Our Lovely Life: Family Recap

I had to take a brief blog hiatus to get caught up on the homefront. Here's what we've been up to:

Justin:
Justin's giving a final to his grad students at Iliff this week and then has a break until January. His Augustine Institute class finishes up sometime in early December. I'm getting reports from him on how many lifts are open up at Winter Park, so I think he's also getting anxious to hit the slopes. Justin also recently discovered that one of Morgan's assistant preschool teachers is wife to one of his colleagues at school. He's an Imam in Denver and in the same PhD program as Justin, with a different concentration since he does a lot of work on Christian-Muslim-Jewish dialogues and relationships. Small world!

Jacoby:
Jacoby's class is studying the letter F, so they took the bus to visit a fire station in Boulder today. I should also mention that the preschool had a real-life evacuation last week when the cook smelled burning in one of the walls. Three fire trucks, 1 ambulance, and 1 police car later, the kids were let back in to carry on with their day (a faulty wire was discovered and repaired). When I asked them what exciting thing happened to them that day, Jacoby reported that Miss Amy came (the music teacher). So, I guess when it comes to fire trucks or music, music is winning these days. Jacoby is also having fun in swimming lessons and is a pro at getting his ski boots and skis on all by himself. He has a 3-hour evaluation at Children's Hospital tomorrow with the allergist, gastroenterologist, and nutritionist. I am guessing that more allergy testing and another endoscopy are in his near future. Jacoby came down with pneumonia last week and has recovered fine, but he's had allergic reactions to 2 antibiotics which is a little unsettling. He's talking a lot about kindergarten and has several interesting theories on what goes down in elementary school. Justin and I start open houses at the schools in a few weeks and will finally start to get a better sense of what our options are.

Me:
My second trip to Hawaii was lovely, and the board meeting went about as smoothly as I could have hoped. I really enjoy hanging out with (most of) my colleagues outside of work, so we had a great time and may have enjoyed a fruity drink (or two) beside the beach. A highlight for me was seeing sea turtles in the bay, but my boys thought me getting bit by a tiger shark would have been much more exciting. Sheesh! I am SO glad to have the meeting behind me and am now playing catch-up at work and at home. I'm also doing some planning for the holidays since we're hosting next week and in December. And I've also started converting our blog into a book--it will be a great family memoir for us and something I hope to do annually to have a written and pictorial record of life here on the funny farm.

Morgan:
Morgan is hugely into music right now. He beats on everything, organizes parades and marching bands at preschool, and tries his best to dance like the Polynesian dancers he sees in a cool DVD I brought back from Hawaii. We met with his teachers last week, and they have nothing but love for this little boy which warms my heart. He's also doing great with potty training, and I'm hopeful that the end of the diaper era is coming soon. Morgan is in the same swimming class with Jacoby, so he's thrilled to be getting in the water with his brother. I don't think they're going to learn any stellar swimming skills in this class, but at least they're getting used to the water and comfortable with a teacher. Morgan is very proud of his ski boots and skis, and he asks us several times a week when we're going to go skiing. We're trying out a new strategy this year and are hopeful that we'll have a great time.

That's about all of our news for now. Here are a few pics: