I Hope He Understands It

Something that we have been looking forward to since last year was the start of First Lego League.  Basically, if your last experience with Legos was building a square shaped house with a flat roof from mismatched blocks, you need to know: THE LEGO GAME HAS GOTTEN FIERCE.

Nico read a book on robots last year and learned about something called First Lego League.  Basically, teams work together on a project around a theme.  They do research on the project, make a presentation about it, and compete with their inventions.  The competition entails working an obstacle course.


Well, the season runs August-April, so we have been waiting for the fall to get around.

The only problem is that Nico's school doesn't have a First Lego League team.
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So I started one.

For it being a STEM school, everyone is falling down over it.  People love the idea.  We've had a lot of positive reaction to it.  People getting their companies to give $$ to sponsor us.  We don't even have Lego sets yet, and people are trying to give us money.

So here is the thing:  In 30 or 40 years, if he makes some type of major contribution to engineering or physics or something, Nico better be getting paid.  Because he needs to go back to his school and donate a bunch of money to it so they can name the world class science labs after me.... I am thinking the Bishop-Royse Nanotechnology Laboratory.  That way it seems like he is naming it honor of his parents... but I think we know really what is happening here.   You guys know what is up.

I just hope that he appreciates it one day. That I loved him so much that I took on organizing and coordinating (read: herding cats) to get him an opportunity I knew he would love.

In other news: Nothing to see here.  Just a storm trooper, watching some videos on YouTube.

We are both pretty jazzed about camping this week.  We are going to have another go with trying to catch some fish.

He seems to like his new sleeping bag.

This past weekend, we finally got Guppy set up in his new house.

Guppy the fish has a new house.

End of Summer

Well- we're winding the summer down in a fun fashion! During the last week if the summer- I picked up one of Chicago Public Library's Childrens Museum pass. Nico and I went to check that out while Dave covered a cubs game. 

We stayed for almost four hours. I managed to finish reading a book while I was there. It worked out well- because he wasn't bugging me to leave and I wasn't bugging him either. 

We also did some back to school shopping- he got some new nike kicks and a couple of new shirts and shorts. I learned my lesson last year and didn't delude myself into thinking that I could get him to wear non-athletic clothes. I hit up my favorite consignment shop and scored some sweet deals on clothes for him. He has outgrown all of his warmup pants though. Seriously- it's a joke how much ankle he shows now. So- I guess in a few weeks when it's not so warm- we'll have to start buying those again!!

The first day of school went off without a hitch, mostly. Nico ended up being separated from his best friend. There are only two kindergartens and two first grade classes, so he knew everyone in his class.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle after school. The busing paperwork got a little messed up- and they had Nico on the bus list, along with some other kids. Luckily, Dave got there in the nick of time. Nico dealt with it pretty okay, but Dave was stressed out. Nico assumed that the bus was going to take him to me at DePaul. So there is that :)