Thanksgiving with the Tubbs family

I took Sam and Jo down to my parent's house at Smith Mountain Lake on Thanksgiving Day. We were there with Aunt Helen from Scotland and my sister and her family arrived just after dinner. They hadn't seen the kids since the summer of 2008. And, of course, there was singing.

Since my parents built this house in 2000, there has been a large cardboard box that has been used as a boat. Ryan and Allison, my sister's kids, have played in it, as have Tristan, Trevor, and Jordan. Josephine has also played in this boat with her older brother Henry. This was the first time Sam and Jo got to play in it together. Sam is sitting in the cabin while Jo is dancing (what else?)



Of course, you can't be on a boat without pretending for at least some of the time to be a pirate.


Sam had a good time.

And Jo got to dance.

Finally, here's one last picture of Jo with her granddad.

Daddy's pictures from the last little while

Amy's posted some of her pictures, so I thought it was time to post some of mine. I've not had a digital camera for a while, but I borrowed one from work. This is a collection of random shots from the last two weeks or so.

Sam loves to push his face up against my screen door. He used to try to escape to freedom, but I think he likes the house now. After all, half of his toys and books are there!


Josephine loves to read. I'm convinced she's getting more of the words then she's letting on. These days, she'll spend a lot of time concentrating on the pictures.


Sam can be relied on to take a bath. Josephine fights it quite a lot, but I manage to get her to come in anyway (most of the time). Sam loves to fill up cups and pour them out. I have to tell him time and time again that water is supposed to stay in the bath, but he doesn't always listen. After all, he still only speaks baby English.


Sam loves to emulate Josephine, and thankfully he's picking up her love of books. Increasingly, both of them can entertain themselves by picking up a book.

Now, here is a conundrum. Josephine still won't exactly snap to attention when I ask her to help me with chores. But, her grandfather asks, she's right on it. Here she is helping him clear brush at Smith Mountain Lake.


Josephine understands why we sometimes have to do things we don't want to do. In the past, she has fiercely resisted wearing her life jacket. But now, she doesn't seem to really be too concerned about it, and doesn't complain. Sam is the same way. In Josephine's case, it might be because Barbie is prominently featured on the life jacket.


Similarly, Sam wasn't too enthusiastic about the boat the last time he was on board. However, since then, he's become a little more enthusiastic about anything that has a steering wheel. He's a boy. He is most definitely a boy.

I think they're doing really well and I am so proud to be their daddy.

Boating at Smith Mountain Lake

I took Sam and Jo to my parents' house at Smith Mountain Lake this past weekend. This was the first time Sam had been on the boat, and the first time that Josephine realized how cool it can be to sit on the bow of a ship as it speeds across the open sea.

Okay, lake in the case, but humor me.

Of course, Josephine insisted on wearing the special Barbie life jacket we had to get for her last year, when she refused to wear the ones that were not fashionable. The same thing happened again this year. I struggled to get her into the plain yellow life jacket, but she refused with a capital N. Thankfully, her grandmother remembered last year's purchase which cheered Josephine up instantly.

Sam is much more resigned when I want him to do things he does not want to do. He was not entirely happy on the boat, but he seemed to know it was what the rest of us wanted to do. Here you can see him in his life jacket, and it wasn't entirely a good fit. He wanted me or his grandmother to hold him the entire time we were on board. My mother helped things out immeasurably by giving him the toy truck that luckily was in the boat's glove compartment.

Josephine also loved sleeping in the top bunk of the bunk bed, and was so pleased. There is also the phenomenon of my kids getting to explore all of the toys that have accumulated as my parent's six other grandchildren have gone through the growing up process. So many books and old toys to sift through. We leave all of that behind when we leave the lake, confident that Sam's "new" monster truck and Josephine's favorite Barbie book will be there when we go back later this summer.

I wish I had a picture from the end of this trip, when Josephine and I were sitting on the bow singing songs to the mermaids. Her eyes were so bright and her smile could have powered a small village. Instead, I'll conclude this post from when we were just leaving the dock and the kids were a little more skeptical.




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