Kids, Cranes, and a New Piano

Over the past few weeks we have spent some time with some of the young people in our life, specifically our niece, nephew, and my cousins. And they're all pretty great.

First, there's Bo, who just graduated from pre-school. Yes, you read that right--he just graduated! Whahooooo!

Front of the line, ready to get his diploma

All right--what can I do with my brand new diploma? Nothing? Okay. Where are my toys? Also, have you seen my shirt? It's great.

To celebrate this graduation, Bo's pre-school class sang an amazing song, "We Recycle," which was done to the tune of Frère Jacques.

 Then, there's Sadie, who is counting up a storm and showed her Uncle Trevor her new skills.

Two basketballs and a bunch of footballs. Why can't I count mermaids or something fun instead?

All right, Uncle Trevy-trev: one picture and then it's back to hide-and-seek. No, I will not negotiate.

And finally, there are my cousins Erica and Carly. They're smart young college students (DePaul University and Elmhurt College) who just so happen to be gorgeous. Is there a connection between their smarts and the fact that they're related to me? Well. Let's just say that there might be. (yes. the answer is yes.)

We are Boscos. We need no other explanation.

Now, I can't leave out our niece Destiny, who, although we haven't spent time with her in the past few weeks, is also smart and gorgeous. So, for a pre #TBT, here she is (and I couldn't decide which picture to post, so we have a variety [Destiny, this is what you get for not hanging out with your Aunt Laura lately...(we miss you)]):

This is Destiny, mid-dance and mid-song, at our wedding in 2007

And there she is at her mom and Neill's wedding in 2012--she's such a grown up! (this is what aunts do, Destiny...we humiliate you)

And here's D. with some more smart and gorgeous young ladies. Check out the paparazzi!

Now, on to the cranes that live in our neighborhood.

As some of you know, we moved to a neighborhood that is full of woodland creatures: flying squirrels, gophers, geese, turtles...

Yeah, this exists. And it's the best thing in the world.

...and recently there have been two sandhill cranes hanging out in the neighborhood.

We are cranes in the neighborhood. Hello. We're cranes.

But the other day they ventured away from the main hangout, and Roo and I ran into them on our afternoon walk. They were wandering through a backyard--a backyard, I might add, that is inhabited by a basset hound who is a fan of Roo.

Here's a short video of the cranes:

 And here's a slightly longer video of the cranes, the basset hound, and Roo:

Grandma Madel, our very own bird expert, told us that we should see a baby crane wandering around soon. And when that happens, I will probably crane-nap it and make it my new best friend. Pictures to come.

And here is one last video to finish this post. Last month we had my old piano moved from my brother and Paula's house to our place (G&P have been piano-sitting for the past five years since my parents moved to the city and didn't have room for it in the condo). And I discovered that I can still (sort of) peck out a tune!

So, enjoy all of that and look forward to my next post celebrating Trevor, who is very hard to pin down for a photo.

BOOM.

But I will pin him down. With words. (ha!)

See ya.

Bo-ling

This past Christmas, I struggled with what to get my nephew Bo. As an only grandchild of four doting grandparents, one doting aunt, and about one thousand additional doting Italian and Greek relatives, Bosco has just about every block, car, thingamabob, and whoseitwhatsit known to mankind. So what do you get the kid who has ev-er-y-thing?

My solution: dates with me, his favorite aunt! (okay, okay, only aunt)

I came up with about a dozen Bo-appropriate outings: eating pancakes, going to LEGOLand, sleeping over at Camp Crystal Lake for fun with his cousin Roo, getting his first tattoo (just kidding, Paula! [Greg, let me know when it's okay to do this]). And today was our bowling date--and it was Bo's very first time bowling!


Greg, Paula, Bo, and I headed over to Waveland Bowl, which is where my league (it's Greg and Paula's league, too) spend their wintery Monday nights. I'm missing my bowling chums this year (read about my amazing teammates here), so it was so nice to spend time at the lanes with three of my favorite Borks.

Now, I will preface this by saying that Bo did great--he bowled a 50, and that's terrific for his first time. But, his first roll wasn't exactly a success:

He recovered quickly with some moral support from mom and dad:

Mom, is this the heaviest? I want the heaviest, please.

Yep, that works.

Dad, you're in my way.

I get another roll? This is a great game!

My ball is not fast-moving. Let's sit down to watch it roll down the lane.

Auntie Laura, it's my turn! I have to bowl!

After our game (and yes, Greg won--he beat me by two stinking points. It's against his DNA to come in second), we spent some time in the arcade, got a balloon sword, and then went to Wendy's for Frosties and french fries: the lunch of bowling champions. On our way home, we had a silly face contest. Bo won.

Hi!

All right, we're done.

Our next date will be in March--our spring breaks line up, so we might go hang out at the park, the art studio, or, um, the tattoo parlor. Whatever. 

Brain Vacation

Happy new year!

Welcome to 2014.

You may have noticed that my last post was in October. And you may have also noticed that it's been a while (let's just say ten weeks).

I know that some of you have noticed (hi, Cuff!) and I must apologize. The semester chugged on and I meant to post something around mid-term, and then around Thanksgiving, and then--for sure--over the winter break. But during the break I sort of shut off my brain and subsisted only on holiday food (there were a whole hell of a lot of cookies up in here), Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes on DVD (I made it 3/4 through season six--just before Willow gets really, really [really] bad), and Christmas gift wrapping (I used approximately 378 little pieces of Scotch tape).

But I am ready to emerge. And to warm up, I wanted to share with you a quick review of what our past couple of months have looked like.

My friend Lisa took me along with her friends to a painting party at the local pub. Everyone gets an easel, paints and brushes, step-by-step instructions to paint (we painted a snowman), and a server to get you glasses of wine or bottles of beer. It's pretty terrific.  

Lisa on the right and some of her painting pals across the table

I begin with an outline

Some blue sky

Some color

A nose

He looks surprised, doesn't he?

That's better

Stripes

Et, voila! A snowman!

The girls' almost finished products

A line of snowmen. All so similar, but unique, just like each one of us. (awwwww)

That got the holiday season off to a very nice start. I still had to grade my students' final assignments, but it was things like this that made them all fun to look through:

In case you can't tell, that's me.

One of my exceptional creative writing students turned in her final journal and drew a little portrait of me with her reflection. It's, like, the best thing ever.

I partied a little with my English department colleagues:

And yes, we wore the paper crowns from the Christmas crackers

We are such a good looking department!

And Missy (left in the maroon dress) treated us to some terrific tunes from the Dickens Carolers.

I was finally done grading and started to look for holiday decorations. We never got farther than wreaths and a stocking for Roo over the mantle, but I did find Trevor and my likenesses at the craft store:

Me (the teacher) and Trevor (I guess, king of Ireland?). We are really a cute couple.

I got to attend Bosco's Christmas pageant and see his school, which was so much fun in a lots-of-children and thank-goodness-I'm-just-the-aunt kind of way.

Bosco waits for instructions on the wall (and yes, there might be a finger up his nose but who cares?!)

Bo gets some bells

And they sing! (this is them at their most organized)

Some angels on the sidelines

I'll smile and look cute when you're not looking at the camera, okay?

And then when you're smiling at the camera, I'll eat my fingers. Good plan.

This is my classroom!

There followed a lot of shopping, which I enjoyed, and then wrapping, which I also, strangely, enjoyed. And then Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. I realized now that we didn't take very many pictures.

But, what followed Christmas was five days of Trevor off work, so there was a lot a lot of cozy home behavior.

I made some lumpy but delicious pancakes.

We made Roo wear these reindeer antlers and she hated them.

 

T. made a lot of fires and we did a lot of lounging around next to them.

Hello.

I finally finished Roo's sweater. She is not a fan of it.

But she looks so cute, doesn't she?

And I did a lot of knitting. And drinking tea. And eating cookies, which are not pictured because I ate them all before taking this picture.

You may have noticed that Roo had a shaved patch on her arm--sure mark of a doggie IV. That's because on December 20 she got into all of the Christmas chocolate we had on the kitchen counter and we had to take her to the emergency vet. She got her stomach pumped and spent the night (the vet said she didn't sleep at all, but stayed up all night watching everyone). She thought it was an adventure. Trevor and I thought it was really scary. So, everyone wins for the holidays.

And now, I have my first class of the semester in about 90 minutes. So, I should probably shower up and get out of the house. So, bye.