Happy Birthday, Justin!

Today Justin is 8 years old! He got to choose what he wanted for breakfast—waffles.
He opened one of his gifts, a game for his DS, World of Zoo, and started playing. Soon he came over to tell me about their misleading advertising, which was: feed goodies to gators, make playgrounds for penguins, play with pandas, make mayhem with monkeys, and create your own zoo. We sat together and started figuring it out. In a few minutes he was smiling and playing. A few minutes later he said, “This is the best game ever.”

Grant gave him a silver chain he’d won in a crane game.

Jim and Sandie gave him a talking Star Wars card and a Wimpy Kid book.

He got cards and telephone calls full of birthday wishes.

We went to Go Paint and made ceramics. Justin smiled some more.

Then we went to Taco Bell for lunch and cinnamon twists. Yep, more smiling.

Tonight Justin chose Chili’s for dinner. He had a corny dog and mandarin oranges. When they brought out the chocolate molten cake a group of wait staff sang to him and gave him a coupon to come back for a free meal. He smiled ear to ear.

When Tad kissed the boys goodnight Justin said, “I had a good birthday.”

Mule Deer

We’ve seen the mule deer often this week. Here a buck is scratching his antlers against the dead branches of a bush and digging a hole. We couldn’t decide if the hole was the result of scratching his antlers, or if he was trying to dig.

One morning after I’d put birdseed out for the birds this buck appeared. He kept pushing the feeder with his nose until he figured out how to tip it enough for seed to fall out into his mouth. Several Stellar’s Jays, a rabbit, and two chipmunks searched the ground around the deer picking up the seeds that fell.

Another deer showed up and stared up at Tad as if to ask for more.

Our Heroes

At the boys’ school they had a Heroes Wall outside of the cafeteria for Veterans’ Day. Kids posted information about the person they knew in the service and then the second grade decorated around the pictures with eagles. Justin’s eagle looked regal.

Grant wrote about cousin Jim. Jim was in the Navy, went to Vietnam on the carrier USS Ranger and was assigned to Attack Squadron 155. He flew an A-4F Skyhawk from the carrier on missions to drop bombs in Vietnam. Jim was an Ensign when he joined the squadron and had acquired the rank of Lieutenant by the time he left the service. One fact we all thought unbelievable was his original training was to fly at 100 feet at 360 MPH using only a map—that takes focus!

Justin wrote about Granddaddy Howard. He was a photographer in World War I. He took pictures on bi-planes on the ground with people walking on the wings while smiling. Then he edited the photo so it looked like the plane was flying; very good advertisement for the Army. When Granddad was in the service he was stationed at Fort Dick, which was part of the Fair Grounds. He met Grandma while he was hitchhiking from base