We celebrated Billie Jo’s Birthday by making dinner and a cake for her. There was a little ‘texting’ mix up between Billie and Kathryn on cake preferences with Kathryn misinterpreting Billie’s NEthing but chocolate. It was still a good cake and once the candles were extinguished we tortured Billie Jo with questions and she had to remain mum to ensure her birthday wish would come true.

Eric learned to ride his 2 wheel bike this week and can’t get enough riding. Kathryn took him to the Eric Canal bike trail on Saturday and they rode from Oriskany to the Marcy Locks. On Monday they went on the Black River Feeder Canal Bike trail and saw some bear scat. This teachable moment warranted a picture and some scat was captured in a ziploc bag to be brought home to show me. Eric told me he had a ‘present’ for me – little did I know it was bear poo.

Tuesday morning Eric was dressed for his 1st day of school. Kathryn had to leave before the bus came in order to make it to teach her 8:30 class, so I put Eric on the bus. While we were waiting Eric asked me “How many more years, Dad?”. I told him he was going to school through 12th grade. He said, “No, until summer vacation again.” I said 179 days at which point he swooned, or at least the 1st grader equivalent. I told him that was less than a full year as there are 365 days in the year which seemed to appease him. He was comfortable going to school this year as he had met his teacher and was looking forward to seeing his bus driver again.