Mark and Tamra Blankinship

We had the whole Bennett clan in San Antonio a couple of weekends ago for Mark and Tamra's wedding. It entailed a lot of people and a busy schedule, which means we had a blast. Here's a few pics from the weekend.



Me and Scoot just killing time. He was his regular, jolly self.




Grammy, or Marilyn, as she was once known, is happily overrun by grandkids. Here we see her with five of the seven.






Friggs, Claire, and Laura. This is the "Second Wave" of Bennett cousins. There are seven total, all under the age of five. Friggs and Claire were inseperable the whole weekend, as usual.


Papa C and Blake. It won't be long and he will be joining his brother in fishing with Papa. But for now he's content to eat paper in a ridiculous hood that has ears on it.

Angry Grandparents

Kimberly took this picture down so that she could put up a new one of all of us. I just got off the phone with Pa and GloGlo and they seemed a tad outraged. "What happended to the picture of you and Blake?!" they asked with hostility. Well, here you go. Sorry for the egregious error.

Various Friggness

Seth has made huge leaps in his language skills in the last few months. This is a recent picture of him on the back porch, which doubles as an enormous canvas for his creativity. He draws pictures, mostly of whale sharks (his favorite animal), and can now write his name and various other words. It's amazing how suddenly his interest in reading came about. Just a few months ago, Kimberly and I made many futile attempts to generate interest in letters. I would draw pictures with him and then say, "That's a cat." No matter what I drew, he acted amazed and excited. But then I would say, "Okay, now let's spell the word cat!", and he would kinda shrug his shoulders like I had suggested we watch paint dry. But suddenly, within the last month or so, every billboard we see, every shirt he wears, anything with letters on it- he has to spell out the word and wants to know what it spells. It's an amazing thing, as a parent, to watch your child learn and see their excitement over new things.








Friggs got to see his best friend, Logan, a few weeks ago when Kim went back up to Kaufman. These guys have a blast, and Seth talks about Logan incessantly for days afterward. Logan is Jarrod and Sarah's son. They are such a great pair of buddies. I love to watch them play in the yard, which mostly entails rescuing imaginary animals and throwing things about. Seth is quite the instigator when they're together. And Logan is his cautious sidekick. I actually overheard one conversation between them where Friggs was laying out the details of how they were going to jump from the coffee table over some various things and land on a pillow several feet away. Logan listened intently and then said, "I don't know, is this safe?" Friggs reassures him that it is and they proceed on. They can also be overheard saying, "We make a great team!" It does kind of make me wonder what kind of mischief Seth will be dragging Logan into in another ten years or so.

Unknown Uncle

Here's one I'll be telling on Laura for years to come. This past weekend, while at the rehearsal dinner for Mark and Tamra's wedding, I had an interesting conversation with my niece, Laura. She is Roger and Beth's three-year-old daughter. I saw her sitting quietly eating her chocolate cake, so I knelt down and said hello. She greeted me warmly and smiled a fudge-filled grin at me. "What are you eating?" I asked.

"Cake." she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, I see that now. It looks yummy." I then noticed a small pile of eschewed tomatoes beside her plate and asked, "What about these? Are they yummy, too?"

"No," was her reply, "I don't wike tomatoes, so I picked-ed them off!"

I laughed at her cute little voice and then I tried to convince her to put them on her cake and various other silly suggestions. We had a few laughs and then I decided to quiz her on a few things, hoping to get a funny response. Friggs was sitting across from her, but with all the commotion, he wasn't paying us any attention (he had his own piece of cake, too.) I pointed to him and asked Laura, "Who is that?"

"That's Seth!" she said as if I was stupid.

I asked her about a few other people, which she anwered correctly. Then I asked her, "Who am I?"

She was clearly stumped for a second and then declared, "I don't know," and returned to eating her dessert.

I laughed and said, "I'm your Uncle Kyle. Don't you remember me at Grammy's house last Christmas and again just a few weeks ago?"

"I've never seen you before!" she announced with indignance. Of course, we all got a kick out of that and Beth explained that I was Aunt Kimmie's husband and Seth's dad. I do think she remembered her uncle then. Kimberly took a picture to remember the event and I vowed to make myself more memorable in the future. As a side note, Laura is pretty precocious and is known for such statements. In fact, while we were at Chuck and Marilyn's in February, I had to get on to her for something, I don't remember what now, but whatever it was, she stomped off and said, "Fine! Now I'm not going to be nice!"

a few weeks ago...

So, I'm a tad behind on posting. I just uploaded a ton of pics from our recent weeks, and it's gonna take me a while to get all of them on here. I've been so busy living my life that I forgot to document it for the world to see. I apologize. Especially to Sarah. I won't give her last name, but I will tell you that she has left an angry comment or two when Kim and I don't post in a timely manner. And I will also tell you that her last name starts with a "D" and it rhymes with "higher".

On to the actual post. My parents were down a couple of weeks ago and they brought my nephew, Carter. We all had a blast. My parents got a much-needed grandkid fix when we spent Saturday at Landa Park. We also bought a new back-pack for the munchkin. He loves it. Seriously. The day it came in the mail, we loaded him up and went for a hike around the backyard- all the while Scoot was laughing and smiling. When we came in, I took it off and set him down and his face scrunched up like a prune! He had a wall-eyed fit. Kim and I just laughed at him, of course, but you could tell it was the kind of cry that means he was flat-out ticked off. In the short five minutes he had been up there, he had grown quickly accustomed to his throne. It would suit him just fine for me to become his personal rickshaw driver. He did get a chance to ride in it again when we went hiking.

Scooter, Scooter-Bean, Boot-Scoot... he's a baby with many names. Sometimes we call him Blake or "That Baby". I've also been known to hand him to Kimberly and say, "Here, hold this." Whatever you want to call him, he's fun to have around. And my dad, Carlton, was pretty stingy with him that weekend. Scoot's pretty fond of his Pa, too.

Here's Kimberly watching Carter and Friggs play in the water at the park. They have a cool little section of the Comal springs sectioned off as a swimming area. It's was still a little cool for swimming, but the boys couldn't resist rolling up their jeans and wading around. They also spent quite a while trying to catch the minnows with their hands.

The first time we went to the park, we spotted this Frigg-sized cave along the hiking trail. At the time, he had said, "When Glo-Glo comes to see me, I want Glo-Glo to get in this cave with me!" I said that I was sure she would. Oh, by the way, yes, my kid calls his grandmother "Glo-Glo". It's one of the weirder things you can call a grandmother. Her name is Gloria, and she came up with Glo-Glo in what I can only surmise to be denial. You've probably seen it in someone you know- similar choices are "Honey" or "Sweetie". But I digress. So, when we came upon the cave, it wasn't long before Friggs was coaxing his aged grandmother into the rocky hole. I won't lie. She didn't want to go in. Nor was it easy for her. What is it about a grandchild that makes a grandparent a willing participant in spelunking and the like? In the end, we had a great photo op of Friggs and Glo-Glo in the little cave. As you can see, he was very pleased.

Little Helper

I was thinking about this picture tonight as Friggs and I were vacuuming together. We have two vacuums, one of which is little enough for him to use, so he was following me around as I vacuumed. He loves to help more than any kid I have ever seen. Back when we were remodeling the house in Kaufman, he helped me sand the floors. He's not what I would call "efficient" or even "helpful", but he tries so hard and wants to be just like daddy. While I think this picture is hilarious, it's got a sobering quality to it as well. Makes you really think about how you live your life when you have a little copycat. There's some country song out now about this whole idea, and I don't really care for it or even know who sings it. You probably do. In general, I don't like country music produced later than 1985, and this song is no exception, but I thought it was worth mentioning for those of you who do. I'm kinda in a rambly mood tonight. Oh, my parents are coming to visit us for the weekend. They will be here tomorrow. I'm excited about it. They haven't been to see us since we moved to San Antonio. In fact, the last time they were in San Antonio was for their honeymoon, which was 32 years ago this month. I'm sure it will be nostalgic for them and I know Friggs is excited about them coming. In other news, Friggs is now "helping" (hey, we've come full circle) to feed Scooter now. I have a video of it that we made tonight. My next project is actually getting some of our videos on disc and then learning how to upload them to the blog, so hopefully soon I can post it. It was messy to say the least. Kimberly and I were laughing so hard as Friggs patiently and dutifully shoveled mashed peas into Blake's eager face. He did a better job at that than sanding or vacuuming, so maybe we'll let him take over permanently- as long as I have the time to cart them both straight to the tub afterwards.

For Karen

Our crazy friend Karen Urhan asked us to weigh our heads because she believes her husband has an unusually large noggin. Her head weighs 10 lbs and she claims his weighs 17 lbs. If you read our comments, you can view her bizarre request for yourself. Kim and I were intrigued to say the least. So, tonight we weighed our heads. Now there's a sentence I never thought I would ever type. Kimberly's head weighs 9 lbs and mine weighs 11.3 lbs. So, Karen, rest assured that your head is normal (If you consider us in that category), but I think your husband may need some sort of cranial reduction surgery.

Two good pictures

Not much happened today, so I was searching through our pics to find a couple of the boys to post for fun. The one of Friggs is a favorite of mine from when he was about two. He wanted his hair "crazy like Dad's". Now, he wants it to be "crazy, but flat", whatever that means. The one of Scooter is from just a few weeks ago when he fell asleep on one of our hikes.

This is becoming a problem...

Anyone who knows Kimberly is familiar with her voracious appetite for the written word. It's not a bad thing- reading, in general. But I'm beginning to think it can be taken too far. Let me explain to you how I have come to this conclusion. It all started when I noticed a book perched on the ledge between our shower and the tub. (See Exhibit A)

Exhibit A

This photo demonstrates the crux of my argument. It's one thing to read in the tub- lots of people do it. And by people, I mean women. I don't personally see the appeal. I hate baths in general, so the idea of prolonging it by reading is bizarre to me. I'm sure most guys will agree with me in saying that the bathroom is indeed a good reading place, but one should be in a seated position. But that's beside the point. What we see here goes way beyond normality in bathroom reading etiquette. Kimberly stands in the shower and reads her book while it sits on the ledge outside. You can't make this stuff up, folks. She reaches outside the shower and wipes her hand on the towel and turns the page.
I am considering staging an intervention.

Landa Park

Today we went to Landa Park in New Braunfels. It's just a few miles from our house and we've heard it is really cool. We were amazed. I'm not sure how many acres there are, but it's pretty big. It has a little train that tours the whole park. There are many springs there that feed the Comal river. It's nice to have something so close to home where we can have family outings for free. Friggs loved the river and it was necessary to talk him out of swimming several times. There's also a little cave just off the hiking trail that he wanted to climb into. We ended our trip with a picnic by the lake.

Government Canyon

We had some visitors come our way last week. Grammy and Papa were in San Antonio to see Seth and Blake. (Kimberly and I are not fools, we no longer pretend that our parents come to visit us.) We took the whole gang hiking in Government Canyon, which is a little over a half hour drive from our house. Here are some pics of the trip.



T.H.A.T.O. This was at the beginning of our hike. Notice the jackets- it was just a bit chilly that day. Even so, the jackets came off not long into our two hour excursion up the hillside.


Papa and Friggs looking into the canyon. This was taken during our stop for lunch. The views were great and Friggs got to throw rocks, which is cool wherever you are.



Hiking has a way of making you especially hungry.



Scooter didn't last long after lunch. Good thing his dad was willing to lug him around.