Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Jaguars, oh my

(this post was written last week, mid December)

"I want my Ferrari, daddy...  I want my Ferrari...  I want my Ferrari, daddy..."

That is what we listened to last night while we waited for Calvin to fall asleep.  Over and over, Calvin pleaded quietly for his daddy to bring him his other matchbox Ferrari car.  (He has a matching set of two yellow Ferraris, one of which was already tucked into bed with Calvin along with his stuffed frog, hippo, and giraffe).  We listened to this pleading for a few minutes, chuckling to ourselves, and then Bryan went up to settle Calvin down again for bed, without the second car. 

Then today at the store, while looking for "prizes" for potty training successes (more on this later), Calvin pointed to what looked to me to be a random toy car and said "That's a Lamborghini.  I want that."  I'm sure you do, kiddo.  Mommy, who evidently knows less about cars than a two and a half year old, had to read the side of the box to figure out that he was right.

Calvin has many matchbox cars now, and they are easily his go-to favorite on any given day.  Calvin loves books and puzzles and music and trains and firetrucks and all sorts of other toys.  But his must-have toy at a restaurant, on vacation, or just around the house is a matchbox car.  When visiting other friend's houses, he makes a bee-line for the cars (and if he knows they have some but he can't find them, he'll ask for them).  Bryan has been doing his best to make sure there are some "good" cars mixed in with all the random pretend ones.  So now Calvin has a small collection of Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Jaguars.  He can (usually) identify which is which, and even distinguish between an Enzo and other types of Ferraris.  And when Calvin's daddy handed him a strange kind of Lamborghini that looks different from the others, Calvin laughed and said "that's not a Lamborghini!".  When Bryan insisted it was, he looked at it carefully, from the front and the sides and back, verifying that it doesn't look like all the other Lamborghinis and said again, "(ha ha) no, that's not a Lamborghini."  Silly daddy. 

The other day my battery was dead.  This was no doubt a result of me allowing Calvin to play in the front seat of my car the previous evening (turned off and with the emergency break engaged, of course) while I unloaded groceries and gear from a day of work, daycare, and errands.  As Bryan and I scrambled that morning to jump my car with Bryan's battery, get Calvin ready for school, and ourselves out the door on time, Calvin was insistent that he needed to "fix mommy's car".  He loved looking at the engines with the hoods open, confident that he knew what needed to be done.

One of these days, kiddo, I'm sure you will. 

Christmas Concert

Calvin's school had a holiday concert last week in which he and his classmates sang two songs, Skinamarinkadink and Jingle Bells.  Some of the kids from each of the three kindergarten classes "hosted" the concert and are seen sitting in the chairs on the stage.  They were so cute as they welcomed the parents and introduced each class. 

The first video takes a few minutes to get going as each of the kids in the toddler room file in and find a seat on the font of the stage.  Calvin is sitting in the middle in the red sweater.  Sorry about the shaky video - I was holding the camera above my head and checking every once in a while that it was pointed in the right direction.

In the second video, Calvin is so distracted with this set of bells that he misses the first half of the song.  But then he wakes up and joins in. 

It was so cute to see him up there.  I'm pretty sure I would have been one of the kids sitting there in shocked silence, frozen until clapping finally broke the spell.  Good job, Calvin, we're proud of you!  

Summer Vacation to Rehoboth Beach

Earlier this summer we took a vacation to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

We rented a house a block and a half from the beach for a week with a few other couples and had a great time!  The house had a large screened-in front porch that we spent many mornings and nights on, relaxing with a cup of coffee while the kids played with their cars and race tracks or gathering around in the evening for drinks, conversation, and sometimes a game.
 
We all enjoyed the beach, including Calvin.  Though instead of relaxing or building sandcastles or splashing in the water, he preferred to wander off in any direction so long as he was headed toward more sand.

Calvin would then occasionally stop to lay down on the soft sandy ground, and then roll, dig, build, destroy, and walk some more.

 

Moving in closer to the water and waves was definitely not okay - too scary!  Even with both of us holding his hand, or holding him in our arms, he would not get back in the water after that first "big" wave came crashing up to his knees. 

And of course, when it was picture time, he didn't want to cooperate in any way.  But we managed to sneak in some great family pictures anyway.

 

This east-coast beach town also had a boardwalk, which was fun to explore, and we spent many afternoons in the Funland arcade.  Calvin loved all of the rides, and rode them over and over and over.  Bryan and I each won several stuffed animals with random old fashioned games.  And any tickets we won went to the 6-year-old in our group, who collected hundreds of tickets that were traded in for some cool prizes.

 

  

 

 

 

The group of friends we went with divided up responsibilities for many of the meals, each taking one dinner and one lunch and all of us contributing to a fabulous brunch.  Everyone's meals were so fantastic, we ate way better than if we had gone out to eat every night.  All in all, this was a great summer vacation.

Rides and Rollercoasters

Last June we went to Dutch Wonderland in Pennsylvania for a weekend vacation with some friends.  Dutch Wonderland is a park geared toward little kids, toddler to 7 or 8 years old, so it was perfect for our group.  This was Calvin's first experience at an amusement park, his first chance to ride the rides, his first thrilling experience on a roller coaster, and he couldn't get enough.  

We stayed at a nearby hotel that had an impressive swimming pool/water park, which the kids loved.  Calvin instantly got over any previous timidness with the water, and walked right into baby wading pools, spraying towers of water, and, eventually and with our help, the big pool.

The next morning it was off to the amusement park. 

The entrance to Dutch Wonderland in Pennsylvania.

With a look of seriousness and a bit of shock, followed by a short pause and then "again! again!" and some tears when we had to actually get off the spinning, twirling, dizzying, mommys-gonna-get-sick, ride to get back in line, Calvin officially became a fan of amusement parks.  We rode nearly every ride he was tall enough to get on, which was more than some kids his age. 

Getting ready to start his first amusement park ride, the Turtle Whirl.  So much fun!

Calvin was tall enough to make it into the second-to-smallest category, which opened up many more rides to him.

 We rode the Turtle-Whirl, the Off-Road Rally, Duke's Dozers, some bears circling a honeypot ride, a painfully slow boat ride down a non-moving "river", the Joust rollercoaster, the Fun Slide, the Wonderland Train, and much much more.

 

 

Walking down the ramp with a big smile after his first rollercoaster ride.

Calvin was so tired after a long day at the park, but he couldn't leave without riding the train.

By the time we left, Calvin was exhausted!  He was sound asleep in his carseat before we even left the parking lot.  It was a fun day, a great weekend trip, and so much fun seeing Calvin experience his first amusement park and rides. 

That's one tired kid!

Calvin and Morty - sound asleep in the car before we even left the parking lot.

Halloween Monsters

We had a scary monster at our house for Halloween.  Although, if you asked Calvin, he would say it was a friendly monster.  Out little blue monster with a big yellow tummy would run around saying "I'm gonna get you!" and then tickle his victims in a painful pinching sort of way. 

Calvin gives his best monster "grrr" on the front door step before trick or treating.

He tried out the monster costume one evening a few weeks before Halloween and did a good job of not spilling his soup. A monsters gotta eat.

Halloween was "pumpkin time!", which pretty accurately describes my attempts at decorating inside the house.  And we did have a pretty good set of carved pumpkins this year.   

Bryan carved the space shuttle, I carved the tree, and I helped Calvin with the scary face, which he picked from a list of carved pumpkins on google images.

Trick or treating was one of the highlights of pumpkin time (as it should be!) and Calvin got the hang of it pretty fast.  I took him for the first round of houses while Bryan stayed home to greet the many trick or treaters pouring down our street, then we switched and Bryan went out with Calvin while I stayed home and fed sugar to the constant stream of costumed children.  Halloween is a big deal on our street.

Calvin's off, ready to start trick or treating.

Monster Cavlin's Halloween loot.  Time to start rationing!

Bryan and I joined in the fun as a Monster family.

Super Storm Sandy

Super Storm Sandy (written a week ago):

Fortunately, we did not have as hard of a time with Hurricane Sandy as New York and many other states did, though for a while predictions were pretty serious for us in Northern Virginia too.  The concern for us wasn't so much storm surge and flooding from the ocean but lots of rain and wind as the hurricane collided with the other storms heading our way, with the strong winds from the hurricane carrying the rain down, concentrating right on top of us.  We were warned about flooding, damaging winds, and loosing power.  And with the local power company's reputation, that meant widespread power loss and for long periods of time.  Everyone made preparations.  People stocked up on water and non-perishible food, filled their gas tanks, found their flashlights; stores ran out of batteries. 


Everything shut down on Monday and Tuesday for the storm, and everyone was encouraged to stay off the roads if at all possible.  The metro was closed, all government offices closed, schools closed.  Monday started with some drizzle and an occasional small gust of wind, but by the afternoon it had increased to a significant storm.  By evening the lights were flickering, rain was pouring down in sheets, and the wind howled and slammed against our house.  We lost power Monday evening about half way through dinner - we felt lucky that we were able to finish cooking dinner.  I was shocked when our power came back on around 10pm because I can only assume that it meant that some poor power worker had gone out into the storm to fix whatever broke.  I was very, very thankful though.  Lots of our co-workers were not so lucky and went without power for much of the rest of that week.

By Tuesday morning, the storm had pretty much moved on and we were left with a wet, calm, work-free day.  So while flood waters receded and some power was restored to those still without, we enjoyed an unexpected family day at home.

A co-worker of mine sent this picture on Tuesday showing the flooding on the driveway to the high school where I teach.  The small river that normally flows only a few inches deep at best within banks that drop a few feet below the flood plain about 20 or so yards from the driveway had flooded so much that it covered the 3.5 to 4 foot fence that borders the road.  That was an impressive amount of water.

The driveway to Middleburg Academy flooded during Hurricane Sandy.

By the time I returned to work on Thursday (being part time, I didn't have to work on Wednesday, which was a Monday schedule due to the storm), the water was gone and most of the debris had been removed from the road and grass, though the fence was still covered in leaves and branches.

As I write this, another winter storm heads its way to New York and other states already hit hard by Hurricane Sandy.  I worry how they will get through it.  I am reminded again how lucky we were to have missed the worst of the fall storms this year.

It has been a while...

Wow, time flies fast.  It has been way too long since I last posted an update.  We've been very busy in the Hoke household, and distracted with other things, so blogging was put on the back burner for a while.  But now I'm returning to our blog, ready and excited to post many updates and pictures, so please stay tuned.

Some new developments for me include starting a job at a local private high school (Middleburg Academy).  This small college-prep school is about a half hour drive west of where we live, opposite of heavy traffic, through rural roads and cute little towns filled with history and old storefronts and rock walls bordering rolling pastures and old trees.  I'm only working part time, which gives me time to prepare and grade during the two days I don't go in to teach.  I had hoped that I would be able to keep Calvin home on my days off, and I do occasionally.  But for the most part, I use that time to do my "homework" so I don't end up having to spend my evenings or weekends preparing for my classes.  I'm teaching a freshman Earth Science class and two senior Forensic Science classes.  They are all a lot of fun and a great deal of work, and I'm learning a ton about teaching at the high school level.  I also have an adjunct teaching position (part time) with a local small college that will begin in January, assuming scheduling works out with my high school job.

With me back to work, Calvin started preschool/daycare in September at a nearby Montessori school.  He loves it, which is a huge relief for us.  When he started, he walked in like he belonged there, barely giving Bryan a backward glance and a "bye, dad".  I suppose we had built up excitement about starting "school" with him and made many visits to the school before his first day, so I'm sure that helped his comfort level.  But I think having been in a Montessori daycare previously made this one seem more familiar and comfortable.  And it is such a great school, it is hard not to feel comfortable there. 

Calvin (front row, 2nd from right) and his class at his preschool/daycare.

CU Graduation

A couple of months ago Bryan and I flew back to Colorado for my graduation from the University of Colorado.  We left Calvin in Virginia with some friends who generously offered to watch him while we were gone.  It was a great trip back to Boulder with lots of friends, plenty of nostalgia, and some needed closure.

My good friend Lisa and I are reunited before the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences Department graduation ceremony.  Her graduation ceremony with the Geological Sciences Department was the next morning, so we were able to attend each others PhD hooding. 

I'm ready!

Fellow APS graduate, officemate, and friend, Bonnie, and I pose in our floppy caps, waiting for the ceremony to begin.  The ceremony was held in the Fiske Planetarium on campus and included undergraduate and graduate students in our department.

The pre-ceremony slide show listed the graduating PhD students in the APS department.  There were lots of very cool research topics, some more succinctly summarized than mine. 

This is a very grainy picture of my advisor, Dr. Brian Hynek (on the right) talking about my research just before he put my hood (collar that hangs down the back) on accidentally upside down.  He had a lot of nice things to say about me and my research, after which I was able to say a few words - it was nice to be able to thank everyone who played an important role in my graduate experience.  I'm standing on the left, and other APS faculty are in the background.

After the hooding ceremony, we took lots and lots of pictures.  Brian Hynek and I pose for a few (my hat is way better)

My good friend Addie and I celebrate after the APS graduation ceremony.

Bonnie, Addie, Raina (who graduated a few semesters ago), and I pose for more pictures.  My cheeks hurt from smiling so much.  It was a great feeling!

There was definitely champagne in my glass that evening!  After the APS graduation ceremony, we moved on to downtown boulder and celebrated at the historic Hotel Boulderado with happy hour at The Corner Cafe and a delicious dinner at Q's Restaurant.