The past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind, but today we enjoyed being together in the beautiful weather. Everyone unplugged. Boys under the weather, Ben worse than Sam, but they are troopers and I’m hoping Benji bounces back soon because they’ve both been sick since our trip to Santa Barbara last weekend (they caught a cold just before we left 9 days ago). This morning he awoke to “Bubble Coughs” – ick! We’re not sure if the coughing starting first, or the bubbles started coming up. He was fine the rest of the day. I think he gagged on the thick mucus. TMI – sorry. Poor little guy. Low grade fever made him a bit floppy. Ben has lots of interesting names for things. He calls the cap gun tape “steam tape” because it makes smoke when it goes off. So clever! We were not at all sure what he was talking about at first, but of course – it makes sense now!

Yesterday I took Sam to a friend’s birthday party – an Army theme at a cabin in the woods that you can rent. In the middle of a sharks and minnows game (I was a shark!) the family with the neighboring birthday party asked how long our party was going on. Turns out they had the cabin all tricked out with a Harry Potter theme and didn’t want the rogue Army boys intruding on the festivities. Understandable. We got that worked out and kept the boys in the woods. Turns out they weren’t the problem. The birthday boy’s mom found some brooms in our little adjoining birthday area and showed them to me. You know what I immediately thought would be fun, don’t you. I double-dog-dared her to ride around the cabin on the brooms like in Quidditch – she seemed agreeable enough despite laughing like crazy. So off I went. It all went well at first, then I thought about how I was riding my broom and realized I didn’t know what “gait” to choose – in Quidditch they are flying through the air. But I was tethered to the ground. Should I trot? Or canter? I did both. Got some funny looks from adults, but the kids got it. I never looked back, though, so I didn’t know my buddy had bailed on me! I got back to our spot and she was there, hiding out and laughing! She lost her nerve when the dad with the other birthday came out of the cabin! Dang it! I was the only goof riding around on a broom! It was so funny though – I loved it. I kept the broom and continued riding around the woods on it. Clearly I don’t get out enough!

Last night we enjoyed a bbq and bonfire at the beach with friends from church. Views of Seattle, the Cascades lying behind, the ocean and an eagle flying within 20 feet of us – we take so much beauty for granted. The boys have had some very fun and action-packed days. Today was a nice respite before the last full week of school starts.

Here are some pictures from today.

Sunday afternoon cubing and snake talking. I taught Ben about symmetry – one snake is more symmetrical than the other. The python (in Sam’s lap) appears to be smiling on one side of his face but not the other. Dave is testing how to send pictures to my mom with his iPad.

Good irregular crumb structure and crust. Yay!

Dave brought this great spread out for the family. That is bread I made yesterday. Got my starter resuscitated after taking a winter off – I was just too busy to be inspired creatively. It’s fun to have it back from the brink of disgusting-ness. It had a layer of mold on it but I knew I could get it going again. Sure enough – two weeks later it’s revived and strong again!

My friend Brie – we are trying to figure out how to use these tie things to tie off 250 water balloons. We also tested the launcher for the end of school party 🙂 Tonight a massive trebuchet showed up at my doorstep courtesy of a wonderful friend who shall remain nameless 🙂 Otherwise he might be swamped for requests…ha!

Weeded the whole path and mulch area, and under the blue spruces to the right of the shed. I also moved and restacked wood.

This is “Nana’s” dahlia – it’s a huge purple one that has large blooms shaped like a crepe paper ball, or something. It’s really cool. Looks like the bulb survived winter and is coming back! I was beginning to wonder because it was delayed far behind all the other plants which rebounded sooner.

The lilac is blooming! We planted this with Nana and PopPop last summer. So fun to see some buds!