As Kindergarten and Fifth Grade wind down toward the finish line, the joys of summer begin to ramp up. Here is a picture of Gideon at his first T-Ball game racing toward home (note the motorcycle helmets they wear these days-- not like when we were kids and they hits us on the head with aluminum bats and we liked it!). We are looking forward to a summer of travel (more on that later), trashy blockbusters, much-deferred video games, picnics, bike rides, gardening, reading for the hell of it, and finally cleaning up the dang basement. Let the rumpus begin!

We spent the weekend with the crazy people in Brooklyn we call family, doing all the New Yorky things a Memorial Day weekend of perfect weather requires: walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to celebrate her 125th birthday, eating dim sum in China Town, eating sushi with Natsu uptown, walking through Central Park, going to the Met to see a show on BOTH superheroes and fashion, visiting ROCKETSHIP (a very snooty but totally awesome comicbook shop), seeing old friends, eating pizza, chinese food, and watching the new Indiana Jones movie (and not caring that it was pretty much awful). The cousins played constantly, everyone talked at once, B&J had minor meltdowns (but everyone was talking at once, so no one noticed), and the roads were completely deserted thanks to the gas crisis, so the driving was easy. Yep, as such things go... not bad at all. Come to think of it, we Jews did eat a lot of pork...

A full weekend of racing around town, hitting all the hippest school functions, 11-year old parties, movie premieres, and family dinners in German Village. Yes, it was a blast and now we're ready for a weekend from our weekend. The highlight in terms of sheer heroism (even more than the hollyroller swashbuckling in Prince Caspian) was Eli and Gideon doing their piano tests at Capital University. It was Gideon's first time doing the annual exam, and he was one cool customer. In celebration, we put up a couple of new recordings of each of them playing at their respective spots in the JBEG online universe.