Dragons have started making a lot of appearances in our life. If I remember correctly, our first contact with them was in the book King Jack and the Dragon. In this book Everett learned about three young boys with swords who become brave knights to battle dragons and other monsters. Perhaps as a result, he chose to spend his own birthday money at the Renaissance Faire this year to buy a sword. Soon after that we acquired a couple other books: King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson (a gift from Gabby and Grandaddy) and another about legends of dragons from different cultures that we borrowed from the library. Lastly, we recently started watching Dragons: Riders of the Berk on Netflix and we want to see How to Train Your Dragon soon. Interestingly, some dragons are to be feared while others are protective.

In the midst of this, dragons have become one of the many characters that interacts with Everett during play. On a recent visit, Grandaddy was appointed the House Dragon, which is a high honor bestowed upon the dragon that protects our home and its inhabitants. One role of the House Dragon is to guard the downstairs while other people are upstairs sleeping. Everett has developed an occasional fear of going upstairs by himself but was able to do so if the House Dragon was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

This weekend our good friends Brad and Sarah visited us from Miami. They normally come to Milwaukee for the summer, but since baby Henry was born in June they couldn’t travel as much. Their son Eli and Everett are good friends who are about the same age. On Saturday morning the boys (Dads and sons, sans Henry) went on an adventure.

First we rode bikes to the new playground at Hart Park where we played hide and seek, watched the train go by (5 engines on this one!) and climbed on the new rope pyramid structure.

Then we rode up the Menomonee River to Hoyt Park, over the bridge and looked around for ducks. Our last stop was a mass graveyard in a grove of trees that Chris and Everett had visited before. The two brave knights explored all the trails through the graveyard with their swords, ducks and monster tails (a plastic cobra).

As a final note, during our most recent family movie night we watched the Never Ending Story. Among other creatures this features a Luck Dragon, a new type that we had never heard of before. It also features some 1980s era music and special effects that Chris and Melissa enjoyed.