the butt slide

Here is the rock, in its glory.
He really liked it there.

climbing rocks

A few weeks ago we visited a place in Roslyn where we went a few times with Jaal and Lev. We returned to a rock that was Lev's favorite because you could slide down it. There was even a butt groove in it from all the people sliding down. Lev always wanted to hike off trail and just explore rocks and things while hiking. Tony and I carved his name in the rock.

July 9th gathering

As a heads up, we are going to have a get together around 2:00 at our house for people who live nearby, and are around, on July 9th. It will be the one year Anniversary of Lev's death.
It seems like it has been such a short amount of time.

If you could email us a Lev story to add to Lev's blog that would be good. Especially for people that are further away, it would be great to get some stories. I would like to print myself a copy in book form of the life with lev blog before the 9th.

It will be a potluck, sharing stories, maybe spread some ashes somewhere.

thanks,

If you live far away, eat a slice of pie and think of Lev in your own way that day.

Cookie monster voice

Maybe some of you have listened to "death metal" or "grindcore". The singer uses a deep, unnatural "cookie monster" voice, with a thumping double bass drum and super-heavy guitar licks behind it.

Lev liked to listen to this stuff sometimes. And one day he surprised us all by doing a nearly perfect imitation of the singing, in tune and well-enunciated. We laughed our asses off. It never failed to amuse me when he did it.

Maybe he could have been the greatest grindcore singer ever :-)

Sightings

Walking the dog, I looked down the road and thought I saw Cherie, our neighbor, walking with Lev. I was momentarily relieved he was back, the confused why he would visit Cherie first, then realized it was impossible and it was actually a Latina woman with another woman and a small black dog.
Hope returns to be smashed yet again.

Four square

I was just walking by the John Stanford International School and I was reminded of how much Lev enjoyed playing four square. In Monteverde there wasn't much pavement, so he hadn't played before. He liked to play at recess in fifth grade in Seattle. After school he and I would walk back to the school and play together. He liked to change the rules sometimes. We also had a small patch of cement in our backyard and we would play at home, too. Sometimes I would let him win, but quickly we became evenly matched. Lev loved attention and playing something one on one with his parents, where he had our full attention.
This continued later, playing football and basketball with Tony. When he played with Jaal he would get competitive and argumentative, so, although the did play together a lot, it wasn't always roses- or maybe it was roses, as they are nice but have thorns.

Rebecca