fishing

Saturday Joachim had his first fishing adventure. Inspired by Kassia, who pointed out that kids don't need a license, I bought Joachim the cheapest of the fishing gear I could find. I figured there would be no question exactly who was fishing with a 3 foot green and yellow SpongeBob SquarePants pole.

My brother and I used to fish in a pond where we would catch sunfish as fast as we could bait our hooks and get them back in the water. We'd compete to see who could catch the most fish in a set time. The limiting factor was how long it took to unhook the fish and re-bait the hook. If the fish swallowed the hook you lost a lot of time. We could even catch fish on open safety pins tied to a stick, so I don't have a very accurate take on fishing.

Fortunately Ben knows how to attach all the fishing accouterments and got Joachim off to a good start and all considered I think Joachim did pretty well. He needed help casting, but reeling in was no problem, he'd even wait a few moments to see if the bobbin moved (a very few moments).
Best of all they actually caught fish, 4 fish to be exact. Once we found the magic spot it was almost like when my brother and I fished. We know where to start next time (Kassia, we'll have to go fishing with the boys).

Ben and I were really getting into it, but after a few fish Joachim became more interested in throwing rocks in the water. Now Ben and I have the fishing bug, so maybe I'll look into licenses for us.

poc-a-dool (popsicle)

freezer paper prints

A couple of years ago a friend posted a link to a freezer paper stencil tutorial. We've made many of them over the months because they make great personalized gifts, but we've only made a few for ourselves. I'm particularly proud of the tractor Ben recently did for Joachim (I did the bear for Ben last Christmas).

happy birthday

Much to Joachim's delight we had two "happy birthdays" at the end of may. Here Joachim is helping me blow my candles out. It was so much fun that Grandma was inspired to put her years of candles on her cake a week later.

Lighting her candle was a bit more challenging because of all the help, but finally it was lit and Grandma got to do the honors.
Now Joachim puts crayons in his play-dough cakes and repeatedly requests the Happy Birthday song at the end of which he blows out his "candles."

photo gallery

We visited the paint your own pottery shop with our friends a while ago... something Corey and I will do again sans kids.
Joachim's new garden gloves.
My boy and his truck, recently he's been asking to snuggle with his truck rather than one of his many furier buddies, as long as he sleeps I don't really care.

Poco a Poco

This phrase headlined Matt's blog for so many months that I began to wonder if he was stranded in Guatemala. After a while I started to appreciate the message. In Swahili they have the same phrase "pole, pole" (polee-polee). I think I liked the determined look on this turtle's face.

Swimming lessons

For over a year now I've been teaching Justin and Jacob swimming lessons a couple times a month as part of their homeschool curriculum. It's overall been a great opportunity where I get to spend time with my nephews and see them grow and learn. When we first started they wouldn't even get their faces wet to blow bubbles, but a few weeks ago we had a major breakthrough when they both braved the diving board.

Jacob has the most amusing jump, it starts with the superman pose, then he looks like he's going to belly-flop and at the last minute he swings his feet and hands forward in a feet first "dive".
Above Jacob demonstrates his twist. Justin has his own style, he's a little more cautious with a little less form, but just as enthusiastic. I'm very proud of them.

jacob dives

We're still working on this one.

Jacob jumps

calling India

We’ve recently had the opportunity to call India several times.

If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend watching the movie "Outsourced." It shed light on our nation’s customer support relationship with India and put humanity into those very frustrating calls for help to someone who doesn’t seem to speak the same language.

Since watching the movie I’ve appreciated listening to Ben’s side of his calls, which includes the casual question about where the person is, what time it is there and what is the weather like. I like this about Ben, he IS genuinely interested in the other person and it’s usually a friendly upbeat interaction.

His last call struck a chord that sticks with me. We got a new credit card and Ben wanted to verify the benefits of the card. She kept repeating the information she had (not her fault it was wrong), and even conferred with someone else in the office, it was getting frustrating. A little exasperated Ben broke in with his, “Where are you located?”

She flatly replied, “India” and clearly felt hurt, he didn’t mean it insultingly, but I think it came across that way. Her response reminded me of her humanness and my connection to her as I realized how that conversation must have felt. I can’t believe how easy it is to forget how we are all connected with feelings and emotions.

Ben thanked her for her help and hung up. We found another number that got him to someone in the Midwest who had the same information as in our paper work and a better understanding of how the card worked. I think it was really a limitation of her training that she wasn’t able to help us. We each said a prayer for her and I hope she forgives us for our misunderstanding.

On another amusing note, I once had to call E-Surance a couple of times and one time I got a person with a very thick accent. When I called back later and got an English speaker, I said, "Boy, I’m glad to get you, last time I got someone in India who barely spoke English," he laughed and said, “Oh it must be so-and-so, we only have one office here in California.” How embarrassing.