field day and school barbeque

Not quite the last day of school, but almost. Starts with a BBQ that the principal runs. Flips every burger himself. Then off to the 6th grade vs. staff softball game, which the staff always wins. Then a fun-filled field day complete with a free snow cone from the PTA. And let me tell you, that is the longest line you'll ever see. Now, on to summer!

Guemes Island

When Gramma and Papa came to visit, we took the 5 minute ferry ride over to Guemes. Had a treat at Anderson's General Store and then played on the driftwood and skipped stones. Earlier that morning we had already feasted on huge cinnamon rolls at the Farmer's Market. Then later that evening, we got a babysitter and took Gramma and Papa to Anthony's for a lovely happy hour on the waterfront.

Momma's taking us to the zoo tomorrow

Actually, it was a first grade field trip to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. I was lucky enough to chaperone the 3 smartest and most well-behaved gentlemen on the trip... rather from any school there. We spent a wonderful day running from exhibit to exhibit, thankful for no rain.

Michael, Liam and Abel. My three musketeers!

Junior Ski to Sea

Here's Logan finishing his leg of this most fun race in Bellingham. A group of his classmates formed a team to race in one of Bellingham's finest traditions. The adult race starts at Mt. Baker and finishes in Fairhaven, involving, skiing, running, biking, and kayaking. The Junior edition features running, 3-legged race, biking, soccer, and obstacle course. Logan did his team proud and gave them a huge lead by coming in 6th out of 75.

The Anacortes Challengers(pun intended, as their class is called the "Challenge" class) before the raceAnd... after. A cold, rainy day on Lake Padden, but very fun. Michael was a trooper to stand for two and a half hours supporting his brother. Opa made a showing as well as David. Cynthia and Ava stayed warm in the car, but we got to play with them after the race.
These kids are the sweetest, smartest, and just great all around kids in Logan's class. Well done, Challengers!

anything better in the spring????

No real captions necessary.

practically perfect and almost first

Last October our church offered group ticket prices for the Broadway tour of Mary Poppins, and since the show was in May, we thought we'd add it to Michael's birthday gifts. Needless to say, Michael was thrilled and Logan's response was, well, also predictable: a heavy sigh. But they rallied once they found out their best friends Aidan and Liam were also going. And, as luck would have, we ended up sitting in the same row. While they were the only boys in the audience of the grand Paramount Theatre, they couldn't have been happier. And Michael is still skipping around the house singing, "just a spoonful of sugar..." and "chim chiminee, chim chiminee...". It's delightful.

Despite the following picture, Logan ended up in first place. He's with his good friend Dominic, and you can see Oma, Opa, Auntie Fay, and yours truly in the background cheering him on.
This is the finish of the mile run. Notice that Logan only has one shoe; he lost the other on lap 3. He ended up in second place, behind the 6th grader in the picture.

birthday bash

Well, there was a two hour window of no rain and that was exactly the time of Michael's 7th birthday party. Whew. A relief mostly because I had no rain contingency plan. An outdoor obstacle course, cake pops, build a hackey sack out of balloons, and go home. That was my only plan. And it worked like a charm. I've never, ever seen michael so happy. He literally laughed and smiled for two solid hours, plus the after hours smile that lingered all evening.

Yummmmmm

I thought it would be easier to make cake pops than a complicated Star Wars battle ship. And to some degree, I was right. But then reality hit and I was left holding one cake pop on a stick at a time waiting not-so-patiently for the chocolate coating to harden before I could dip another one. And then there was the question of where to store all of them? After I filled the three styrofoam bricks and still had over 25 to go, I ran out to my garage, got the old, I mean, ancient, cooler from the 90's that has seen so many campgrounds with Brian and me, and turned it on its side. There... instant cake pop stand.

music music music

The boys' music concert went off without a hitch. The compromise minutes before we headed up to the high school auditorium was that Logan could keep the "mohawk" he had worn to school that day if he agreed to wear a "church" shirt. Anything with a collar sends him in a downward spiral, so I picked a battle I could live with: hair or shirt, his choice. I had a feeling which one he'd pick. And Michael just sang his little heart out.

Happy Easter

You can dress them up, AND take them out. My handsome boys. Haven't had a picture with them in quite a while. And now, since it's mid-May, I should really update this blog. More pics to come.

We've been flocked

We woke up to a flock of flamingoes all over our front yard. Yay! Fun, cool a great fundraiser for our church youth group: you can send a flock to another family for $20. Then they have to pay a removal fee. You can, however, buy insurance to block the flock. Then the sender will have to pay extra to make sure your yard is pink. As I was saying, this is all well and good... unless you get flocked the day before Easter. And then--all your neighbors think you decorated your yard for Easter. Ugh!

The boys are loving the birds; I even enjoyed them until four or five people drove up and told us how much they liked our Easter decorations. NO!!!! They're not Easter decorations. This flocking has been going on all month and will continue for many more weeks. And we get the pink on Easter. Sheesh. So here are the boys after two services, which is why Logan has lost the tie and is ready to lose the rest of his church clothes any minute. They looked really handsome when we left our house for the first service this morning. Where was my camera then?

p.s. Flamingoes in the tree as well:)

goodbye, paas. hello silk ties!

A good friend invited us to "tie-dye" eggs. I was thinking groovy sixties, but then she told me I needed to go shopping for 100% silk TIES. Oooohhhhhh, "tie"-dying. A quick trip to Soroptomists for all the silk ties they had(.75/tie), and a few minutes cutting them up was all it took for these gorgeous works of art. Not kidding. It was easy and fun for all our kids. The best was the big reveal--unwrapping them after they had boiled in the ties. The oooohs and ahhhhhs were precious, and I'm not sure who enjoyed it more: the moms or the kids. And, as is often the case in life, the ugliest ties made for the most stunning eggs. Happy Easter everyone!

handsome handsome

Upon Logan's insistence, we took the boys for haircuts. While I loved watching Logan's flowing locks blow in the wind as he ran like a gazelle, his hair was driving him crazy. And we are foolish enough to think that it will one day be warm here in the Pacific NW that we figured short is better.

The other day we got home from school, and I made the boys their usual afternoon snack. Routine calls for hand-washing and then homework while they eat their snack. But on this particular day, I was pleasantly surprised to walk in to the dining room to find both boys working assiduously on unassigned creative writing: comic strips. They both just wanted to write stories. Now, these tales included blood and death, of course, but I am thankful for baby steps. They were writing. And there was no hair in their eyes.

redhead hogs

Rest assured, my son will NEVER have a motorcycle.. at least not while he's under my roof. However, what are you going to say when Uncle Ed offers to take you for a ride?

bat caves

We got to go spelunking with some friends last week and had a blast. Who knew our forestlands (trails and mountains we hike on all the time) had this great bat cave? Just above Little Cranberry Lake.. a semi-steep climb to the top and voila... a deep, rather scary cave that goes quite a ways back. This picture is actually within the cave at a fork. I was trying to show just how deep the path went. But alas, I only have a little digital.

Michael, well into the cave at another division.
Daddy and Michael at the entrance. Logan didn't venture in as he spotted a spider hanging from the cave roof. I couldn't fault him; I almost stepped on a snake on our way up. Gross. Yuck. Damn. Shit.

fun in the sun

The one day we had sun, boys came out of the woodwork. This was the scene in our front yard when Brian naively put on his glove and asked if anyone wanted to have a catch. 7 boys. 7! Oh my. He has the patience of a saint. I was inside getting snacks ready and saying goodbye to our grocery budget. Oh well, fun was had by all, including the patient saint.

march in and out like a lion. no lambs to be found.

March was Read Across America month and both boys were charged with recording the number of minutes they read each and every day of the month: one ticket per 100 minutes. At the end of each week, there was a drawing, and the winning ticket holder got to pick a prize: Mr. Selting's huge penguin collection among them. This was Michael's pick. Logan also won and chose one of his principal's penguins.

Logan's Read Across America State Fair book report project. He had to read a book that takes place in a US state and then create a state fair exhibit that the entire student body would view as well as an evening "fair" for parents. Logan worked so hard on this and was very proud. He wrote to two of Oma's friends from Colorado and got a ton of things back from them. His book was Hard Gold: The Colorado Gold Rush by Avi. Background of his display is the Colorado flag.