To Josh From Jon

Dear Josh,

This is Jon's mom. He wrote you this letter. Let me read it to you:

Dear Josh you
are a big fat idiot you
are ugly you are a
big fat pickle you are
such a weirdo
you make me a weirdo


I am sorry Jon called you ugly and fat, but you really are an idiot and a pickle. Sometimes the truth hurts. Like this note. I'm not happy that Jon wrote it, but let's face facts--you are a weirdo, and you are making Jon a weirdo too. So stop it. And stop picking on my boy. Or else I will come and make this really mean eyebrow face at you, just like in the picture. And don't think I can't. I can glower like nobody's business.

From,

Jon's mom

Art School: Days 3 and 4, sort of

Well, Art School this week has taken a while to get going, what with Monday and Tuesday being dominated by our trip into the wilds near Sedalia, and stuff. Yesterday we really did do an Art School project, but it hasn't been fully actualized yet--and so I'm only going to give you a few hints about it. (Hopefully it doesn't end up looking like junk.)

Since we are getting close to my favorite holiday, Halloween, yesterday we made a series of silhouettes suitable for the occasion. After printing up some cat silhouettes from the Internet, we used enamel paints to paint over the cat outlines onto glass panels removed from picture frames. I was able to get 3 black frames at JoAnn's for $15 total. I was hoping for a project that involved lots of messy paint for the children to smear around, and this craft did not disappoint.

Note: Calvin reluctantly participated in this craft, but painted his cat in a flash. He left before I could take his picture and was back up the street at Spencer's house playing the new Batman Lego video game (clearly Spencer is blessed with parents who love him more than we love our Calvin.)

And after I told him not to make a mess with that paint.

Josie's cat.

And then today: We made salt dough ghosts. They are baking now and tomorrow we will paint them. Does this project sound like kind of a cop-out? Because I was hoping it wouldn't be that obvious. Jon finished his lump of dough in about 5 minutes and was off to watch Drake and Josh. Conversely, Tommy is still carting around the wad of dough I gave him 2 hours ago. I found the most difficult (and surprising!) aspect of this project to be the challenge of creating ghosts that didn't suspiciously resemble p-h-a-l-l-i-c tribal art.

Tommy's work, entitled "Rock".

A sheet full of ghosts, and Tommy (again) tasting the salt dough. He said it was spicy.

Tomorrow is the last day of Off Track and Art School!

Outdoor Ed: It's Baaaaack!

Ah, just when you thought it was safe to check back at the Monkey Blog (safe from hearing Julie whine about Outdoor Ed, a project that she plans and executes HERSELF) here is another installment of "Stuff we did outdoors". And buckle up, kids, this one is the granddaddy of them all:

The Konchars go camping for no reason whatsoever

Well, to be fair to us Konchars--not for no reason. There is a very compelling reason, an undeniable, forceful, complainy reason, and her name is Josie. If you remember back to the month of May when Pie and the boys went off to Father and Sons campout, you must recall that Josie was forced to stay home with me and Tommy and eat out and go get ice cream and watch a movie and make bead necklaces. Not letting her camp left her so emotionally wounded we knew that if we were ever going to go a full week in the coming year without tears for her "lost" campout, we would have to go camping as a family to make up for that injurious treatment. So what I mean by we went camping for no reason is that nobody planned an event that we were expected to attend. We came up with this little idea all on our own. And somehow that makes it worse.

Wearing our best camping clothes and this 'do rag, we set off for Deckers, about an hour away. The campground write-up I read on line gave a very favorable, if unintentionally diverting description of the camp location. Of particular note: The reviewer insisted that if we camped at Deckers we would run into many people from the Sedalia area. Sedalia is just your average rural town on the way to Deckers. I think we were all disheartened to realize at the end of our camping trip that we had in fact, met no one from the Sedalia area. In fact, we met no one from anywhere. At least 10 campsites, plus the bathroom--all to ourselves!

We picked up a bucket of chicken on our way out of town so it was nice and room temperature by the time we got to the site, unloaded the car and set up the tent. Here are the boys looking for people to greet from Sedalia.

Unloading the car.

Our little slice of camp heaven, once we got the tent up.

After dinner, Tommy lashing himself to the tent.

Truly the stinkiest, smokiest campfire in memory.

Even though it isn't really obvious in this picture, the children are all incredibly dirty at this point. I like to think that the fried chicken dinner really gave us a head start on acquiring a decent layer of greasy camp filth.

We roasted marshmallows, of course, and made s'mores. We had Family Night around the campfire and afterwards Jon gave us another edifying lecture in his ongoing series, this one entitled "The Native Americans Rubbed Two Sticks Together to Make Fire to Roast Their Marshmallows and Hot Dogs." Then it was off to the tent to step on all the pillows and sleeping bags and then our new family tradition: Facilitating Hurt Feelings and General Loss of Composure Through the Playing of Old Maid, Crazy 8's, War and Go Fish as a Family. By 10:30 we put out the lights and ignored the children, our little camping recipe for encouraging sleep. Oh, we got them to sleep easy enough, but keeping them asleep proved to be the trick. Because it got DANG COLD in our tent and the kids pretty much froze. By 4:30 I finally put two kids in each sleeping bag, Tommy into my own and everybody settled down. But make no mistake--I did not actually sleep at all last night. Cold, hard, loud, needing to pee. I don't know why I don't camp more often. About this picture of the Platte River that wound it's way past our campsite: That is steam coming up off the water. As I mentioned, Dang Cold.

Another stinky campfire, but well appreciated by all. Everything was nicely covered in frost when we woke up.

Sometimes Tommy misplaced his own pockets, so he would help himself to the pockets of others.

Jon, making up more stuff regarding the Native Americans.

Tommy, and this hot guy I like. (Although he was quite cold at the time. Shorts.)

More river.

Scrambling over rocky precipices. The closest we got to a hike.

Sid barefoot. I washed my hands of his feet. Hope he likes pneumonia.

Collecting important soil samples.

Sewing a crop of plastic spoons.

Look! There is Sid. He hates being mentioned on this blog. I cannot blame him, so I am forced to put up all these pictures of him without his permission.

Question: Is this what you would give your seven year old who asked you to use your pocket knife to whittle him a "sharp stick"? And would you repeatedly and futilely insist, in your pathetic defense, "The stick really isn't that sharp, Julie"?

8:00 am and the child is spent. Must have been tired from all that shivering.

Ah, the reason we are all here. Oddly enough, I don't think Josie enjoyed camping all that much. I'm guessing we won't be hearing about her desire to camp again any time soon. So for that reason alone, my exhausting and filth-producing plan for our final Outdoor Ed experience really paid off. For some reason this picture reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake.

Note: This activity was supposed to be the crowning event of last week's Outdoor Ed. But due to Pie being unable to make it work with his schedule last week, we moved it to the beginning of this week. Art School, I haven't forgotten you!

Outdoor Ed: Day 5

They say all good things must come to an end, and let me tell you I was really banking on that because Outdoor Ed pretty much kicked my trash. The kids loved it though, and that--in addition to me getting all those "good mommy" credits--is really what counts, right? I mean, I DID get credit, right? I actually didn't hate it all the time and it was fun to watch my kids monkey around. And most days there were cookies involved. But still, I think all that fresh air and sunshine made me feel weird.

Here we are arriving at yet another park, Sweetwater Park. It is in Lone Tree and very close to my mom's house, which will factor in the story later. We brought white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. They were delicious.

We got right to work, after eating all the cookies.

A rare Calvin-only picture. Calvin is a really sweet, good-natured boy. Which probably explains why there aren't a lot of Calvin pictures/posts. Sad but true. Are these awesome ears or what? They positively glow in the sunlight. And the best part? Calvin loves them. Really! He does.

The obligatory Monkey Up A Tree picture.

We were only at the park a little while when two of my children came and told me they needed to use the bathroom. You know, sitting down. So we all left the park and trotted off to my mom's house to use her bathroom. I was really thrilled at this development. And how fun for my mom, too.

Here is the "open space" that leads to my mom's back yard gate. You can't see Tommy, but he is right in front of Jos. Immediately after I took this picture, Tommy fell--he literally bit the dust. That livened things up a bit.

Both palms, a knee and a lip. Warning: these pictures become more graphic.

Blood dripping down his chin and his mouth is still full of "trail".

Please note Jon's water shoes. He couldn't find his regular shoes in the two hours we took to prepare to leave our house. Jon has way too much self awareness at this age, so he understood just how stupid these shoes looked. Poor Jon. Maybe now he will make shoe cognizance a bigger priority.

Peeking through Nana and Papa's fence.

My mom has a long-standing reputation in our family for trying to turn the conversation to "The Weather" whenever she can. She is especially fascinated by clouds. Colorado is a good place to live if you are into what is going on in the sky above you, but personally I think moving here has only added to her fixation. The problem? Now that I blog I can see that I'm doing it too. Does this disturb me? YES. But just look at this thunderhead that we saw yesterday! I'm guessing someplace in Aurora got hail yesterday. What do you think, Mom?

Oh, the humanity!

Monkey.

Jon found a playmate. What a surprise to us all.

This was a delightful discovery for me. We were about to leave the park at the end of our fun, and I noticed tucked behind some trees.......a potty. Oh well wasn't it enjoyable, kids, to walk all the way up the dusty trail to Nana's house, bleeding and sad, to use her potty instead?

This party is over.

Heading back to the great indoors. Goodbye, Outdoor Ed. I tolerated you while it lasted!

Outdoor Ed: Day 4

I was thinking yesterday that I should really up my outdoor ed game and take the kids to the rec center. We have four of them in Highlands Ranch and each of them are free. (That is, if you consider paying an HOA fee of $120 per quarter "free" which I do, because I don't have to pony up any visible cash when I visit these centers of rec.) There is a fifth local rec center, but it is not free. Because of this we all consider it to be the "most desirable" and the "most fun"and therefore yesterday when I was planning our outing I immediately decided to treat ourselves to all the joy that a $10 entrance fee implies.

The Lone Tree Rec Center, the place where we hoped all our dreams would come true:

I think this giant slide has something to do with the rec center's appeal:

This somewhat-smaller-yet-menacing Octopus slide (you slide out the back) is a fine example of the kind of work a designer who hates all children produces. Who could predict that a giant octopus straddling atop a slide could possibly frighten young people? A note: This is how crowded the pool was. We were the only family there. There were also three unexplained men in the hot tub.

Immediately upon entering, my three middles raced off to slide down the gigantic slide. Wouldn't you? Tommy felt the same way but was denied on the basis that he was "a foot too short". This began a chain of events wherein he yelled and cried and sulked and I acted like I didn't mind a bit. It was fun. He was loud. But I learned years ago to forget being embarrassed and shamed by my kids' behavior. They are their own, angry little people! I cannot he held responsible for their feelings. So instead I focused my shame where it belonged: On my body in my swimsuit. Because that is something I can be blamed for, the body that me and Hostess built.

What a fun time we were having!

Oh look, Tommy! Jon is climbing up the stairs to slide down the slide! Wave to Jon!

Look how cute you are in your SpongeBob hooded towel! They match your water wings! Good thing you've still got those on.

After much patience on my part and endless whining on Tommy's part, I finally managed to calm him down by letting him look at a picture of himself dressed as Batman that was still on the camera. He took great comfort in looking at this picture.

Some pruny children in the Lazy River.

Taking comfort in Mother's loving embrace. (Don't you think I look somewhat busty in this picture? I said, somewhat busty.)

On why I think I could be a spy: I noticed this guy hanging out at the pool and he spent the entire time on his cell phone. He didn't have anyone he was watching at the pool and so I couldn't figure out why he would choose to try and combine swimming and cell-phone chatting. Later, he and I had a very personal interaction of a delicate nature in the Lazy River, a story I plan on relating to you on my black blog at a later time. I decided to take his picture while we were sitting out and I think I did a fantastic job of both photography and stealth because after the flash went off and he stopped his phone conversation and turned his head to look at me, I sat there without making eye-contact, enthralled in showing Tommy the camera and telling him "this is a camera". So I now know I could totally be a covert agent.

Breaking from the tears to bring us all the timeless joy called "child in over sized, upside down sunglasses". Nice work, Tommy!

Ah dang! The happy moment is past!