the trip back on Sunday and a full Saturday to spend in the area. Tobias had his first fishing experience in the USA and then Opa bought him a rod in Maasdam, so, he really wanted to go fishing. We went out looking for a rod, but could not find one (strange, really…). Instead we went into two museums: the Ropes Museum and the Witch Museum. That was actually really nice. Tobias made his own jump rope and he went on a “witch hunt”.

We had a nice weekend together and I am pretty sure a tradition was born, because we will definitely do it again next year!

Back Home

Well, that was a lot of posting (both here and on Lorelei’s blog) about our vacation. I’ll finish with this picture which was taken the day we got home. Tobias had been talking about Jip and Darwin (our cats) a lot during the vacation telling us how much he missed them and how happy he would be when he would see them again. During the vacation he had a surrogate: Socks, but that was just not the same. Does he look happy to be re-united with Jip? I think so :-). Yep, we’re back home!

Petting Rays

This is Tobias in the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, TX. He is petting rays! Tobias is such a cool kid. When you take him to something like this, or a zoo, or a museum, or… well, he gets sooooooo enthusiastic about everything! He wants to see everything, know about everything. I love that. Needless to say that going to places like this with him is a lot of fun.

We had a nice day at the aquarium, and we saw lots of interesting things, but the rays were definitely the highlight! He got to pet them and then even feed them. You could get some small bits of fish and then hold it between your fingers and they would come and eat it right out of your hand! Pretty cool, right? Tobias thought so!

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…