Some mail from an old friend of ours reminded us that we’ve not shared any of Gareth’s Tales for a year now. Nothing horrendous has happened - life has just been ultra busy. To celebrate the occasion, I’ve added the year to the date headers to further shame us.
I would make an attempt to give a detailed recap of the past year, but that would take … about a year. So instead, photo essay! Only, not in essay form. Just photos. Lots of them.
The most recent news in Gareth’s always exciting life is that he was recently visited by volunteers Sue and Cindy from the Make-A-Wish foundation. Gareth wished for a bike that he could ride with his daddy (me), and he asked for it in green. We now just have to sit back and wait to see if they’ll be able to fulfill his wish. If so, I foresee a lot of biking in my near future.
Gareth continues to do well in pre-school. He has lots of good friends and is getting in trouble less often. His fifth birthday is right around the corner, so he’ll play host to all of his friends as they take over a few lanes at a bowling alley. This will be Gareth’s first “friends” party.
We traveled a few places since the last update, visiting both Washington DC and DisneyWorld. We headed to DC for the cherry blossom festival, where Gareth had a blast flying kites on the Mall in the shadow of the Washington Monument. The Air & Space Museum was also a big hit with him. DisneyWorld, though, could not be beat. We went for Star Wars Weekend and then stayed the entire following week. Within the first 10 minutes on Disney property, Gareth and I were battling Darth Vader. What a way to get started! The rest of that week was fantastic and was overly chronicled by photographs.
Gareth also got his first taste of camping this past year. We took trips to Black Moshannon, Kettle Creek, and Tamarack. Gareth gets so excited about staying somewhere other than our home that he ends up staying up almost all night, much to the dismay of Brandy. To add to his new adventures, Gareth has now gone hiking, biking, and kayaking.
I would talk about Gareth’s Halloween, but it was nearly identical to the last Halloween update. Gareth dressed up as Spider-Man again this year and went trick-or-treating at the Nittany Mall. One of these days, we’ll get that kid out of his Marvel character rut and back into Star Wars where he belongs.
Those are the major highlights from the past year. Gareth has been very happy, very healthy, and very fun. I foresee many more adventures in the coming year.