I grew up in the 1980s, so my memories of playing with toys from that era are filled with Star Wars figures, Transformers, and G.I. Joes. In fact, I often cite the 1980s G.I. Joe line as my last love affair with toys as a child. By the time I was done with them, I had moved on to girls, skateboarding, and punk rock.

I was smart enough to hold on to all of my Star Wars toys, but I guess G.I. Joe broke my heart, so I gave away my collection without thinking twice. My entire stash ended up going to my younger cousin Josh, who lived three hours north of us – and that was that. Apparently he had a good time with them, and passed them along to our mutual cousin Brandon. After he was finished with them, they ended up back in Josh’s garage, where they sat for 20 years.

A couple years ago, my Mom, knowing full well how I feel about old nostalgic things, found them in a musty cobweb-filled box in my uncle Glen’s garage and brought them back to me. Opening that box after about 25 years was amazing! I couldn’t believe how many of the toys were still in decent shape, knowing full well my gender’s propensity to melt, burn, crush, and destroy anything and everything we can get our hands on in our tween years.

3 kids, 3 families, one G.I. Joe collection. Here is how it was returned to me, 25 years later. Not pictured is the Skystriker F14, which is upstairs in my son’s closet as I type this (not sure why I didn’t include it in the pic.). Enjoy!

Every year on January 1st, our little family sits around the kitchen table and talks about the highlights from the year that’s just passed. Then each of us takes a peice of paper, and writes down all of our favorite things from the previous year. After that, I type them up, upload them to Wordle.net, and create a tag cloud of the year. I keep saying I’m going to make t-shirts for us, but hey – we only want to look back a little. Onward and upward to a great 2012!

Check out the tag clouds from previous years…

• Just A Few of Our Favorite Things from 2010
• Just A Few of Our Favorite Things from 2009

Enjoy!

Is it a surprise to anyone that the two-year-old is far more brave than the eight-year-old when faced with the dark, twisting tunnels of Fort Moultrie? What a great place to take the kids on a hot summer day – those bunkers are nice and cool!

Loved this old school Kentucky Fried Chicken…

We have a new tradition emerging here at the Norman house: on New Years Eve/Day we create our favorite things tag cloud! *here’s 2009′s* This year during dinner, we each wrote down some of the things we liked from 2010 (we help the little ones). Then I typed them up and sent them through Wordle.net, and whoop – there it is: a few of our favorite things from 2010!

Happy New Year everyone!

When my oldest son encountered his first snowfall in 2005, we naturally had to document the occasion with some photos. Later when I downloaded the pics, I realized that something felt familiar. After digging through my old photo box, I found what I was looking for: a shot of my dad and I in pretty much the exact same pose from 1975. Now, I’ve seen that blog were people recreate photos from their past, so the serendipity of stumbling into a near identical photo makes this all the sweeter. The more things change, the more they stay the same…

For weeks we’ve been finding dried-up dead millipedes here at our new home, so we were pumped to finally stumble upon a live one! This giant millipede, narceus americanus, was living under a leaf-covered plastic bag buried deep in the mulch. The boys loved touching it and watching it curl into a tight protective ball. My one-year-old, being the ever brave outdoor girl that she is, gladly touched it too – but once it started moving, she wanted nothing to do with it. Here are a couple shots next to a U.S. quarter for scale (they get up to 4 inches long!)

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Yesterday, during one of our evening backyard games of kick-fly, we stumbled upon a monarch viceroy butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Needless to say, this stopped us in our tracks. We all watched as this minute-old insect slowly dried its beautiful wings and prepared to take flight. My mother-in-law taught me everything I know about monarchs, so I was surprised to see the chrysalis attached to a willow tree rather than some milkweed (now I know this is because it’s a viceroy), but this little guy must have found plenty to eat. I like how you can still see some of the caterpillar’s pattern on the empty chrysalis – so cool! About an hour later, it was gone…

Update: Thanks to reader Kelly for telling me this is a viceroy, not a monarch!

That is what my kids always say when they see a plane fly by – like this one.

Playing front porch dodgeball with the kids delivered these sweet little prints across the beaded planks. I couldn’t resist a quick photo between rounds…

Seriously, how awesome is it to randomly find this in your girl’s notebook?

The snow came, and the snow went. It was that simple, but it helped to make what I’m sure will become one of the most memorable weekends in our family’s story. Charleston’s first snowfall in over 20 years crashed the party on Friday, blowing everyone’s mind in the process (look at that frozen marsh below!) Our kids hadn’t really ever seen snow before, and are still recovering from the madness. On Saturday, Jen performed Serenade with the Charleston Ballet Theatre, which was her first time on stage since 2002 (what a rock star!) Sunday was Valentine’s Day, and Monday was Presidents Day. Seriously, I need another weekend to recover! But hey, what did Ferris Bueller say, “Life moves pretty fast…”

Last weekend, we got to spend some family time together at the studio. The kids always seem right at home on the marley, and I wonder where their feet will take them. Here’s a shot of Zoe and her mom…

First off, a huge happy new year to you all!

Today at lunch, Jen, Cooper, Graham, Zoe and I sat around our kitchen table, writing down all of our favorite things from 2009. It was fun reading them out loud, hearing what we had in common, and telling stories from throughout the year. Being a huge geek, I naturally thought a word/tag cloud might be the perfect way to visualize the year’s goodness, so I went to Wordle.net – because  they rock.

Here’s the 2009 Norman Family Favorites Cloud:

Over the weekend, the boys and I were at our favorite old climbing tree near the observation tower at Palmetto Island County Park. That day we were joined by this little red mushroom, who was pretty happy to see us. Anyone know the species?

Rays, beams, streaks – call ‘em what you want, they are always nice to see. The boys and I ate dinner with this evolving show off in the distance, partially obscured behind a thunderhead over James Island. We thought they were cool because they went up instead of down – maverick sun beams.

I took this shot during a family game of hopscotch in the driveway. 

The boys and I were wandering around Daniel Island today and bumped into this extremely tame red-shouldered hawk. It looked as big as a red-tailed hawk on-site (around 50 cm), but when I saw the photos I knew otherwise. His long yellow legs were the real giveaway, as well as the rusty breast. It is always a pleasure to see a critter like this up close, especially with my kids…

There was a cool, low-hanging sun hitting these grasses at Palmetto Islands County Park, so we stopped to check them out. I know my son enjoyed the tall crunchy plants as much as I did…you gotta love Fall in the Lowcountry.

Hey, have a look at this dead, ant-filled grasshopper. Spiky legs!

Running in for dinner, he stopped for one last squirt skyward.

We found something amazing in our yard the other day, and it turned out to be an automeris io, or Io moth. This green spiked caterpillar eventually turns into a beautiful moth with giant circles on its wings that look like eyes. It’s common throughout the continent, but I’ve never seen one in all my years of nature gawking. Which is weird, because this thing was florescent green and the size of my thumb.

Enjoy the pics.

Waiting on the B train at 81st, personal transportation, Graham on the block, and the Hudson.