Jeff came to town this week. The kids have been super-excited to see him, so it’s always a fun visit. As a special bonus, he took them out to buy birthday presents, since he wasn’t in town for birthday season.
Shep got this hex bug on steroids, complete with remote control. Neko got this horse and trailer (inspiration courtesy of Horseland), and created this still life and demanded I take a photo of it.
Thanks for visiting, Jeff, and maybe next time we’ll get YOU in the photos.
What a ridiculous photo. My kids refused to take a picture unless Mercy and Marin were in it, and then Shep starts sneaking out of the frame.
Neko has some severe stage fright. Despite the fact that our house is a non-stop production of theatrics and singing, every time school has a performance, she never wants to go.
When I heard about a week-long theater camp happening this summer, I ignored it. No way she would want to go. But then I found out all her friends would be attending, I felt the pressure to sign her up.
So she went. And loved every minute of it. The whole week was filled with workshops and projects and loads of anticipation for the big night. She was downright giddy, a way I’ve rarely seen her with organized activities.
The big night was fantastic. The kids all did great, and were thrilled to get their flowers (thank you Nancy), accolades, and after-party snacks. All the grandparents were in attendance—and a special bonus visit from her former teacher, Erin.
Neko is already asking when the next play is. So, um, maybe Nature Girls have a Nature Theater where they put on plays as well?
Shep has been saving his allowance for a month to buy a stuffed Gogo named Ichiro. Ichiro has a zipper, and is reversible, so there’s another pattern on the inside. As a bonus, Ichiro comes with two regular sized Gogos. For this five-year-old, this is about as good as it gets.
Anyway, today was allowance day. He’s been counting down days for two weeks. So this morning Ichiro, having made it all the way from Europe, thanks to eBay, came into our home.
Shep had been wanting a sleeping bag for Ichiro for weeks, but I kept putting him off, telling him we should really wait until Ichiro arrives so we could get proper dimensions (because, seriously, we have dozens of strangers arriving at our house in a week and it looks a bit like a tornado blew through). But today? It was unavoidable. I stopped my whirlwind cleaning to make a a sleeping bag, with little pocket for the two regular sized Gogos.
And at quiet time, the two new friends, both in their sleeping bags, settled in for one whopper of a nap.
Leah was our very first babysitter when we finally felt brave enough to venture out after Neko was born. We loved her dearly, but then, like all our babysitters seem to do, she graduated and moved on to Real Life.
When she got engaged, her sister wanted to help bring us in the picture to do something special for her. Tom ended up designing her wedding invitation, and today she and her mom made the drive down to come pick them up.
It reminded us how much we loved Leah, and good grief, her mom is just as wonderful. Sadly, we won’t be able to make it to wedding, but we’ll make a toast to she and Brian that night for sure.
When I saw the big Bobcat sitting in the yard, I knew we were committed. The high tunnel is going up.
Okay, really we were committed when all the pieces got delivered and started hogging every square inch of the garage, making the kids’ attempts to retrieve a bicycle turn into some sort of high wire act. I so want the garage back.
Originally, Tom was going to build this big, beautiful garden with a fence and seating area and, oh, it was going to be lovely. But then we attended a gardening workshop, where we learned about high tunnels, and how you can garden year round. This whole concept was really exciting, as I once added up our grocery bills for the entire year and almost had a heart attack. Feeding five people a primarily organic, fruit and vegetable filled diet is crazy expensive. (Thus, the obesity epidemic.) After we visited another family who had their own high tunnel, the decision was made, and practicality won out over aesthetics.
Anyway, Tom’s brother John came into town and helped dig enormous holes in our rock-filled ground (hooray for perseverance and patience) which would hold the supports in several feet of concrete. Big thanks to John for helping out, and to Alicia for letting us borrow him.
Needless to say, by dusk we had ton of great big holes in our yard. And, omigoodness, the kids thought they were the most fun things ever. I’m going to add this to the list for my future toy store—big holes and dirt piles.
Addendum: My friend Libby, who has been in construction for ages, said these deep holes are actually quite unsafe for children to play in because they could collapse unless you have those cardboard tube thingies. Which we had, but not actually in the holes at that time. So when I sell holes at my toy store, they’ll come with those cardboard liners or, like, super-safe titanium liners. With lasers.
About a decade back, when we lived in the Big City, our neighbors Jeff and Sally had this amazing hammock. This hammock I loved. This hammock I wondered if maybe, in the dark of night, I could just move to our yard and no one would notice. Thing is, Jeff really loved that hammock, too, so I didn’t think it would pan out.
But this year, for Mother’s Day, Tom gave me a hammock. Well, he gave me a cheap hammock from Target, and permission to buy my dream hammock. You know, if I could find it.
It took me roughly two months, but i did track it down. Of course, it arrived just hours before Tom left town for the weekend, but I was so determined to enjoy that hammock this weekend, I muscled it together myself in 95 degree weather while watching three kids.
And today, while Ellery napped, I laid in the hammock. Shep and Neko took turns visiting me. We giggled and looked at clouds and took pictures. I had one of those moments where I couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be.
And then a chicken pooped on us, and we all had to go inside and clean up.
But I still can’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be.
Things have been slow around here blog-wise, but crazy chock-full in terms of busy. We’re in recovery from vacation and preparing for the next few adventures.
(Photo by Tom.)
99% of our vacation we spent hunkered down at the house. We never once went out to eat (although the grown-ups ordered in a few times). We left the house to bike, go to the grocery store, or hit the beach, but left for very little else.
We did, however, decide our one tourist venture would be to seek out some dolphins. They head into the lagoon in search of dinner, which makes for a great viewing opportunity. Unfortunately, the dolphins were way more interested in looking for food than entertaining us, but we did get to see them slip in and out of the water here and there.
Scott, our faithful captain, kept us entertained with showing us the zillions of oysters, viewable when the tide comes in (the first photo). He even pulled a crab on board for inspection. But mostly the kids loved the speedboat, zooming through the water. Ellery did almost fall asleep at one point, which is a hazard of scheduling our tour during nap time.
Undoubtedly, the tour was well worth leaving the house. But then we went home, put our bathing suits back on, and got back to business as usual.
