Overdue post #2

Father's Day!

For Father's Day, most of us kids (and grandkids) went to Mom and Dad's for a cookout - except those of us who were out of town. It was way fun, and I mostly tailed Jake and Elly around so I could get pictures of them. By the way, Dad, if you're reading this, I'm glad you're my father and you've taught me a lot of things! For example, when I was little, you let me do logic puzzles with you, and taught me pretty advanced deduction for a kid my age. And now I'm a master's student in Math Education... go figure.

So without further ado... the pictures!

Amy made the dessert. "Burger" cupcakes and "french fry" cookies! It was delicious.

Jake obviously agrees with me. Yum, yum!

Jake found some stuff in Grandma's garden... a baby carrot (which he ate) ...

... a turnip (which he didn't eat) ...

...and a worm, which nobody ate.

Then, Grandma took the kids on a wheelbarrow ride. They loved it, and so did she... can you see that big smile on her face?

Even though Jake and Elly have a full sized trampoline at home, they thought this one was great to jump on. Haha.

I took Jake and Elly outside to do sidewalk chalk. Elly actually made lines and circles. I was impressed! Jake made lines, scribbles, and squares.

As you can see, it looked awesome! I did help a bit, by the way. Hahaha.

Overdue post #1

Well, hopefully I will be doing several of these, since I have several events I should have posted about! Here's the first:

This is Maylee, Nikki (and Ryan) Souter's baby. I babysit her a lot and she really likes me. I'm really sad that Nikki, Ryan, and Maylee are moving to PA. But here's some pictures of Maylee! (She's 9 months old now, but these were taken when she was 8 months-ish.)

Maylee playing peekaboo. She doesn't quite get that you're supposed to cover your face. She plays with rattles, books, anything... if she lifts it up over her head, you're supposed to say "peekaboo!" and it's hilarious.

Maylee is quite the crawler. Getting ready to walk soon, too, I think.

Look at that happy baby! She is holding her baby food sippy.

How did I get in here?!

Playing by yourself is one thing, playing with an imaginary game is another.

The other day, I was practicing with my partner, Seth, and he wrote something in Hebrew on the whiteboard in the practice room (it wasn't ACTUALLY Hebrew, it was English words but with Hebrew letters). This small thing sort of rekindled my love for Hebrew. In fact, I went online and tried to re-learn the aleph-bet (which I knew at one point in my life...and now I am getting close to knowing it again!) by watching videos on YouTube.

A great aleph-bet video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCzoTs1AdE

As you may have experienced at some point in your life, it is possible to get caught up in a crazy cycle of YouTubing. I ended up learning how to play dreidel, and although this is a 2+ person game, I decided to go practice by myself. Then I realized, I don't have a dreidel. Oops!

In case you're wondering, here's how you play, compliments of Wikipedia:

-Each player begins with an equal number of game pieces (usually 10-15). The game pieces can be any small object, such as pennies, raisins, or chocolate coins.

-At the beginning of each round, every participant puts one game piece into the center "pot". In addition, every time the pot is empty or has one game piece left, every player puts one in the pot.

-Each player spins the dreidel once during their turn. Depending on which side is facing up when it stops spinning, they give or take game pieces from the pot:

a) If nun is facing up, the player does nothing.

b) If gimmel is facing up, the player gets everything in the pot.

c) If heyis facing up, the player gets half of the pieces in the pot. (If there is an odd number, they get half of the total plus one)

d) If shin (or peh) is facing up, the player adds a game piece to the pot.

If the player is out of pieces, they are either "out" or may ask another player for a "loan".

When one person has won everything, that round of the game is over.