I liked this quote from Jonah Goldberg (I think):

Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.

Discuss.

Well, we're back from the lake.  We had a wonderful time with the folks.  The kids were mildly spoiled.  Vast amounts of cookie dough (both cooked and uncooked) were consumed.  As well as copious cups of homemade vanilla ice cream.  Made with Honduran (?) vanilla.  Tasted like Pina Colada's (and getting caught in the rain). 

The kids had a good time in the water.  Two events in particular keep sticking in my head.

We were in the pontoon boat, anchored in 10-15ft of water, trying to get the kids to enjoy swimming.  It wasn't hard since this was towards the end of the week and they were getting more comfortable.  Keith in particular wanted to climb the ladder on the back of the boat, so we let him.  Both he and Sefia would say, 'Climb!  Climb', or 'Sube!, Sube!' (thanks Dora!).

Anyway, he would climb up the ladder, wander a bit, then sit down and slide/jump into my arms.  Until one time he looked like he wanted to jump from standing instead.  Little girl didn't help matters.  She saw what he was doing and decided to encourage him by yelling, 'Jump!  Jump!'.  (Our kids like saying verbs in pairs).  Between Dad and I we were able to corral him.

The second event was related.  It was Sefia's turn to get on the back of the pontoon boat and slide into Pop-pop's arms.  Except she saw Dad dive into the water a couple times and decided that looked cool.  She inched up to the edge, planted her feet square, bent her knees, and shot out her arms behind her in a perfect diver's stance.  We were barely able to keep her from diving off head first.  Note for the future, our kids emulate everything we do.

And...

THE KIDS' CoC's ARRIVED!!!!!!  We finally received the certificates of citizenship for them.  They are now officially citizens of the US.  This means we can update their Social Security cards to reflect their status, as well as update their names on the cards.  This is quite a relief as it was the last official thing that we had no control over.

Rob