I have no idea how the Flat Stanley blog was received. I think the bro and s-i-l were forced to print the whole sucker out for Niece 2 (or Niece 5, depending on how we're going to count -- do I start on my side and then go to DH's side? or do I count by age from oldest to youngest? or do I just go have lunch?).

She's being home-schooled now while working on her reading. Felt it was much more important that she get the reading help now rather than wait for any public school assistance to show up. And any socializing that she misses out on? eh, she's got personality and confidence aplenty to catch up. Besides, she's got lots of outside interests that are promoted, so she's interacting with Life In General. Hence, she'll be fine.

Me, on the other hand -- always a toss-up. ;-)

Uncle Jeff's Travels

One night Flat Stanley and Jeff had a great time talking about all of Jeff's hiking trips. Jeff brought out lots of pictures to show Stanley the places where Jeff had been.

Stanley saw pictures of:

Mt. Rainier in Washington--

Mt. Shasta in California--Jeff and a few other friends climbed this mountain. But the weather got very bad at the mountain top, so that they were not able to actually stand on the very top of the mountain. People who climb mountains call this "summitting." It's not unusual that climbers don't summit; the weather on the mountains changes very quickly and it's important to be very careful and be safe.

Glacier National Park in Montana--This was a long hiking trip Jeff went on. He and his friends walked XXX of miles in XX number of days. Along the way they saw some great views, met a few mountain goats, and had a tremendous time. They even hiked through a snow flurry on their last day on the trail.

Dolly Sods in West Virginia--This is one of Jeff's favorite camping and hiking destinations. It is only about 4 hours away from our house. He goes there about three times a year, and always has a grand time. The area is wide open with lots of rolling hills and pretty views. Here is a description of the area from Wikipedia. And here is the site of a friend of Jeff's who takes lots of wildlife pictures--these are his Dolly Sod pictures.

Talkin' Racing with Aunt Susie

FlatStanley had a great night talking racing with Aunt Susie. She had been to a few ChampCar races in 2006 and 2007, seeing races at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland and traveling with her friend Sonja up to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, for the RoadAmerica race.





And this past September she met Sonja in Chicago. Together they rented a car and drove down to Joliet, Illinois, to Chicagoland Speedway for the Indy Racing League's race there. It was a lot of fun. She got to meet Alex Tagliani, one of the top open-wheel racers. While Alex didn't win the race, he and his team were very happy with the race because they learned a lot about the car and what they need to do to it to make it go faster.

Aunt Susie's Friend Visits

Flat Stanley helped Susie get ready for a visit from a good friend of Susie's who was going to spend the night before going to the airport to fly home to Los Angeles, California. Katie had just written a book and had traveled to the East Coast to visit bookstores and talk to people about her new book. Wednesday evening, Susie, Katie, and Stanley sat and talked about how successful Katie's trip had been and what her plans were for another book. Publishing a book is very hard and there's lots of work involved. But Katie enjoyed it.