It is the time of the year that the neighborhood kids play “Kick the can” on Saturdays again.  It started a couple of weeks ago, and it would happen whenever the weather is nice  The boys always look forward to it every week.  This Saturday they were anxious to wait for 7:30pm to go outside; the boys and Cole were the first to be out there.  Later, the older kids texted their friends and joined them.  They were out there for almost two hours and it took some calling before our boys were ready to say bye to others to come inside.

   Stuart and I look forward to our 2-hour tennis time on Saturdays while the boys take turns with their lessons.  Stuart slightly hurt his back last week, but fortunately he managed to be ok by Saturday, so we were out there again.  Connor was up first.  Since Connor is repeating the beginning class, he was the most advanced among his classmates.  Coach often had Connor starting a drill and Connor was happy to show what they were told to do.  He was also happy to tell us when he won the little battles they played.  While Logan played with us and he often preferred to play single, so we let him play against Stuart and I sometimes.  Logan is definitely getting better and he did quite well this week.  He had a good smooth backhand; we had a long rally playing him.  After Logan and Connor switched off, Connor came straight to play with us.  He just seemed to have so much energy that he did not even want a break.  Connor’s forehand was getting stronger, and he could have a good rally with just his forehand.  He however was still reluctant to practice his backhand, but fortunately that boy liked running around the court and was happy to run to his left side to use forehand instead.

    Connor was very excited on Tuesday morning as he had his testing session after school.  When Stuart took Connor to the Studio, it turned out that there was another boy testing for orange belt as well.  According to Stuart, the Master took his time with the two boys.  He had them do the required moves and he gave them lots of advice for every move they did.  Connor did well with the routines, and he knew the answers to all the questions Master was asking.  At the end, Master thoroughly reviewed the strength and things to work on with each boy.  Connor truly earned his orange belt, and he also got the new blue suit and some gears.  Stuart was able to arrange for Logan and Connor to move up to a new Sophomore class on the same day.  The two boys were proud to be at a higher class now.

    Connor had a birthday party to attend on Sunday and he was excited to play with his friends at the game truck.  We also arranged for Maxim to come over to play with Logan while Connor was away, so everyone had fun.  When I returned to pick Connor up toward the end of the party, all the kids were at the playground after they had pizza and they were just about to sing and serve the cake.  The kids ran around the park a bit longer before Connor and I walked home.  Connor was happy to see Maxim and played briefly together before Maxim left.

   Shortly after, Cole came over to play.  Since they all had quite a bit of video games already, the three boys played 4 squares, tags, and later played some silly game inside the house.  They snacked and played again.  They did earn some more video game later.  Cole was with us for over 3 hours and basically another impromptu playdate.  The playtime allowed me some free time to do the studying that I have been procrastinated with and give Stuart’s time to set up / learn the new board games he received.

    Connor’s second top front tooth was loose and tilted for a long time, just like the other one from last month.  It was so ready to come out that we had been offering to pull it out, but Connor declined.  Connor did finally agree that if it did not come out by Stuart’s birthday, he would let Stuart have the honor as a gift.  It ended up falling out at school on that very same day and Connor happily informed us at pick up.

    Right after that tooth, Connor moved his focus to his other loose tooth, the bottom lateral incisor.  Connor complained often how hard it was to eat with the loose tooth.  Sunday morning he woke up to show us how loose it was, and within 15 minutes he ran back up to inform that the tooth came out.  There goes his 5th shed tooth.  Now he can eat well again.

     Stuart wanted to be low key for this special birthday and just the two of us spending the day together.  We decided to go shopping at Gilroy.  We took our time, walked through many stores and we bought quite a few things for ourselves.  Before we headed home, we even did some grocery shopping as well.  We walked again to pick the boys up from school.  We finally rested a bit before heading out to dinner.  By then, we had already accumulated 16,000 steps. 

    At one of Stuart’s favorite local places, we had a nice dinner and Stuart enjoyed some crafted beers.  Afterward, we also walked around the mall and bought some more things before we headed home.  We finally presented the birthday gifts to Stuart by then and had our favorite cake to wrap up this day for Stuart.  I really enjoyed the day off with Stuart, and I think he had a good day as well.

     The boys and I drew birthday cards for Stuart.  I made mine first; Connor liked it and initially wanted to copy my card.  But later he added on his own things and it turned out more exciting than mine.  Logan quickly looked at ours, and made his own with some similarities.  I really liked their creations and liked that we all had the same theme.