School's OUT For the Summer!

Well, my boys are finished with school. For the time being, of course. Hans will be off until August 16th and Josiah...well, we don't know what we're going to do with him. He may or may not start school again in the fall. We may end up waiting until we get to our next duty station. We'll have to see how he tolerates MamaD4's Family Preschool during the summer. Yes, that's right, I have a calendar all made up with activities for us to do for the next few weeks. Gen, Eli, remember how much I loved playing school? I was always the teacher too. Now, at last, all that experience of "teaching" my siblings is going to come in handy. Gen was a pretty good student, but Eli usually had better things to do.

Hmmm, what else? Hans and I have been watching a lot of TV. I know, I know. Those of you who know Hans are very, very surprised to hear that he's been watching a lot of TV. Usually he's busy training for his triathalon, donating plasma or completing his model of the Great Wall of China using only toothpicks.

My Dad loaned us the series "Boomtown", which we watched at a rate of two-three episodes per night for two weeks. It's pretty good TV...think it originally aired a couple of years ago and only lasted for two seasons. It's a unique series in that it tells the story of a crime from multiple viewpoints. Although now that I say that, it seems like every "CSI" or "SVU"-ish show is like that. I don't know, you have to watch it to truly appreciate it.

Anyway. "Boomtown" is written by Graham Yost, who also wrote scripts for many of the episodes of "Band of Brothers". Several actors from Boomtown (I'm going to dispense with the quotes now) and BoB are the same, like Neil McDonough and Donny Wahlberg. There's a couple other BoBs that show up in Boomtown, too. So, when Hans and I finished watching Boomtown, we naturally decided to watch BoB again.

For any of you who haven't taken the time to watch Band of Brothers, get thee immediately to Best Buy and purchase it, sit down and get busy watching. It is absolutely some of the best television ever made. Enough said. I'm so glad that I watched it again, because I picked up on a lot more this time around. The first time we watched it, I liked it, but all of the different guys running around confused me. Who belonged where and which guys were in charge? It was all terribly confusing. This time, Hans drew me an organizational chart that helped a lot (but I'll admit I was still a little confused). Poor Hans, I feel a little sorry for him having to watch this genre of show/movie with me. All the cringing and gasping and gnawing of nails when the BoBs are getting shot at. All the questions about why this and why that? All the questioning of Patton's tactics. As if I could have done a better job.

I have to say, he was very patient with me. I'm trying hard not to have a huge crush on Dick Winters. That's something you all don't know about me: I've had weird crushes on historic military figures. Historic, dead military figures (although Major Winters is still alive). For instance, I had a huge crush on Napoleon for awhile...brought about by the miniseries "Napoleon & Josephine". Ask me something about Napoleon, because I read a LOT about him. Or enough to sometimes surprise my husband with some random bit of trivia recalled. I also had a weird crush on Horatio Nelson...not sure where that came from, but I remember reading a lot about him, too. That's where I get words like "bowsprit"...a word which I (almost) properly used yesterday that impressed Hans.

Also, had a weird crush on Robert Gould Shaw, whom you'll all remember as portrayed in the movie "Glory". Think that was brought about by the very dramatic and romantic end of that movie. Lately, I've been reading a lot about MacArthur. Check him out, ladies...he's hot. And dead.

Anyway, the point here is...go watch Band of Brothers and see if you don't develop at least a little crush on one of them. Seriously.