Since last writing about Huck’s adventures, he finished fifth grade, traveled to Kansas and St. Louis, and completed three weeks of summer camp wherein he wrote a song, scored a short film, sang lead vocals in a rock band, and designed a web game. On his last day of school what feels like a 100 years ago, I drove across town to witness him and his classmates receive many honors before starting their brief seven week summer. I sat down amongst other proud, tired parents and waited for him to be called to the stage.  When this finally happened, I couldn’t help but notice he did not appear.  Five frantic minutes later I found him happily finishing a volunteer job in his beloved Mrs. Beeks’ classroom: organizing her entire library.  For a kid with a self-diagnosed mild case of OCD, this project took over his life for about a month, and apparently it was worth being late to his own awards ceremony. I basically dragged him by his ear to the cafetorium.

The next weekend, Troy’s dear Grandma Twyford passed away just months before her 95th birthday.  We three headed to Kansas to celebrate her life along with twins Jackson’s and Rylee’s 6th birthdays. At one point during the backyard birthday festivities I noticed Jackson quietly crying because his paper Transformer mask had gotten wet, and when you’re a fresh six year old this is almost tragedy. I’ve never been able to resist a sad child not throwing a fit, and so I became the Laminator, quickly covering his mask with tape while he squatted next to me sniffing every few seconds, amazed at my very humble abilities to save the day.  About 30 minutes later he brought me another boy who needed a laminated mask, and I considered setting up a station.  Hours later we were at a church in a nearby town hugging cousins and aunts and uncles and laughing together at shared and borrowed memories, damp paper masks long forgotten. It was a full circle-of-life weekend.

Then we spent a few days in hot St. Louis with Jeni, Nathan, Noah, Lily, Dan, Michele and special cameo appearances by Michael, Ivy and Julie!  Highlights include Jeni successfully calling the foxes out of hiding at The St. Louis Zoo, the world’s worst pool party thanks to an unadvertised torrential thunderstorm, finding ways to relax at the unbelievable City Museum, watching an 11 year old speak Shakespeare like a pro, and pretty much every other minute. When it was all said and done, Lily said goodbye to her family and rode home with us, where she’s been ever since. While Huck attends GameSalad Game Design camp and wears a nerd t-shirt each day per his teacher’s request (the daily tall socks were his idea), Lily is working hard at Trail Running camp, reminding us that she’s basically her father in the form of an almost 12 year old girl.

So far so good, summer.

Click here for a recording of Rock Band Camp’s song:

\”Radioactive\”