Let's hear it for the girl...and the boy too!

Ready to hit the waves?
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

So, my little girl Mackenzie turned seven yesterday, and I decided to try something a little different with this year's birthday gift. Too much of a glut of useless toys these days, and the kids seem to forget about them as soon as they have them in hand. Not from me. Not this year. So, it looks like my kid will instead be going to surf camp! I'm very proud of Mackenzie for having spent the past two summers in swimming classes in order to develop into a strong swimmer. She has always bugged me about learning to surf when we visit the beach, so this year, in addition to her other gifts (which included a friggin' PSP from her mom!), she received a communal present of a week in Santa Monica surf camp from a group of friends who all love her dearly (but don't get to visit us in California nearly enough). Thanks to everyone who contributed to making this very unique and special birthday gift a possibility: Ornette, Michael, Steph, Glo, Gina and Mikey. I hope that it's the confidence builder the little lady needs.

Mingus1
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

And in boy news, Mingus continues on the path to righteous rapscallion (sorry, Walt Frazier moment). He has these mega-blocks that he insists on depositing all over the house. Honestly, I've grown weary of stepping on blocks at odd hours of the night, so today I decided to leave his mess where it landed. He dumped his blocks on the floor, as usual, and within minutes he tripped over one of them and fell flat on his stomach. After the crying subsided, I was shocked that he actually got himself up, picked up EVERY SINGLE BLOCK, and deposited them all back into their container. Hooray for letting them learn "the hard way"! Oh, and by the way; as soon as he finished cleaning up the last block, he grabbed the container and emptied them all onto the floor again. I think the next word to manifest itself in his vocabulary will probably be "sucker".