Life with Anders and Kuba

Sunday, June 24, 2018

It's a Family Affair

We've been creative lately. At least I've been pushing on the creativity gene here at home.

We had our first ever group art show!

Each of us made a piece of art for a show with the theme TIME.
We did our ages - and in a sense showed how we each have way more layers over time.

I've also been working on a painting I started a couple of years ago. It's been hanging on our dining room wall. It's so compelling that we've expanded the number of people working on it. Anna and Kuba have both been adding to it - with Kuba exuberantly stating that we should always have a collaborative canvas on the wall that we work on.

Saturday, June 23, 2018

T H E A ! ! !

For almost 4 years we have had a promise.

The promise was to Anders and it was that when he turned 10 we would get a dog.

Anders turned 10

Anders turned 11

Anders turned 12

Anders turned 13

On June 19, 2018 we fulfilled that promise.

Anna moved her office into the barn about a month ago.

We are all on summer vacation.

My mom is in the barn in back.

All signs pointed to NOW.

We have been looking for about a year now...perusing dog rescue sights,

going to the Humane Society, and generally keeping one eye open for our pup.

We found her.

Her name is Thea.

She's cinnamon reddish brown in color, has a black muzzle

and has a very sweet calm temperament.

We aren't even sure what kind of mutt she is.

Part redcoon hound? Part boxer? Part Shepard?

Feel free to guess.

The drive home.

Meeting Grandma.

The Boys and School

The boys got their report cards for the end of 7th and 4th grade and I must confess, I feel so glad that they are such successful students. They like school, they do their work, and they are really nice kids.

Here's what Kuba's classroom teacher had to say:

Kuba has had a wonderful year and made so much progress as a learner. I really have enjoyed having such a kind, smart, and artistic young man in my classroom. He made a huge difference in our school community everyday by just being the kindest most accepting role model I have seen in a long time. In a world filled with hate and destruction your child makes me happy knowing that there are kids who are passionate about being KIND. I have seen him do so many kind things to so many kids I would run out of characters telling you about them all. This is a clear indication he has two amazing parents who value these things at home. I really appreciate both of you and want you to know what an amazing job you are doing. It shows, and it doesn't just show up once a month, or every now and again, it shows up every single day loud and clear without any influence from me. He is an amazing kid and I hope you all have an amazing summer. Mr. T.

And...

Anders ended his second year of middle school with a phenomenal report card.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Annual End of Year Tradition...

One of our favorite family summer haunts is American Flatbread down in Waitsfield. There is a big field out back for kids to run around in, and a big hill to climb. We try every year to round up a bunch of families to head down for pizza and play. We take balls, baseball bats, balloon launchers, etc. This year we managed to pull together five families with a total of 11 kids. When we were leaving, the waitress said in a fun sort of get out of here way, "Don't forget to take your kids...there're 10 of them." There were in fact 10 boys...but the one girl, Zola was sitting with the grown ups and she slipped under the loud kid waitress radar. Yes, the table of ten boys was in fact a bit on the wild side. It was a good thing we were eating at a picnic table out of doors, and they could just get up from the table and...run.