Jocelyn is growing up. She’s been attending Walden West day camp all week with good friend Giuliana and her borther Paulo. The camp is definitely a retro-style outdoor summer camp, including the tradition of “nature names” …. Jocelyn is calling herself “Squirrel” this week.

Last night was the weekly sleepover-campout, with the campers sleeping under the stars in big tarps. Karen and I attended the family campfire program, and then heled Jocelyn set-up her sleeping bag. And that was it. As of this morning, she must stillbe there!

It’s been hot this week! Yesterday, we had Kiana over for some backyard waterplay, and today — at the encouragement of the regional air quality district and one of our favorite neighborhood weblogs — we took the bus on a special field trip to the park at San Jose Arena, which includes a merry-go-round. We had a nice time before the day really started cooking.

For your additional amusement: After the park, it was time to head home on the bus. As we were getting ready to board, I asked the girls to give me their drinks, so I could secure them in our backpack. Jocelyn asked me why:

Jocelyn: “Why can’t we take them on the bus?”
Daddy: “We don’t want to spill them and make a mess on the bus.”
Jocelyn: “So if they spill, they’ll spill in the backpack, which is good for two reasons. First, it’s easier to clean a backpack than a bus, and it’s also a lot easier just to get a new backpack than a whole new bus.”

Yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News ran a story on the front page of its business section that tangentially includes Karen’s company, Crossbow Technology, Inc. The story was mostly about how the manufacturers of light aircraft jets are changing aviation. One of the primary sources for the story was Eclipse Aviation, for which Crossbow is a supplier. Also, Karen participated in an Eclispe supplier conference in Albuquerque earlier this month. Enjoy!

Let’s get this out of the way first: Mary Poppins is the absolute best movie ever made, in my opinion. It is my all-time favorite. You can analyze it anyway you’d like, but I think the movie was way ahead of its time for promoting a dad’s role in any family. anyway ….

The soundtrack for Mary Poppins is now in heavy rotation in our car … It’s pretty much all that we are allowed to listen to these days. In addition to being great kid-friendly music, the name is also something Felicia can say very clearly. And her name even appears — briefly — in one of the songs**

Moments after getting into the car, she’ll ask for “Mary Poppins.” But if the current track isn’t a song that features Julie Andrews actually singing, she’ll demand another one … and another one … until we are not only playing the soundtrack, but also listening to a song with Mary’s voice in it. She also likes to declare when any individual vocal soloist is “happy” and actually using their official happy voice. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve reached the naked stage, that well-known era when toddlers get a real kick out of running around the house completely naked. Every parent has been there, right?

When the toddler Jocelyn ran around the house au natural, we called her “a nudie” and had a lot of fun with that nickname. It stuck around long enough to be rekindled with Felicia in the past few weeks … with her own little twist, of course.

We started calling Felicia “a nudie” when she ran around in the buff, and she gets very excited repeating the word. But she pronounces it “nukie,” perhaps combining a few words together in her brain. This new word is also a significant accomplishment, since she hasn’t really mastered the “hard K” sound just yet. This is probably her first word with that new sound.

Jocelyn’s analysis of the goal while we watched Germany defeat Poland, 1-0, with a thrilling goal in stoppage time: “Wow I’m surprised he didn’t kick-off a shoe!”

And, then … “That’s the kind of game you want to watch. Scoreless until the end, and then someone wins.”

This morning, we’re up early to watch the first morning game of the World Cup, Australia v Japan. The USA has its debut later today against the Czech Republic, but the game starts at 9:00 am Pacific Time. Unfortunately, Jocelyn will be in school, and can’t watch the game live.

We’ve talked about watching the game later this afternoon, if she’d like: “I want to watch the game with Daddy talking about it.” I’ll take that as a compliment. Go USA!