Roll Out The Barrel...

This is where I am right now! On board the Maid of The Mist, with Grandpa, heading toward this:


NIAGRA FALLS! I am in CANADA! Can you believe it? Just me and Bobby. My parents aren't even in the same country as me! Mom is a little freaked out by this so I won't go on and on, but I am on a vacation to visit my great great Grandma Betty up in Ontario. I'm in the house where Grandpa was a boy and he is showing me all the things in the town of Fort Erie that made up his childhood. So cool. I wish you could have seen us on this boat that went under the Niagra Falls. They gave us these raincoats but we got so wet, Grandpa's socks and shoes were sopping. What an adventure we are on. We are just like Thelma and Louise!

More to come!!!

Temperate Nirvana

There they are. The autumn leaves. They are here, more are coming. What is happening right now is something hard to show in pictures or in words but it is a perfection of temperature that makes you feel so wonderful I wish you all could feel it. Sunny and clear with a hint of cool crispness in the breeze, not too hot, big white clouds, and then the leaves are changing colors. I don't know what the weather is like where you live but if you have the spare cash to get on a plane and come here for a few days to see and feel what I'm seeing and feeling, then I think you should.

At The Seaside

As-Tor-I-A

We drove out to Astoria, a little coastal town a couple hours from here. It was so small and cute and also it is the town where they filmed The Goonies. There were really only two things to do there: climb to the top of the Astoria Column, which I did, and eat fish 'n chips at the little boat fish 'n chips place that everyone talks about, which we did. It was beautiful weather and the drive out was really nice because it was pretty scenery I hadn't seen yet. I fell asleep on the ride back but my parents said that was also lovely.


Scenery.


Column.


Thousands of stairs.


High altitude wind.


Kind of cold.


The view from on top of the world.


Perfect day.


Captains of lunchtime.


And here's me throwing a paper airplane off the top of the column which you probably can't even see on crummy youtube, but it flew down in curly cues for about five minutes until it landed in a tree. Nice!

BFF Smackdown!

I may have said this before but it is really for really real now--Stuart is my best friend. Like everyday, morning til night, play non-stop eat meals together never parting best friends. This summer glued us together like glue. Now that we're both in school again, at different schools, we try to eat dinner at each other's houses and have some quick evening bike rides just to keep the tie tied. I even tell him that I love him. He doesn't say it back but still I know that I am his best friend too.

First Day at the Big School

This is my new school. It is an elementary school, where big kids, as big as 8th grade go. I am in the big leagues now.


I have a real classroom with real desks and toys at the desks that teach us about math or about language. Everything in this new school is about learning which I don't notice so I don't mind. Still feels like playing with toys to me.


They also have computers to play on which I love. I can work a mouse like nobody's business.


I go all day to school, all the way until 3 o'clock, every day except weekends, which is a big change to all of our schedules. I had no problem with the change so far. Mom walked me over on the first day and I kissed her goodbye and I was fine. She wasn't so fine, in fact she cried herself all the way home. Something about the end of an era or something or other.


Can you guess which is my lunch box? (The transformer one!) We eat lunch at school and everything, in a big cafeteria with other kids and little chocolate milks. I feel like I am a big person part of a big world all of a sudden. Super cool to me!

Nadinee Weenie

I pretty much feel like Nadine is my little sister and she feels like I am her older brother. She really is a good kid. I'll look out for her. Neighbor siblings forever!

Proud of Myself

These Wheels Shall Explode

No training wheels...


No one holding on...


Going...


Going...


Gone, man, gone!
I am riding all over the place now. It feels like what it must feel like to a baby bird when he flies for the first time. My dad and I just get on our bikes and ride. Free birds. When mom works we ride down to Alberta Street and strut our stuff, get a slice, or a burger and a beer, hit the pub...you know, just a couple of dudes out on their bikes in Portland, the bike friendlies city in the world!