I took Ivan’s photo.

He took mine.

I was not intentionally mimicking his expression. Yup, we’re related.
This trip also involved Ivan being baffled by a urinal and really loving pulling the handle to fill his cup with yogurt. Plus they consider gummy bears a frozen yogurt topping which made his day.

We started with tic-tac-toe. “Tic Tac Toe! Three in a row! It rhymes! I will always love rhymes.”

Though I think Ivan may actually be better at checkers. He seems to get the strategy more. Though once he has a king on the board he gets distracted by its shiny and gives up his other checkers too easily.

Strategy games and snacks together was a nice afternoon.

Ivan refuses short sleeves and short pants. He then ceaselessly whines about how, “It’s too hot!” He will wear this hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. So, that’s something.

Ivan wants a bowl of life cereal with no milk and just a spoon.
He wants to follow this with a bowl of cheerios with milk.

Waking up is hard to do.

Ivan has an obsession with Kitwarr the child wookiee featured in one episode of the cartoon Star Wars Rebels.
Since there is no Kitwarr merchandise and since a good pal gave me a pattern for crocheting a wookiee, I made him a wookiee and told him it was Kitwarr.
Ivan corrected me saying, “No, I am Kitwarr. This is Kitwarr’s teddy wookiee. He sleeps with it every night.”
It has slept with Ivan (who is Kitwarr) every night since I gave it to him.
He also likes to wear the teddy wookiee as a backpack and read it Star Wars books.

Ivan loves bubbles and most especially the popping of bubbles.
He is Michelangelo the ninja turtle and the bubbles are sent by the evil Kraang.
He is Whiskers the Karate Kitten practicing his bubble kicking skills.
He likes to pop them with sticks and throw cheetah bites (his made up name for pine needles) at them.
He likes to get his plastic dinosaurs and have them chomp the bubbles with their plastic teeth.

There is no way to keep up with his insatiable demand for more bubbles.
Eric’s bubble gun is helping though.
Good purchase, Eric, good purchase.

A visit for the end of lilac season at Lilacia Park of Lombard.

Ezri took this one of me sniffing the lilac sweetness.

She also took this one of her parents.

Ivan and Ezri climbed on the rocks and under the pine trees. They smelled the flowers and enjoyed sharing a big container of strawberries and some Baby Bell cheese.

Ivan was happy to be in the gardens which had so many plants that could fight zombies.
These white flowers he explained make white glue that sticks zombies down.

These purple ones explode like fireworks when zombies come near.

He had some theories that the strong smell of the lilacs did something to zombies and that the flowering trees dropped flower spikes down on the zombies. He knows how to channel the peace and tranquility of spring in a botanical garden.

This threesome. . .love them.