today was a saturday spent... well spent...
in the morning, I had a meeting with Akylbek, one of my Language and Cultural Orientation Students (I have about 10 per year) who come in the summer for a 2 week seminar before their 10 month high school exchange year.

Akylbek has grown immensely. I am impressed. I am amazed. 20 pounds of muscle, 3 or so inches in height, and a TON of Character. He has braved the cultural barriers between Kyrgyzstan and Here and come the whole way. His word? "Flexibility". He gave me a great interview vid on "Flexibility".

Then I powered off in my wonderful crappy eighteen year old toyota corolla that gets 36 miles per gallon city driving... I hate hypenation, but in case3 you could tell, sorry I didn't hyphenate that....
I powered off for Seth's soccer game.

Did you know that the league won't allow the coaches to tell kids to hang back and play positions? Hilarious. They WANT them to just mob that ball and kick around. Love it. Granted, our World Cup hopes aren't that great, but how great will they ever be with pathetic/pathological coaches and parents pushing kids into sixth grade acl injuries? Look it up. We're a crazy people! Americans... living by appetite.

After soccer, Sam and I cleaned in the backyard and on the side porch. We discussed urban agriculture and composting possibilities. We've settled on "black bag composting" to seed a series of compost pits. We have a bunch of leaves and needles that we black bagged about 6 months ago. It is totally great now, with worms and snails and everythign great living in it. It is ready to be mixed with other stuff. And I'm talking about a lot of very healthy nightcrawlers, here...

after yardwork and agricultural plotting (we're hoping to test our soil and look into some real food crops in the next few years...) I took sam with me to Delhi Township's skatepark.
All I'm saying is that they need drainage over there. It's a great park, but the rains this week have once again rinsed a ton of dusty mud onto the park. dangerous. We left pretty soon after. maybe an hour of skating...

Then back to the house and off with Marcelo and Seth to see "Speed Racer" in Springdale, at 540pm...

The whole time, Aaron is at a skatepark, shredding. He did that all day.

After Speed Racer, we ate Chick Fil A. Seth enjoyed the playpipes over there and we headed to the skatepark in St. Bernard to retrieve Aaron. Skated for about 40 min. there. Seth was lovin it. on a Lance mountain Dough boy board... with gullwing trucks!

Adn then to drop off Caleb, we were held up by a train, right next to a great little spot for wallrides. I just skated for the 20 minutes it took that huge train to pass. We all did, except for Aaron, who was wiped.

Seth is even out there at 10pm, skating while that train passed...

We took Caleb home b/c he was already in trouble. Then back out to Kroger to get M-day gifts for Judy. Tomorrow's M-day.

I love my mom, too. Mom, if you read this, i'm sorry if i come offf like a twerp. I kind of am. not your fault.

And then showers and 11pm beds. done.