2012-02 FEB

1 This is my list of activities for Sam's birthday. Ended up in the Feb picture pile. Oh well. I am on the phone with Air China as I type helping a friend rearrange her flight home from Mongolia.	2 The amaryllis that Mom and Richard got us in bloom!	3 Ben helping me count the change for Pennies for Peace. We raised $12.18!	4 The kids who came to Sam's party donated the spare change instead of presents. They bought 1,218 pencils!
5 A friend over playing with Sam's Spirograph.	6 This is recess time at our house. Very typical afternoon. All kinds of stuff littered all over the yard.	7 Football time...	8 Pushing the pickup truck like Tim Tebow.
9 "He pushes it backwards, TOO! Like THIS!"	10 A fun present from Nana and PopPop.	11 Out at a beach for a walk and look who we found! Baby seal!	12 We had so much fun at Point No Point. Sam found this incredibly long kelp frond that he then dragged down the beach...
13 And up 30 stairs to a trail across a bluff...	14 After a 1/2 mile hike we decided it would be funny to coil it up like a snake! Dave kept hearing something behind us...the "snake" following us. So it will be funny to see if anyone else notices this great Pacific NW Kelp Snake in the tree.	15 Here it is!	16
17 Messing around with Daddy :)	18 The most incredible forts!	19	20 So nice to be out in the sun. 46 degrees feels heavenly!
21 "This is my AXE!"	22 Looking for something to chop.	23 A strange little whirlpool made by a depression in the sand.	24 Awww...the axe broke after chopping.
25 That is Rainier way out there.	26 More chopping at home!	27 Tito Pig - this is a really fantastic present!	28 Out on a hysterical walk with our friend Beth and her son Beckett.
29 Rowing!	30 Waiting for haircuts - Sam is reading about the Brooklyn Bridge. This is reading level 8+. Such a great guy. We were all so absorbed in the story.	31 Ben loves getting hair cuts.	32 Sam blew up their balloons for them! Now we're in the market and they have the crazies. Oh boy!
33 On my way home from swimming in the early am - got to see Mt. Rainier! SO pretty.	34 Sam walking off the school bus with a play date. His first time on a school bus. Of course he's ridden all kinds of other buses.	35 Sam tying a double carrick bend sennet bracelet for his teacher.	36 He is so unreal. He can flip this complicated knot and do it perfectly in reverse!
37	38 Here you can see the whole process. He is such a neat boy.	39 Out on a walk on a beach after dropping Daddy off at the ferry to catch a flight to Japan for an inspection.	40 The water is cold, but brave Sam says "Nah, it's not really that cold."
41 Carrying home bricks to make our own fire pit. We are nuts - we carried SIX BRICKS around for over a mile!	42 Yeah, boy!	43 And found this bone, too. Any guesses what it is? I have my money on bird bone, but the claw looks very very small for an eagle unless it's a juvenile I guess.	44 Then we found a playground.
45 And more chopping back at the firepit.	46 This is Ben's microphone :) He is singing to the chickens!	47 Who are busy eating!	48 Then he pulls up his wagon to watch and admire them.
49 While Sam does some roping on the tree.	50 This is Sam's Brooklyn Bridge, complete with suspender wires, anchorages and approaches.	51 The whole fleet of Celtic heart knots made for classmates.	52 They looked like this.
53 Silly guy out on a walk with me in the rain to pick up Dave's car from the shop.	54 Building a "hide"...	55 for Eagle.	56 Preschool time for Ben with mommy!
57 Making an "A" out of a mountain (we went to see "avalance mountain" - a big sand structure Sam and his buddies were building at school).	58 Teaching Grownup Eagle, too :)	59 He is so strong! He helps drag it out to the road when full, too!	60 I broke another chicken coop window! I'm getting ok at glazing ;0
61 Getting the mail is a favorite activity.	62 Followed by funny face time!	63	64
65 Keeping predators away while the chickens have recess.	66 Eagle and Merlin eyeing each other.	67 Ben at an indoor gym for play time. We haveonly been once but it is a favorite place for Island families, esp when it's wet out.	68 From inside - so cute to see him communing with his chickens. He spends a lot of time watching them and talking to them.
69 At E Day (Engineering Day) at the submarine museum. This is making an electromagnet.	70 Sam and Dad had a good time working together.	71 All done! Picking up a big string of paper clips!	72
73 Now building a big cantilever to hold up 100g weight. The longest one out from the table won the informal contest. Sam and Dad tied for first!	74 There it is!	75 Measuring distance out, minus distance it bent down.	76 Team Merlin at bottom :) In fairness, I think you can see which teams had a parent help, and which didn't.
77 Ben guarding the hens while Sam and I worked out front sawing up a bunch of wood.	78 New cover for the run!	79 At the playground :)	80 Bruno out having fun! This was the best 52 cents I think I've ever spent. Bruno came from a thrift store. Ben named him. If you scoot back to Feb 2011 and look at photos and videos from Hawaii, Bruno was racing up and down the beach park, barely dodging bikini-clad ladies!
81 There he goes! He is on a dead run with Bruno. Very funny when he wipes out in MUD! ICK!	82 Down at the docks to see friend Hannah rowing on her team.	83	84 Starfish!
85 There's a shell!	86 Thanks for the egg basket from my childhood, mom! The boys were so intrigued to know that I had used it as a child!	87 So happy making dust baths in some spring sunshine! They were nuts about their under-coop baths on this particular morning. All crowding and crowding down there!	88 Is this a hen? Or a rooster?
89 Another look.	90 What are they? Iridescent feathers on neck, but more shaped like a hen and no crowing yet. Hmmm...three wee kings, or queens? Hoping queens, obviously!	91 Guesses?	92 Kinda "roostery" stance there...
93 Out on a bike/run last weekend. It was gorgeous out!	94 Ben tackled hills all on his own. And Sam is so trustworthy on a bike. He's been at it for a long time. What a guy.	95 So cute!	96 This is the street where Sam learned to walk! He used to get out of the stroller here when he was so little and I'd walk him on chubby legs down this street then jog back to the playground.
97 And here he is now!	98 Mommy!	99 Mountains off in the distance across the water - too bad cell phone camera not great, and cars about to come!	100 The sky was amazing! Looks like sand rippling in ocean water!
101 And ice cream after 1.5 hours at the playground! We were outside ALL afternoon. They said it felt like they were at the playground for 5 hours - that's just what I'd hoped they'd feel like - an endless day at the playground.	102 A Friday bonfire :) That's our neighbor Beth and her kids :) Matt and Melodie were over, too!	103 After a long afternoon with my favorite tool - the MACHETE! I had just taken out some blackberry. And Sam and I had gone to town on some downed trees out front. Sam worked the bow saw all by himself earning money toward the much-desired Unimog!	104 I have bugs and dirt in my hair and can barely stand up! Dave took this through the window :)