Tag Archives: nephew

Daily Life, Michigan

Lovin’ the Library!

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I haven’t crossed the threshold of a public library in about 10 years. School libraries, sure, but public libraries? They didn’t exist in Istanbul, Shanghai or Vientiane, and I usually borrowed books from friends for summer reading (and eventually bought a kindle). So when rain prevented us from playing in the lake, my sister Kate and I took her boys to the Lake Orion Library. And it was awesome. AWESOME!

Nico and Paul played with the train.

They staged a puppet show.

They checked out the fish.

They goofed around in the big canoe.

And they checked out a bunch of books.

Did you know you can check out up to 100 books? ONE HUNDRED BOOKS!! I helped the boys find some of my favorites: Pete the Cat, That’s Good That’s Bad, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Animalia, Fish is Fish, Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing, and many more! And we read them over and over at my house.

I think I may even check out grown-up books while I’m here.

Daily Life, Michigan

Bomb Pops

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Hanging out on the porch with my sister and Nico, I heard the distant tinkling tune of the neighborhood ice-cream truck.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked my nephew.
“It’s a ice-cweam man,” Nico said.
Then Katy told me the poor kid had NEVER bought a treat from the ice-cream man! We had to remedy that.
We waited at the curb till the truck approached. Nico waved at the driver and jumped up and down with excitement. When the truck stopped, I realized the driver was talking on a cell phone and steering with a cigarette between his fingers. Nice.
Katy, Nico and I checked out the pictures on the side of the truck and debated which ones to buy. Nico and I both chose Bomb Pops, which were significantly bigger than those of my youth.
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Woo hoo!
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Yum!!
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Nico got a little sticky. But it was worth it!
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Daily Life, Michigan

Prolonging Summer

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After six wonderful weeks in our beautiful little house, we spent the last two days traveling back to Laos. Although we return to work on Wednesday, I have decided to remain in a state of denial. So I’ll just post a few more pics from our summer break.

On one of our last days at the lake, Nico played in the sprinkler while his little brother napped. The lure of the sprinkler was too great; he couldn’t be bothered with putting on a swimsuit, so he jumped and splashed in his Fruit ‘O’ the Looms.
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Nico has very big muscles because he eats so much watermelon.
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Daily Life, Michigan

Mall Rats

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The play area at a nearby outlet mall has lots of huge “food” for kids to jump on and hide behind. It’s basically a germ-fest death trap. I often take on the unpopular role of Playground Nazi, confronting oversized kids who blatantly ignore the yardstick-holding cartoon character and bound from big banana to colossal cupcake to humongous hot dog, barreling over the toddlers. Despite my misgivings, the nephews do love this weird place. And so we keep going back.

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