The Adventures Begin

Yet another day of beginnings and endings in the Anderson household today.  Ben walked a little 5K boy to the bus stop this morning and I picked up a first-grader this afternoon.  Starting in the fall, we will have a full-fledged elementary school student in our midst complete with homework, no more nap and all that a more heavily academic school day brings.  Sam will follow John to Milwaukee German Immersion in the fall as well.  Time for me to start learning some German....sprechen zie Deutsch?

As John joins the ranks of those at home for the summer, Ben departed for Europe this afternoon.  10 days, 3 or 4 countries, and yet another trip with high school students.  Since I will be the lone parent for several days and Ben will be surrounded by high schoolers in a foreign lands, perhaps I should take wagers on which of us will lose our sanity first.  About eight hours into our little adventure, I am holding my own.  I wish it wouldn't be so light out so late; it's harder to convince the boys to go to bed when the sun is still in the sky.  Not to worry, the calvary arrives tomorrow in the form of my parents.

And so I close with a photo of the boys and I playing in their world upstairs.  Although the photo is now a month or two old, their favorite activities haven't changed much - Legos and trucks and planes and animals.  John, the photographer, likes to build planes from Legos.  Andrew loves his animals and getting in his older brothers' way.  Sam loves moving Lego pieces about the table with his other trucks.  Today he was loading the "trash" into trucks in Paris (France, not Texas).