So long Summer Re-CAp and Back to School Eve!

So long summer...... 

 

After the most

 

ACTION

 

packed summer, only 23 hours separate J. from the

 

greatest fun

 

he's had in a three month span of his life.

 

(Danny Mackaskill, a trials bike rider that J. really digs.)

 

Grueling hours behind a hot, dusty mower  paid off.....

 

J. got a new bike. And I said good-bye to my

orange cruiser.

 

 

That bike held a lot of memories riding with my boy!

 

 

It was a little bit hard to let go because, for awhile,  that's how people identified us.

 

"Oh! You're the one with the little boy that rides a bike!"

people would say if we met them for the first time.

 

Becaues that cruiser was so bright and

 hard to miss, it enabled Jaden to ride safely next to me in his early stages of bking. Here he is practicing for what would come four years later.....well, he hasn't gotten upside down yet. hope that doesn't happen for another four years.

 

Here is another plug for Danny MacAskill, he has a new video. The first was On the Way Home which featured him doing all of his street action amongst some landmarks on the way to his home in

Skye.

 

This NEW video is of a young Danny, playing in his bedroom with a bike, and his toys as things to

 

RIDE.

I can't imagine having an

Imagination

 

so

 

BIG

 

 

 

 

 

Red Bull produces an amazing short flickof young Danny in his room, with life sized blocks, train tracks, cards, a jack and ball, and  a tank whose turret the real Danny rides down and dismounts....

 

(he actually falls once in the making of the video J. and I watched and for ten seconds was out cold. He got up, shook it off and went back to "palying". Scary.)

 

This film is

 

EXACTLY

 

 the mind of a young kid! I can see it and re-awaken it when I see J. run wild with a toy motorcycle, bike, skate board in pre-performances or visualizations of themselves doing the same thing!

 

It seems to me that my pretending was very benign of action. But I still dreamt....  

 

J  has seen more adventure this summer because he is older, his skills are getting better, and he's stinkin' lucky. But it has been an unfolding of his dreams.

 

And it is teaching me to start thinking big, too! Sick or no.

 

Seeing all the pictures of his adventures has been a blast. Talking about all the things he did has been like reading a book- he's transported me to those locations.

 

Possibly his new teacher will ask the students this week:

 

"What did you do this summer?"

 

OH! An essay on Adventure! I'd be so excited!

(That's why I'm blogging now.)

 

 J. should have PLENTY to write about. However, I wonder if he will start to day dream.... 

And I don't know if he'll be able to recall everything because it happened so

fast!

 

It feels as if they just got out of school and he brought home a book bag full of crumpled up papers, worn out folders and nubby crayons with their paper peeled off.

  

 

 I wonder if he will draw a "rut map"

like he did for me.

 

 

What is this? Oh, rut lines.

 

Caused by jeeps or four wheelers,

Either way they are part of the path that J rode and part of a post adventure conversation that he told me would take TWO hours to expand upon.

 

In this particular ride

 

he had to "swim" through flour. Which is the very fine form of dirt on the trail that is the equivalent of powder.

 

He misspelled flour at first.( I thought it was so cute. )

 Can you imagine a daisy where he wrote "flower"?

 

sorry, the teacher in me had to correct the cute mis-spelling.

 

 

Here is the mini version of motorcycle he "rode" this summer.

Danny Macaskill style.

 

J. took his new bike to the Tetons.

Mountain biking on the trails next to the Tetons.

 

He flew down the terrain on trails called:

Bronco, Lucky Charm, and Quick Draw. 

 

 

 

 

 It is hiking on steroids.

 

 

 

(they have a full body suit that armours the person if you should fall. or run into a tree. Like J. he walked away unscathed. whew. This guy above, I'm not so sure.) 

 

 

All the beauty we have here in Idaho is so amazing. I enjoyed hiking it as a kid and now my son is getting to know the mountains. Granted in a different way than I expected, but his eyes are seeing some of the grandeur that is in our back yard.....

 

 

(J. and I love this pic. of the Tetons)

 

So the sun has set on another summer!

 

 

I don't know about J. but Jitters and butterflies are stirring in my  stomach today.

If it were me, I would be wondering which outfit to wear to the First dAy

 

back to school.!

  

 His

 

 School supplies are snuggly tucked into his desk, carefully placed by the new student who met his 

 

*NEW*

 

 teacher and room on:

 

 Back to School Night!!

 

While all the kids re-united with friends they have not seen all summer,

 

I wonder if the supplies had a get together too....

 

Like the movie: Night at the Museum (or the Nightmare Before Christmas)

 

What are those supplies up to when kids, teachers, principals and janitors, leave that first night?

 

I am picturing that they are 

climbing out of packages, doing some deep knee bends and psyching themselves and each other up for the new year!

 

Maybe they have a little party, because after school gets into full swing, they will just wanna sleep.

 

Can you see it?-

 

The glue sticks twist their bases so they can have a look around the joint with their arms on their non-existent hips, the cops, of the school supplies. They will be keeping their eyes on the scissors to make sure they don't attack the new collegiate lined paper just yet.

 

The yellow pencils,  freshly sharpened, slide out their cases and start mingling with the others, in a tight, collegiate way. They come across as the most intelligent of the supllies as they are used the most!

 

 

 

Do the Crayola crayons crawl out of their packages, gasping for air because they are

suffocating from their own toxic smell?

 

 

(Does anyone else almost faint by color crayon fumes?

If students wanted to know how to make a teacher pass out, they would only need hold a hanky full of crayons over their nose and Teacher would crumple up on the floor with her super comfy shoes straight up in the air. )

 

Either way, these supplies have not gotten to know their "student" yet !

 

Some of the faint hearted supplies might be trembling, wondering if they will be the ones to lose their eraser heads or be impalled by a nervous student's mucnhing teeth.

 

It's their last few hours to hang out as 'new supplies', ready and expectant for a new year. 

 

While the thought of school supply partying is fun to think about, I have some spider tales to weave!

 

 

After reading up on how to spider proof your home, I have only reached the part where all of the items in J's closet have been removed and it was vacuumed. Some shoes and other items have been put back in, his sports equipment organized into a box for bats, and his different cleats and shoes have their own little pockets in the shoe organizing thingy ma bob.

 

And........

 

These:

 

 

 

 

 

School isn't the only place for GLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

As the name implies I have some CATCH Masters to help me with my spider situation.

If you can't read it, you are not alone. It should read Mouse and Insect Glue Boards.

I was really in a hurry to break them open and didn't focus the cam.

 

My cool friend showed me how to fold along a perforated line .

 

 

before tearing off the sticky layer lying between you and a glue that can stick to your hand and not let go!

 

 

The substance smells almost like popcorn- so don't mistake it for such and put it in the microwave.

But do be careful and fold those lines BEFORE you tear the sheet off because they are buggers to fold into their trap shape.

 

The spiders were really cute when I put them in certain places. Pulled back my white battenberg curtain in the window well, and one spider backed up into a seam of the window so I could properly place the trap.

 

Aren't spiders considerate?

 

After putting one in J's closet- remember those wily characters like dark spaces- I made sure the trap was snug in the slot atop, so he didn't accidentally put on a shoe and find himself walking to school with what could look like toilet paper, stuck to the bottom of his foot.

 

How would you explain that to his friends and new school supplies? 

 

And P.S.

 

when my friend first showed me her traps and what she caught:

 

HOBOS and other "still-alive- spiders" stuck on the popcorn goo, I had to do a double take on the mouse part.

 

Mice stumble onto these traps?

uh, I don't like mice. more than i don't like spiders.

 

So I don't want to go check my traps and find a mouse.

 

OK?

 

As I bent the traps into their positions and decided where the best places to put them would be, I had another spider that wasn't obliged to come into my trap.

 

I walked into the bathroom and went to place the trap when I saw a spider! I put the trap flush with the floor and tried to scooch the tiny guy into my trap.

 

He turned around and went the other way.

 

What the heck?

I know that the some spiders are quite blind and maybe he didn't like me prodding him in the bum.

But he went the other way as if he'd been told about these things.

Finally I scooped him onto the thing and put the trap in its place and hope that it is a the highway they use in there.