From Cousins

From left to right that’s Eve, Theron, Griffin, Gabrielle, Gavin, Megan, Elise, and Landon.

[ photo set ]

After a few months of Karate, Griffin had the opportunity to test on Friday night and advance from Ninja white belt to gold belt. Kids test up through the colors as Ninjas before gaining admittance to the adult lessons. He did very well, and unequivocally earned the advancement.

We celebrated with late night partying at Chuck E. Cheese.

Saturday morning we braved a blizzard and hit up our first lesson as a gold belt, before returning home and having a great snowed-in day at home together. Over 6 inches fell in our first major storm in ages. Until this weekend, everyone was convinced spring had settled in.

Sunday we got to attend cousin Gabrielle’s baptism (thank you snow blower!), and then spent the afternoon constructing and zipping down a sled run in our yard.

I’m still enthralled with the new Corolla. It’s a pleasure to drive, and the lack of all-wheel drive has been nearly a none-issue.

In the last few weeks Griffin’s begun emerging from his room on his own in the mornings. This is a new development, as the house has been a bit too spooky until now to make a solo start to the day. It’s a joy on weekends to have him sneak on over and pounce on our bed.

A few people tagged me with this on facebook, and I’ve really enjoyed reading their lists.  So:

1. My first job was a paper route.
2. I’ve been a morning person ever since.
3. I once worked as an usher for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
4. When I went to college I wanted to be an architect. The teacher in my first architecture class made us call rulers “personal measuring devices”. I still have a model of the house from that class in our basement. Sometimes I drive around and look at the prairie style houses in the neighborhood where I work.
5. Everyone I knew before 1993 calls me Candy, everyone since then calls me Candace.
6. If I’m alone in the car I’m listening to NPR, either on the radio or I’m listening to podcasts of This American Life. 
7. I get the hiccups every time I eat bread.
8. I love doing my income taxes.
9. My first car was a Mazda Miata that I had for 10 years. I didn’t learn to drive a manual transmission car until after the Miata.
10. I’m working on being able to do a chin-up.
11. Julian and I have freakishly identical handwriting.
12. I read cookbooks from cover to cover.  I have so many cookbooks that even if I never buy another one I couldn’t make all the recipes.
13. I’ve never lived alone.
14. I would write software even if I didn’t get paid to do it.
15. I was vegetarian for 20 years, I’m not now. I would still love to start a vegetarian restaurant in Madison.
16. And a book store.
17. I love the ocean but am terrified of a) sharks and b) tidal waves.
18. I was homesick for years after leaving Wisconsin. Now I’m homesick for California.
19. I can’t remember the multiplication tables above 5. I have to do the math in my head. 7 * 8 = (7 * 10) – (7 * 2). I didn’t memorize this in the third grade and can’t seem to memorize it now.
20. I have three younger sisters.
21. I feel responsible for everything.
22. I was lucky enough to travel when I was younger. Roughly in order to Mexico, Israel, England, Germany, France, Costa Rica, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and China. I really, really want to go to India.
23. I just learned that I really like perfume.
24. I had no idea how hard it would be to raise a kid.
25. I had no idea how great it would be to raise a kid.

Currently on infinite repeat on the way to preschool: