Cookout at the Kalinas. Sunday was so beautiful! Sunny and 65 degrees. Deb and Bill invited us over for some grilling and games in the woods.

Bill, Sam, and Asa

Halloween in Ellicott City, MD at Tammy and Jeff's house. We have to commute to Trick-or-Treat; our three neighbors don't participate in this pagan ritual holiday.

Jake is Michael Jackson, Nick is Peter Criss, and Asa is a hobo.

Asa, Sam, and Jake

I am just testing my video upload capabilities. Sam in the middle is Asa's best friend. On this day, the boys were making a movie and wore facepaint. You know, classic good guys against the bad guys.

enjoying summer break

Asa's Sunny from the Codorus Creek.

Asa and his best friend, Sam, are taking swimming lessons at our pool. Unfortunately, this week of his classes has been cold and rainy.

Jake and Asa eating Cheese Curls at the pool.

asa takes swimming lessons during the coldest, rainiest week of June

Asa with his best friend, Sam. Asa is loving his swim lessons. Not even the mid-60 degree, 100% cloudy weather doesn't keep him from wanting to go to his lesson! He goes every night this week at 7pm. This whole week we will have well below normal temperatures.

Trout Fishing in the Codorus Creek

Friends of Sandra learned of Asa's great fondness of fly fishing and offered to come teach him a thing or two about fly fishing. Jody is a certified fly fishing instructor, and visited us for the day (along with his wife Rachel, and two little girls) to fish with Asa and John. It was obvious that Jody loved teaching as much as Asa loved learning. Both of them would have stayed at the creek fishing all day long if we let them.

Here is a good-sized Brown Trout that Jody caught. Our whole family was shocked that we even really had trout that size in our creek! Asa caught a Brook Trout. The boys put them back in the stream so they could have a chance to catch them again another day.

Cream also had a good day catching things. He caught this young starling. He came slowly sauntering up the road with this in his jaws. He walked past all of us and up the porch to the front door; we could see the bird was very much alive, flapping its wings every once in a while. After some discussion amongst the humans, we decided that we should put an end to this Wild Kingdom moment; after all, he gets fed two healthy servings of cat food every day - he doesn't need additional sustenance. After forcing Cream to let go of the bird, he was clearly mad at us for quite a while afterwards.

The Bob Potts Heritage Rail Trail Marathon

On May 31st, we had a nice treat with a marathon that ran right by our house. Not 10 feet from our front door passed the (26.2 mile) marathon. Jake, Asa, and I cheered on the passing runners, while John and his band (3 Dollar Suit) played music for the runners and their supporters at Serenity Station cafe, just two miles up the trail. A water stop and a port-a-potty were stationed right at our house; which was just fine with us. Asa tried out the potty to make sure it was properly functional. It was.

That's our house on the very right. You can see how close it is to us. We loved it!

This is Maggie. She came running up the trail along with the other marathoners. She wasn't with any of the runners, so I guess she just decided that it looked like something she wanted to be a part of. She pulled over at our house for a breather and some enthusiastic petting. It didn't take long for Asa to declare her as "our new dog!" Sadly, her owner came to collect her about 15 minutes later.

It was a beautiful day in every way; and we are looking forward to next year's run.

Asa Officially Learns to Ride A Bike

Pretty sure this is the bike that Jake learned to ride on. He's outgrown it.

Asa pretty much rode on his first try. John thinks it's because Asa was already an expert on his scooter; the bike was just a minor adjustment.

Jake is ready to move up to a full-sized bike.

Chickens in the garden.