I love how they think

When Strider was playing with his cousins yesterday, they started playing a made-up game in which one person was the "lady" and the other kids were the "guys" who were wanna-be suitors of the "lady." The "guys" had to take turns proposing to the "lady," and then she would either say, "yes" or "NEXT!"  Here are a couple of the examples:

Ellie as "guy":  You should marry me because I am strong and can protect you and defend you because I went to the Naval Academy and now I'm in the military!
Strider as "lady":  Yeah, but now you're going to have to go to Afghanistan, and I don't want to have to be apart.
Ellie as "guy":  No, now I'm retired -- but I still have some good moves!
Strider as "lady":  NEXT!

Strider as "guy":  I am Uncle Sam.  Will you marry me?
Ellie as "lady":  But where is your flag?  You are so disorganized if you don't have your flag!  NEXT!

***

Romance was on Rayna's mind this morning, too, I guess.  She wanted to show me something:
"Look, Mom, they're kissing!"

***

But Colsen had other things on his mind this morning... This is some of what he had to say:

"Mom, you're going to have to really miss me because I am going to be gone for 540 days and I have to leave tomorrow because I have to go college because I am going to help them build aaallllll the college because the other college fired down.  So I'm going to help build it.  It fired down because I brought my dragon to the college and it didn't work out.  He breathed out of his mouth and fire came out and all the buildings burned.  But I was good, I rescued all the people because I took the dragon and caged him and put him in jail for a few days.  So if you see any dragons anywhere, call me because I can rope them and cage them for you."