Pussy Willow

Found this at the dog park the other day. Wonder if the dogs growl as
they pass.

And....Action!

Ok, August, so I want you to pretend that you're at a table full of candy and ice cream and your mom and dad have left the room...what would that look like?
Cut! Print! Perfect!

Benches

They meet on Wednesday nights while their little girls do gymnastics. Checking off the days, they wait impatiently for the hour to arrive. For the other parents, it is an endless hour, on hard wooden benches that smell of feet, but for them it goes too fast. He sits next to her, wedging his body around hers, giving her his full attention. His eyes looking into hers, their legs barely touching getting as close as they can without drawing attention.

This night she came bearing gifts, a small bag with dinner- turkey sandwiches with avocado slices on whole wheat. She packs a bowl full of sugar snap peas hoping he likes them. His eyes go wide as she takes the lid off revealing the vibrant green.
This is the only way they can eat together. The thrill of being in public without being revealed is pure bliss.
It is not yet time to reveal their love for one another, the girls have already been through too much.
They will wait. There will be more months of gymnastics, further time to talk and listen and grow their relationship.

His hand slowly wraps around her small forearm like ivy up a brick wall. She glances around the gym looking for her daughter. Upon finding her she smiled and waves and returns her gaze towards her new found love. This small touch will hold them both over until next week when they will sit together on the hard benches again.

Days

We've got a lot going on in our lives right now...August is in 3rd grade this year which means that he gets to go to camp with all the other 3rd graders at this school. It costs real money to go to camp and not everyone can afford it so the parents get together every year and do some sort of fund raiser to make sure that every child can go (yes...yes...no child left behind...) this year we're doing a BINGO night. Trey has signed up to find prizes for the winners and to clean up...He'll learn sooner or later that you really should just pick ONE thing to volunteer for. And because Trey is cleaning up, I am cleaning up. I didn't volunteer for much because I'm putting the 2nd Annual Hootenanny together. This Hootenanny is taking up many, many, many hours of my life. In the end it's so cute though. We've got at least 20 acts full of singing, dancing and skits. The Many Family Singers will be performing a Beatles song this year...if I can get it on video I'll try to post it here.
Tonight Trey has a friend from High School making a stop on a business trip. We're all going out to dinner to play catch up. Then another old friend from Velour100 days is in town and will be spending the night.
I'll leave you with a few pictures from our visit to the aquarium during Mid-Winter Break (thanks Chee Chee and Wick!)

The sleep over is over

Yummy French Toast Bake for the kids...except they didn't like it. I believe they all agreed that it was "too eggy". Oh well...had to try!
Bowls of fruit salad all around instead.
The gal pals watching cartoons before they got dressed. Hazel's friend lives across the street from us...I see many overnights in our future as they got along perfectly and yes, they fell asleep with no problems AND they slept in until 9am. Not bad!

Zoo

We decided to go to the Seattle Zoo today. It didn't turn out to be quite as warm as the last few days but the sun was shining so after an hour at the dog park we called our friend Jonah and drove to our old neighborhood. When we lived on Greenwood we could sometimes hear the monkeys hooting and howling down the road at the zoo. Now we have to drive to hear them.

The owl lady amazed us all with facts about this native to Seattle, the Barred Owl. It only weighs 1.5 lbs! It can turn it's head 270 degrees! It's feathers are about 2 inches deep!! We stood there asking questions and listening for a long while.
This beauty was found wandering the grounds. The colors were so bright and shocking.

Jonah was having a great time...until Hazel hurt her ankle and started crying. Her tears set off the water works in Jonah, August tried to reassure him that Hazel was alright...that she just hurt her ankle a little, but Jonah wasn't believing a word of it. He fussed until Hazel stopped.

August and Hazel love visiting the Kamodo Dragon and watching the video of one hatching. It's kind of like rubber necking for them. Once the dragon comes out of the egg it's all bloody and slimy and August starts making all kinds of gross sounds...Hazel turns her head to try to look away but can't seem to take her eyes off the screen. They do this every time.
Some pretty berries along the path.

Wild Dogs!So the big fella behind the glass, turns out he's 42 and was hand raised. That's his 20 year old daughter, he raised her. The dad loves kids and when he sees them come toward the window he runs over and tries to connect with them. The daughter kept grabbing his face to get him to pay attention to her but he kept looking back at the kids. It was very interesting. There was a gal standing off to the side kind of giving us a narrative of what was going on...she totally could have been making it all up but it sounded good.
So, that was our trip to the Seattle Zoo today. Thanks Wick and Chee Chee for the Zoo membership. We love it.
Now we're waiting around for one of Hazel's friends to come for a sleep over!!! Good times!

Watching

The kids and I are sitting at home watching American Idol. It's the first episode where we get to vote on who we like. Hazel, after every boy who sings says, "I'm voting for him...he's the best!" August keeps giving her the older brother look that says something like, " Are you crazy little girl? That guy SUCKED!"
Trey is out having dinner with some music industry people. I'm not bummed that he gets to do these things, it's just that when the kids are off school it makes the days so. stinking. long.
My sister Kat came by today and allowed me to go to the gym for an hour today. It was great. I feel so much better about things in general when I get to the gym. Once I got home everyone was hungry so we decided to walk down to Green Lake again, this time with Kat and Jonah and Royal and Tank. It was a motley crew walking down the road. We had our sights set on World Wraps but once we got there we realized that we all kinda wanted Zeeks Pizza instead. It was delicious. It was warm enough to eat outside in the sun. There's nothing better than eating good food after walking a long distance. Then, we started our long trek home. Royal was pooped by the time he got in the car...Tank on the other hand had plenty of energy.

More vacation notes to come.

February has been...

brutal!
Seriously. Hazel has strep throat for the second time in 2008, Tank has had to go to the vet twice this month (once resulting in surgery!) and August has boils! Yes folks, BOILS!
I'm trying to look on the sunny side: Hazel is on antibiotics so she'll be free from sickness for the next few weeks...Tank, well, he'll just have to suffer through whatever befalls him next and August...hmmmm, can't really find the bright side to boils. Nope, nothing positive in that there affliction.

Today starts Mid-Winter break. The kids are off for the week and I'm just wishing we were somewhere else. Last year we went to Disney World. I can't help but wish that that was an annual trip.
From what the weather reports say it looks like yesterday and today will be the nicest for the week. So yesterday we went to Green Lake Park which looked like an ant hill by the time we got there. Trey took the dog around the lake while the kids played at the playground. I spent the time nerotically watching the kids move from one spot to the next.
Today it was just me and the kids. We had pancakes for breakfast and went to the dog park. Tank loves being free to run full speed. The kids love to look at all the other dogs. I think Hazel had picked out 5 breeds she will have when she's an adult: a Great Dane, a Husky, a puppy Golden Retriever, a Wiener dog and I can't remember the last one. She was embarrassed when I informed her that the Golden Retriever puppy wouldn't stay a puppy forever. The dog park we are lucky enough to live closest to has an area open to dogs on the water. Tank is rather confused by why the dogs actually go INTO the water but he does enjoy watching and pacing the shoreline. August and Hazel pass the time by climbing this great big tree that fell a few years ago.
After the dog park we went next door to the kids playground where Hazel ran into one of her good friends from school. So off she went to play house or some other girlie game which left August to roam the grounds looking for something to do. He couldn't convince his sister to do anything with her so he ended up sitting in the sun with me. Later I announced that we should start heading home for lunch so Hazel hugged her friend. It was rather sweet until I looked down and noticed that her friend was grabbing Hazel's butt. No, grabbing and SQUEEZING Hazel's butt. It was the strangest thing. As we walked away I asked Hazel if she noticed what her friend was doing, to which she replied, "yup, she was squeezing my butt and her pinky was close to my crack so I farted on it." August and I about fell on the floor from laughing so hard. That's my girl!

Once lunch was over and done with I started feeling my daily need for afternoon coffee and was able to convince the kids that Tank needed a good walk. Thankfully they were excited to go outside so we walked a mile down to the Green Lake Starbucks to have a nice pick-me-up.
I sometimes find it difficult to walk the dog and hold Hazel's hand as I feel like one arm is being pulled ahead and the other is being pulled behind so I asked if August would mind holding on to Hazel for a few blocks. Here's proof that they can be wonderful siblings:
And now we are home. The kids are in the back yard yelling at our neighbors about something or the other, Tank is sleeping peacefully on the couch and I'm getting ready to fix dinner. I'm ready for this month to end. We've got many things to look forward to this year, I'll just need to keep my focus on that.

Freakin' Sick...AGAIN!

So Hazel came home feeling fine yesterday. But. Then. It. Happened. Something changed in her body and she hit a fever and melted down. This melt down continued from about, oh, 4:30 pm to, well, let's say, 9 am today. I had to dress her and take her to school because they were doing class pictures today, then rush to the drug store to get that children's flu medicine. She's all drugged up now and had to change her clothes to "make her feel better":
Aunt Kathleen came over to have lunch and brought a Valentines present from Jonah...it made Hazels day. I believe the quote was, "Wow, everything is just making me feel better and better and better!"
Oh the magic of flu medicine!
***Just got back from the Doctor...it's strep...again...the last time she had it was in January***

My Silly Valentine

Happy Birthday Tank! You've driven me crazy, you've made me laugh, you've made me cry. Here's hoping things calm down a bit now that you're one year old.
***a girl can dream can't she***

Spring?

Thanks so much Ann, I have loved watching this plant bloom. It gives me some small hope for warmer temps and sunnier days.

10 on 10

February, 2008

Lost Boys

August was in the school play on the 1st and 2nd of this month. He was casted as one of the 6 Lost Boys of Bora Bora, this basically meant that he had the freedom to act like a crazy boy while on stage...right up his alley.


Trey was asked to play drums. Also in the band was Chic Streetman and Stephanie Kallos. Who knew we had such talented parents in our school?
In this scene August and the Lost Boys were left in the "soda pop saloon" all alone so they started eating everything in sight...food was a-flyin'.
All the lost boys are in the back corner. This is during the curtain call, they're waiting for their turn to take a bow.
And here they are in the front taking their call.
It was a cute play, not perfect, but cute. And really, once you see your child up on stage they could be performing the three little pigs and it would be the best thing you've ever seen.