Today I got a 4×4 and a 5×5! I also went on a camping trip. Do you no what’s funny is that we call it “wet wood and a dull ax.” Mom had trouble starting the fire! I learned how to play a song that my Mom loves (Andante).

I have had a little trouble keeping up with posts this summer, haven’t I!? Well…maybe it’s the 12 cubic yards of gravel Richard and I have shoveled, or the 16 cubic yards of top soil, or the wood we’ve stacked, the ground I’ve cleared with my machete (trails and a campsite on the property), plants planted, moss cleared (that’s mom’s painstaking contribution, although she managed to find an excuse to break out the saws-all yesterday for some roots!). We have had a wonderful time working very hard to landscape and contain the overgrowth on 3 of 4 quadrants around the house. We’ve also found some time for fun, even though we were pushing the ibuprofen every night 🙂 Here are a few pictures…and I’m in the process of loading more into the album. In my spare time…ha!

Sam in flag football camp! He had a great time last week.

A day trip to Mt. Rainier turned into a gorgeous outing. Overcast skies gave way to this amazing view of the mountain topped by a lenticular cloud (which means rain in 24 hours on the mountain). Richard drove us all over there and back in his "big black truck", much to the boys' delight. We had a great time, topped off by dinner at a cute family-friendly place called Bruno's. How could we NOT stop there - do you remember Ben's plastic dump truck which he pushed around the dunes and sands of Kailua at break-neck speed? He still does that! Oh, and the wild flowers were in peak bloom. Breathtaking, really. I want to be a mountain goat and live there, grazing in the fields.

After eyeing "ferndale" on our property for a year as a possible tent cabin location, I hacked out a campsite with my machete on Saturday so I could camp out with the boys to unplug a bit. We had such a good time. It feels really remote out there, and we enjoyed watching stars come up through our tent's skylight (we didn't use a rain fly as no rain has fallen in 29 days here!). I even saw the big dipper straight up through the tent screen when coyotes and owls woke me up in the middle of the night. It was so neat. The smell of SPAM grilled the night before made it really feel like old times out camping with them.

The view through the skylight up through the trees. Hawaii-style clouds!

8-3-2012

Erleer we went to the SPACE needle. And had lunch in the café up theyr. I also Biult Robo-Gater. We went to Lake Cresint. I lerned how to ciac (kayak) at Lake Cresint. I’m now constructing a strang masheen that I’m not done whith. Do you know why I love to biuld? Baucus it seems to Me that It’s fun to biuld. My Grand-parents came for a 15 day visit! I did a 100, 300 and 750 pise puzzle.

(all original spelling and punctuation retained)

This is what PopPop (Bill) said after chicken-proofing the garden, the second time! We think it is chicken Ft Knox now, but only time will tell. Some of these creatures can fit through very small holes, and their feathers act like little greasing agents which help them slick right through fences which would trap us. Every time Nana and PopPop visit we end up with a short list of very memorable quotes. In Coronado we will never forget Bill’s two: “Our goose is cooked” and “Who did this? Who DID this?” Here we think the first two candidate quotes have already been logged – “Chickens will find a way” (or will have their way?) and Gail keeps asking “What is that noise? What IS that?” pertaining to different house noises they’re getting used to. They are so funny! Nana is also getting her mind around the fact that our cold hardiness zone is 9a, and theirs in upstate NY is 5a – stuff that would die there in a winter can live through it here. She’s looking around in wonder, especially this morning at our fuschia in the ground! They are so much fun and SO nice to allow me to have a few laughs at their expense. You know I LOVE a good laugh! 🙂

Nana getting her hands dirty in the garden! It is so fun to have them here! See the wonderful chicken-proofing, with enough room for veggies to grow?

You can guess who asked and answered that one! Today we had a FABULOUS time out mountain biking at Grand Forest. Click on the picture for the whole story 🙂

For JUNE pictures, click here: http://www.kampkrug.com/album/2012/2012-06%20JUNE/index.html

For JULY pictures, click here: http://www.kampkrug.com/album/2012/2012-07%20JULY/index.html

Ben loves to bike hard down the driveway, get some good speed, then practice braking on a dime. He loves to make long skid marks then have me measure them. So he's learning that 6 is bigger than five, and even remembered learning about parallel lines (something I randomly pointed out weeks ago at a doctor's office where the railing on the staircase provided a good example). Can you see all the skid marks in this picture? At one point he asked me "Mom, are these two parallel?" and I was floored! What a good boy. Sometimes he shows remarkable recall. Other times he shows no good sense whatsoever...

Today is one of those days I am thankful the boys are safely tucked in bed. My job is done. Do you ever have days where it seems like random injury is around the corner at every turn? And the kids happen to be fragile, too, so every random injury is a big deal? Today was one of those days. Sam complained of a splinter, then pulled it out. Next he complained of a sore foot, but it was totally fine to walk on minutes before. Then his ear hurt (which does bear some merit – I think he has a mild case of swimmer’s ear which has been off and on for a few days and we’ll have to remedy this week). Then at my dear friend’s house checking on her new chicken hatchlings (more of Merlin’s progeny!) Ben took a slipper to the cornea in a freak accident. Then we’re out mountain biking (you’re thinking – huh? on a freak accident day?) – because we all really wanted to go (Dave was at work so couldn’t call us off the trail). We went to a trail we knew, but forgot how many hills there were. Things look different when you’re rolling. So at one point when I was coaching Sam on the finer points of shifting just in time to keep momentum up a hill, then standing up to keep going, Ben decided he was going to check out what we were doing. I’d told him to stay put in no uncertain terms, but he went rogue. Next thing I knew I looked up and there he was merrily rolling off-trail down a 20% grade right toward a tree, with no real look of concern. Probably thinking he can brake any time. I threw myself before the runaway train and caught him. I might possibly have had some expletives of disbelief, too. I was more growling than talking because I didn’t want the nice homeowners to hear me, so thankfully probably the kids had no real idea what I was saying. Everyone is fine, but this just goes to show my daredevil is capable of just about anything, even blinded in one eye. (His eye is fine – the cornea abrasion is either gone or fine – he recovered in minutes. He’s dramatic, though, so sometimes it’s very hard to distinguish fact from near-fact.)

Anyway…I just dearly love those boys but sometimes I feel like I hardly know them! My tough guy Sam who never complains about a thing – ever – truly never complains – actually complained about three things today. So I said, hey, you know what, maybe just do a bathtime FYI for me…which he remembered and did tonight. He goes “Hey, mom, I’m not complaining, but just so you know, my ear is bothering me a bit.” Perfect! Well done my friend. I asked where it was on a scale of 1-10 (which the boys can reliably do and have been doing so for years) and he said a 2 or 3. I gave him some Advil and a promise to follow it up on Monday with the doc. He is fine. Good boy. Say a few prayers for my friends – ask their guardian angels to keep just a tad bit closer watch on them perhaps?

Tonight as they were putting jammies on they asked me to “make me talk, Mom!” Which means – move their chins and talk in a funny voice as if I’m them, talking. Weird stories come to mind and it’s very cathartic for all of us for me to make them say horrendous things about their ogre of a mom and end up laughing…somehow in Sam’s story (as I was moving his chin and he was smiling) he became a jelly donut. “Why am I biking up this crazy hill, mom, when all I really want is to be a donut, yeah, a donut, filled with jelly and smiling up at people from my white box!”  You get the idea…

It all started here - boys in their first parade on a float representing the Aquatic Center where they take swimming lessons. They loved relaxing, eating candy, and watching all the sights!

Then we had a casual fire and pizza time with dear friends and patriots, Matt and Melodie (although I am not sure why they were in black and white!). We had a great time kicking off the festivities with Matt showing us how to properly form up and salute the flag while Sam played the national anthem. Once we were officially "at ease" we fell out to pizza and catching up.

Reading some famous quotes about the Fourth of July - and guessing to whom they should be attributed. As you might imagine, Dave and Matt did very well at this! We burned the quotes upon reading. Seemed fitting somehow. Sam read one, too.

Some monster s'more eating!!!! I love this shot 🙂

Buffy came out back to celebrate with us. Here the boys are giving her select blades of grass to nibble on. Their little heads formed a heart shape over her. Seeing the setting sun dance on the grass in front of them while they tenderly cared for their young hen was just about as moving as hearing the Star Spangled Banner dance off my son's fingers on his loud guitar, or the stirring of bagpipes within the soul. (Dave says he's not moved to tears by bagpipes - clearly he is not Scottish!).

The pictures above give you a sense of the day. Please click for Sam playing his guitar to open festivities this afternoon. He started out with a warm-up (Gramma will love this – Amazing Grace) and at precisely 4:04 he hit the national anthem for us. We love that his amp is battery-powered. 6 AAs, baby, and we can fire it up anywhere! Anyone need a little Star Spangle in their Banner? In the T&C parking lot? First day of school? The opportunities are endless! But do enjoy this front-porch stage  performance: http://www.kampkrug.com/video/2012_July_4_Star_Spangled_Banner.wmv 

Week of 7-2

This week I built alpharex! Evin my cimputer wasn’t strong inof! Evin for an 85 pg instruchin book! The peeps have moved into the run! I was in the 4^th of July parade in the aquatic center float! And Ben was too! And I’m in Manta Ray. My rooster, Merlin, is obsessed when he is (in) a nesting box. He’s chucling right now!

Dear Sam,

I really enjoyed sitting by the coop in our little tent and watching all the hens to be sure the little ones (Gordon, Alex, and  Jersey peep) were ok! Butterflies danced in the garden while we chatted and laughed at Merlin!

I love you forever!

Mom

7-6-12, 3:07pm

Little trolls found the cache at Hidden Cove! We had the trails to ourselves today - completely and utterly alone out there. No dogs charging us, no chatting moms, no running of the bulls (ooops, I mean boys)...Ben said on our way back to the truck as we talked about hearing only the pitter patter of rain "It's peaceful in here."

I don’t want to forget something Sam said last week on a hike with a friend of ours. She was talking about her son leading a bike trip for teens down the state of VT. We guessed it was 300 miles long top to bottom, and he had 15 days to make the trip. How many miles would they do a day?, she asked. Sam was quiet for quite some time. She started with 15 times 2 is 30…Sam was still quiet. Finally he came up with an answer (I don’t remember what it was, but it was a bit off, so we started working through  how he got it – the process was so interesting). I think he started with figuring out how many 15s there are in 90 (6); then how many 90s in 300 (trying to get close to 300) – 3 and a third he said. So he’s at 270 with 3 90s; and 6 15s in each 90. That leaves 30 miles to spread across 15 days – 2 each day. So if there are 6 15s in each 90, and three sets of 90, then 6×3=18 plus those extra 2 miles each day is 20 miles a day. I was sick that week, so it literally took me the entire drive home to figure out what he had done. Last night I remembered it, and wanted to write it down, so this morning I tried to recreate it using the pieces I remembered (6, 90 and 3 1/3) but couldn’t. So I just woke Sam up and had him help me. My goodness his head works in interesting ways. He juggles a lot of pieces when he problem solves. He really pictures the parts moving around in a way I don’t naturally do.

2012

Weeks of 6-18 and 6-25

You know summer is when scool is out. Most of the time good things are hapining. Not onle around me but to me. One of my favrits was Mindstorms! Kitsap reginel Librare (KRL) sometimes has speishle events. Sometimes it’s spechis like Orion the owl. And some times Enginnering. Like Legos at the Lirare, and a Cardbord Marble runs. I also ingoed, swimming Lessins, Lorning about Lewis & Clark, And I loved programing my Mindstorm! W also got Brikes from the old Wilkes skool!