Recently in Bloggathon Category

Well, this wraps up Jerry Begly's Blogathon 2010. It has been a personal challenge to me, and I hope you've come up with something that you can use. Let me know if you found it interesting, or completely a bore. Email me at jerry@jerrybegly.com. I guarantee on thing. If you try any of the ideas I've written about, your life will be that much richer for it . Now get out there and knock 'em dead. Jerry

Supernova numbers 6 and 7. Our sixth child has an imagination that really took off. He's only 5 years old, but he showed me a catalog the other night. In it he pointed out all of the cool things he's love to have. Not video games, or electronic gadgets. He wanted the Space suit, with helmat and boots. He wanted the jet pilot suit with helmet . He likes excavators, trains, trucks, bulldozers, cowboys, and swords. The other day, he came up to me completely duded up like the Lone Ranger. "Whadda ya think, Dad?" he asked. "Well," I replied. "I feel very safe with you around," I said. "Dad, read me this book", is something I hear from him all of the time. It's great.

Our 7th child is only 2 years old. He practically walks around with a book in his hand. His vocabulary is really good, and he's following in the footsteps of his siblings. We are having a blast with that little stinker. One benefit of reading that I haven't mentioned, is that your children will begin to talk like adults sooner and will not fall into that annoying type of "baby talk" that I hear so many children use. I never thought much about it until people started telling me "your children talk so mature". Then I started noticing how much I disliked the "baby talk" of many children. So read to your kids a lot. And don't talk "down" to their level. You'll be rewarded with mature speaking kids.

In the Supernova of reading benefits, one person shines extra bright: my second son. He has taken up reading as if it is more important than breathing. He will wake up in the morning, and walk around reading his current favorite book while getting ready for the day. When we go to the library, he is the type of person who will finish reading one of his chapter books on the way home. He will only have a stack of books to carry him through until the next visit. Not only does he read, he is making complicated drawings of catapults and other machinations of mankind. Then he loves to explain his diagrams in great detail. Perhaps he will be an engineer, or another Rube Goldberg.

Celebrating Children's Book Week, I'm pointing out the benefits of reading to your children. In my family our 4th child is world famous for her smile. In my book "Dad, the Tooth Fairy Didn't Come!" she is the one who is dressed like a princess. She loves reading horse books, princess books, and girl mystery books. She is a hard worker, able to do tasks that older children find challenging, and an eternal optimist. She's so excited about going to summer camp, that she is already packed, even though camp is about 8 weeks away.

Back to the Supernova of benefits of reading to your children: My second daughter, was read to from a very young age, just like all of out kids. At age 14, she is writing her own stories, and illustrating them. Westerns seem to be her favorites. She is working on a screenplay. She is perhaps the most like me of all the children, in her complete rapture in humor. For our Mothers Day dinner, we all dressed up like something from Mother Goose.(Get it? Mothers Day. Mother Goose?) My second daughter came to the table dressed as the WALL that Humpty Dumpty fell off of. I haven't laughed so hard in a while. She still makes me smile.

Did I mention that it's 52 degrees in the Fairy Caves? My wife says that I have the best job in the world. When it's going to be 95 degrees outside, I will get to wander through an airconditioned wonderland with a group of tourists. When it was snowing chicken feathers the other day, we got to walk inside where it was "warm" and "dry".

National Children's Book Week is almost coming to a close, and so is my Blogathon 2010. If you haven't guessed by now, I give cave tours in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I've also written and illustrated a new children's book entitled "Dad, the Tooth Fairy Didn't Come!" www.jerrybegly.com/tooth. What else is going on in my life? I teach skiing in Aspen, Colorado. I'm building a 3400sf. Log chalet off the grid high in the Colorado Rockies. My 7 children, my wife, and I are building it all ourselves. Literally all of it (with very few exceptions). I enjoy jeeping, hiking, mountain climbing, fishing, playing my banjo, and a multitude of other pastimes. When it comes to grading me on life, I get all "F"s. Faith, Family, Friends, Fun are the mainstays of my existence. Oh, and Food. Thanks for the Fajitas, today, guys...

Who comes on my cave tours? Everybody. That's what makes it so fun. Today, I had guys with tattoos all over their body standing next to Amish tourists. I've had Adult, educated, Europeans standing next to runny nosed little American kids. Somehow, we all are able to come together and enjoy the incredible beauty underground. I like that. It's not like we have to fight over what channel to watch. We only get one channel underground-the Beauty Channel. Let's all explore it together.

I get to show the little girls the Fairy in the Fairy Caves. Ooooo. Ahhhhh. I get to show the little girls the Tooth Fairy in my book "Dad, the Tooth Fairy Didn't Come!" www.jerrybegly.com/tooth. Whoooooa.Who's THAT? The hero is a very unlikely person for rescuing the parents from Parental Tooth Stress Syndrome.

I can't find any more bats in the main part of the cave. Our last little guy seems to have disappeared for the summer. He was sleeping all alone near Exclaimation Point. I'll bet he woke up from his long sleep and said "Hey guys, where did you all go? Guyyyyys! Come on out. You can stop hiding, now. It's me, Henry. Alleeeeeeee Alleeee in Freeeee! Then he flew off to enjoy his summer activities.