Park, Park, Park & Park

This is the 600th post on this blog. Quite an amazing record of growth actually. Here is the first one . Here's the significant C one . Here's the significant D one . Here's some random recent video.

D's vocabulary grows at the rate of about a word a day now. Here's a few: Dorty = Dorothy Kit-kit = C's nickname Oshi = water Tia = chair Melk = milk Datu = thank you Top = stop Un'neik = Uncle Nate She has also started stringing words into short phrases. But I'll save those for a later post.

We journeyed off into deepest Surrey today, and found ourselves on a beach along an inland lake- Frensham Great Pond . A glorious, sunny day. Followed by bubble gum ice cream.

...Passed through here last week for a few days. He was on his was back to the US (Michigan) from his winter hide away in South East Asia- the coast of Viet Nam. The kids always like to see him- like here - and announcing D's birth here , and C's here . Danny has done some pretty extensive travelling over the decades. And has done a remarkable job blogging about it here . I've also added his profile link to the roll on the right.

Where is she now, you ask? Weight: 21.4 pounds Height: 30.5 inches Where was she in the recent past, you ask? Here .

Last night, C read a book to me for the first time. A simple book about a monkey named Sam who is told to sit quite often. Very simple, but it helped to begin work on letters and sounding out short words. C knows his A, S, and M's well; and we practiced his I and T.

Uncle Nate passed through Heathrow today on his way from Kabul to the US for some badly needed R&R. He had a few hours around breakfast, so C and I raised early to meet him. It was really special. We got up at 5:30am, showered (C has just discovered the joy of a hot shower), and hopped on the tube. Having breakfast with Nate was a dream. American doughnuts for the first time- Krispy Kreme no less- and hot coffee. And we made it back for C to be at school only 15 minutes late. See here for a very similar shot when Nate arrived a few years back...

Once a very long time ago, when I was very little, I climbed up on the kitchen counter early on a Sunday morning, while my parents slept peacefully, and helped myself to butter knives full of grape jam... Sunday, Bells and I came down to a too quiet kitchen, in the middle of the afternoon, to find C sharing a piece of bread with his sister. He had pulled a chair up to the kitchen counter, and worked his way into the high cabinets. The bread had lots of butter on it, then lots of honey, topped with red cake sugar. My Dad was clever enough to get some old fashioned film of my stunt; I didn't get any of C and his masterpiece.

Two years ago ( see here ), The Park Family got a Weber Grill. We dusted it off for the first time this season, last night. And I did ribs (and corn, asparagus, garlic bread). And some of the leftovers got eaten today for lunch.

While Mom was here, she suggested getting a sandbox for the C and D. We took her up on the suggestion. C and I made a project of it- building it with the electric drill, getting bags and bags of sand from B&Q, leveling the corner of the yard where it will sit. Here he is an hour afterwards: