Our beautiful boys have turned five and have had an adventure-filled year. Both Liam and Oliver have enormous imaginations and make our lives astonishing and hilarious. Throughout this past year, their love of super heroes has caused a creation of native super heroes in the Ivers' home. Oliver created "Puncher Man," whose job is to punch evil doers. His real name is Scott, and his parents abandoned him in NY City, where he happened upon rocket shoes in an attic. Liam created "Vampire John," whose real name is Rocket. He was also abandoned by his parents in NY City, found an abandoned light saber in an attic, and fights his evil nemesis, Zombie Jaguar. These characters are in addition to their other role-playing games of Doo-Doo and Go-Go, and Shaggy and Scoobie. Not surprisingly, I have been able to fill the role of Velma.
Oliver and Liam spend their time playing with their friends, scooting on their 2-wheeled Razors, riding bikes, researching the planets, reading Pete the Cat and Scoobie Doo books, hiking, playing outside, going to the Science Center, making pilgrimages to Chucky Cheese with Aunt Nanny, attending and throwing parties, swimming happily everywhere except swim lessons, drawing and talking about surfers, and traveling. Liam is known to ask "is it going to be a BIG day?" in a hopeful way. Oliver is known to say things like: Me- Oliver, if you do that again, I'm going to send you to China. Oliver- If you do, I'll take a light saber and kill all the pandas.
Obviously, the boys have been introduced to Star Wars. We made a big deal of it and had many nerd families over to partake.
The boys will start kindergarten this September and I have never seen anyone as excited about anything. Everyday they ask how many more days until school starts. This is encouraging; however, I am intrigued to guess when the bureaucracy of the educational system and its surplus testing will wreck our children's native love of learning.
The late winter of 2012 centered mainly on settling into our new home. The boys did have their first skiing lesson with Tia Lu and Tia Tania- it was darling. We had a lovely visit from Rene and Cameron during the Magnolia tree blooming. We also had a visit from our Pittsburgh Scherer cousins whom the boys are completely enamored with. At some point during this winter, the boys took two sleep overs at the Giorgis house. Dominick and Elena also "slept" at our house one night. They want to sleep at Tia Tania's about every night- mainly because she makes chocolate chip pancakes.
In the spring of 2012, Chris threw himself a tasty BBQ birthday. Our happily pregnant (at that point) friends, Liz and Hao, had a fun visit on their way West. Mother's day was filled with family building the Boy's new jungle gym! And we threw Nancy and Ben a baby shower for (the then-named Jermicheal) Caleb, and were happy to meet many members of their mid-Western family.
This spring, Ben, Tania and I ran a half-marathon, and Chris and I did a triathlon while PopPop and Gammy took the boys to Buffalo. (Thanks!)
Summer of 2012 consisted of awesomeness. The boys played soccer and took swimming lessons. This roughly translates to: the boys ran around with a bunch of other children after a ball when they were not staring into space on a grassy field, and the boys refused to enter a swimming pool.
We started the summer with a trip to Pittsburgh to wish John and Andy happy birthday, and also to celebrate my brother Joe's 40th birthday! Joe generously took us all out to a fabulous and fun dinner in downtown Pitt.
The Scherer family also spent a weekend in Buffalo celebrating Chris and Kara McGinley's wedding.
Harry, Dina, Simon, and Noah came to Geneseo during the Geneseo festival. As usual, we LOVE seeing our sweet friends and wish we lived closer. Both children are fiery, and Liam and Oliver are totally smitten.
We took a trek to Thetford, Vermont to camp in the backyard of our dear friends, Craig and Emily. Liam and Oliver enjoyed running around with their twin girls, Stella and Astrid, in museums, hikes, and the creek in their yard. We met the newest Girdwood/Allen child, the smiley Skylar. And Hao and Liz joined us. It was awesome.
Our annual trip to the Adirondacks and the green house was amazing again. All of the children showed great aptitude in hiking. Truly, they were rock-stars. Camp fires and great food and great friends and river-wading are so wonderful. We missed Nancy and Ben terribly, but are so pleased that Caleb was born happy and healthy. Congrats!
We also spent several weekends in the Catskills with the Ivers family. As usual, this is relaxing and beautiful- and the boys are able to spend quality time with their Babcia, Grampy, Aunt Judy, Marty, and Aunt Pat.
Fall of 2012 was far more relaxed than the previous year. We were settled into our home, and I was no longer York Teacher's Association President. (Phew.) I ran two half-marathons with my friend Ben Laabs, and one full marathon with my friend Tania Giorgis. Chris also ran his first half-marathon in Niagara Falls with Ben and I. He was great. It was a lot of work, but very, very rewarding and fun.
The whole Scherer/Brent/Miller/ family got together in September at Jellystone Park for a weekend of camping fun. It was great to see everyone!
In October, Oliver and Liam turned 5!! We had a super fun party with a rained-on bounce house, and a pirate cake. Happy birthday to Gammy too (69!)
Our friends Jen and Yahaya were married in October in a remarkably beautiful and fun celebration. Huge congratulations!!!! We are so happy that Yahaya is in the US and that you're together.
Aunt Judy and Marty visited us in October to see the new digs. It was too short! But they had just returned from a European vacation. The boys always love their visits!
Lena Jones turned 4!, and had her annual Hallowlena birthday party. There were some pretty awesome costumes this year. Liam was a blue robot, and Oliver was a dinosaur book. Happy birthday to 3-year-old Elena too!
Thanksgiving in Ithaca was delicious and fun, as usual. It was great to see the Funkes and Pellerins. The boys spent Friday doing fun things with their grandparents while the "adults" went "shopping". I love those Fridays.
Liam and Oliver spent a weekend in November with Gammy and Pop-Pop in Buffalo swimming and attending Paige Brent's birthday party while Chris and I had our annual Toronto-irresponsibility weekend. Happy birthday, Paige!
December was decidedly terrific. Our dear friends Lipa Pattison and Chris Perry were married in a lovely ceremony presided over by Tony Jones and attended by Rachel and Lena. Congrats, friends. We are so happy for you.
Christmas was a whirl-wind of fun. We went to Buffalo, and had our annual carol-singing with the McGinley family. Christmas with the Ivers was later than usual, but included good company and food. We also had a wonderful family dinner with the Bailey-Jonses and Zio Jonathan.
New Years' Eve was a dancing fest at our house thanks to a new x-box. Finally, a video game that I can even get into! Sarah Scherer and Rachel definitely stole the show that night. Happy 2013!
New Years Day was my Dad's 70th birthday! Happy birthday, Dad! The entire Scherer family got together for this event. We all went sledding, and then to Aunt Nance and Mimi's home for a wonderful dinner.
Late winter included a Laabster-fest with the Laabs/Mahlen family, a St. Patrick's Day pot-luck, and an Easter at home. Also, I started teaching Sociology 100 at SUNY Geneseo. It was nerve-wracking and awesome. I love it. At York Central school, some brave students and I started the York Gay-Straight Alliance which has been a wonderful success, and quite helpful to many young people at York. Go activist students!!
Chris' work continues to be very positive. He is on a Literacy West Board and has gotten some wonderful grants for his jail from this organization.
I'm going to stop in March, because that's when I posted all of these photos. But just to give you a spoiler of the spring- Liam and Oliver learned to bike on 2 wheels on their first try. Both of them. For real. Am I the only one who remembers taking off training wheels being a painful and long trial? I think it was the scooting? Anyhoo, they are amazing children.
A few shout-outs:
- Congrats to Ben and Nancy on their wonderful son Caleb! And for parenting successfully for almost a year
- Also congrats to Nancy on her job at SUNY Geneseo
- Congrats to Hao and Liz on their daughter Kaia Vy- we can't wait to meet her
- Congrats to Lauren and Erik on their son, Theo
- Congrats to Chris and Kara McGinley on the birth of their daughter Ava
- Congrats to Jonathan Ivers who moved to Rochester and is spending a ton of time with his nephews
- Congrats to Eva and Gregor (and their daughter Rosa) for getting married!! We're so sorry we missed it, but promise to come to Austria soon.
- Congrats to Dan and Laura who are expecting their first
- And congrats to my parents, who finally got rid of their orange rug
Happy summer everyone!
