A kindergartener no longer......

Today was Sela's graduation from Kindergarten. We are so proud of her and what a great year she has had. She has made a great little group of friends and I know she will miss them next year. The kindergarteners sang two songs at the assembly today and they were very touching. Nina and I were able to go and Sela kept waving to us. Nina found Grace Barr, one of her favorite babysitters, in the audience and sat with her. We got up early because Sela wanted to curl her hair and ride the bus her last day. I found this little box a couple of days with the word "Norm" spelled out in sticker letters. I gently opened it and found a sweet note to Norm, the bus driver. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It basically said "Dear Norm, you are the best bus driver. I will miss you. I hope you like my present" In the little box were two tiny hershey bars, two dark chocolates, one dollar bill, and a sticker. I didn't change a thing and Sela proudly took it to him this morning :)

Our week....

This week began with a trip to the zoo. It was quite sunny out so we didn't see as many animals as usual, but we still had a great time. It seems like we always have the best luck on overcast days.

Later in the week we went strawberry picking again. It was much harder work this time even though we brought John along. Going the first week is definitely the way to go...the plants are loaded with strawberries then. We still picked a lot and the kids had fun getting dirty and eating lots of berries.

Sela had field day at school on Friday. Field day is not the same as it was when I was little. I loved field day and all the races and relays. I should have known there would be nothing with "winners" anymore. Things have changed. It's fine either way, but I got Sela all excited about running races and other field events. The Alcott field day had 23 events from hula hoops to ice blocking to shimmying up a rope. I took Nina and she participated in a few things, her favorite being snacktime.

Zig and I went to a luncheon/fundraiser for Mitt Romney on Wednesday and we had a girls night out that night with a few friends. Erin and I snuck away one evening to play tennis which was really fun. Neither of us get to play as much as we'd like to. I really miss it and I want to find a way to get involved in a league again if I can figure out how to do it with the kids. I am pretty rusty though so it's great to have John and Erin here to play with. Zig is getting better each time as well.

On Saturday, Zig was in town so he started off the day with a bike ride to Carnation. He was gone at least three hours breaking his new road bike in. Later in the afternoon we all rode to a park the girls and I discovered on our bike ride earlier in the week. It had courts so we played some more tennis. The babies were running all over but somehow we still got a decent hitting session in and no injuries to the ball babies.

Early Sunday Zig left for Florida. Now we're off to another busy week. And only one more day of school!!! Summer is finally here.

Happy Father's Day...

Today we had a wonderful and to be totally honest, exhausting father's day. We started the day with gusto. Erin and I made homemade donuts (in honor of our Dad), huevos rancheros, hashbrowns and strawberry freezes. It was a yummy brunch. Erin and I realized after we bought the ingredients to make the donuts that Zig won't eat anything fried and John had this totally random goal of not eating donuts. Erin said he never ate them anyway, but for some reason he made that goal. But, we were so excited about making them ourselves that we went ahead. The guys ended up polishing off the donuts no problem in the true spirit of father's day. It was pretty funny.

After a fairly leisurly brunch and sharing our favorite memories of our dads, we got ready for church. When we came home we were all quite tired. The kids were melting but somehow we eventually got our homemade gyoza and rice bowls on the table. The babies both have colds and were incredibly whiney today. They also woke up very early and we stayed up sooo late last night. I am so tired tonight my eye balls hurt. But, it's been a great week overall. Zig and I had the rare opportunity of going out on a date at 2:30 in the afternoon until the evening on Friday. Erin and John were so nice to watch the kids and we had so much fun just hanging out, doing some shopping, and going to Cafe Flora, one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants. We are all loving our little "commune" setup :)

Saturday night Zig, John, Sela and I went out to Tolt McDonald park for an evening mountain bike ride. We had dinked around all day and finally got on our way at about 7pm. Just our luck as we got our bikes unloaded, it started to pour. Not the drizzle that we typically have, but full on rain. We just had to laugh because we couldn't do any real trails. I didn't have rainproof gear on and neither did John. Zig and Sela did. Sela was a trooper. She loved riding through all the puddles and the rain didn't bother her. I was soaked. I was shivering and we had the shortest ride ever. I continued to shiver for hours after we got home. But it's a great memory for sela and something to look back on and laugh about for the rest of us.

Dad, we took these pictures especially for you because we are so bad about getting things in the mail. We kept saying we need stamps, we need stamps all week. Finally we decided to try and take some pictures for you and Sela worked hard on a card. We love you so much!!!! Happy Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day to Poppy from Sela

Strawberry Everything!

This past Sunday on the way to church I noticed a little sign on the side of the road for u-pick strawberries. I know June is when local strawberries ripen, and it's definitely something I've been watching for, but seeing that little sign on the side of the road just made my spirit soar! Local strawberries are just amazing and don't compare to anything you can find in the stores, obviously. I look forward with such anticipation to berry season. So, of course, after church I got on the phone to check with Harvolds, the farm I wanted to try this year. Sure enough, it had just opened the day before. So, whatever was planned for Monday afternoon was bagged for we felt the pull of the strawberry fields. Erin shares my passion for farm fresh produce and for picking fruit.



Conveniently, Rollin fell asleep right as we rolled into the farm. PERFECT. He is ga ga over strawberries and would have an absolute blast eating as many as he could stuff in his mouth, but he would also put a huge damper on my productivity. Moriah is so dainty and afraid of getting dirty that she was a perfect little picker. She doesn't even like strawberries so she just kind of watched us.



To say the strawberries were divine is an understatement....oh my goodness...so wonderful. So good you want to kneel down and say a prayer of thanksgiving right there in the field. The little bushes were loaded with berries and the air smelled sweet. We picked for about an hour and then Rollin woke up. Game over. But in that time, we were able to pick 20 pounds of the most wonderful berries I have ever seen or tasted. So, it was a good day! We will most definitely return and Zig will most definitely be buying an extra freezer this summer. We still have blueberries, raspberries and blackberries to come. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves when we went to Whole Foods later in the day and saw a sad little wilty half flat of conventional strawberries for $13 and sitting in our car we had the equivalent of 10 half flats and we only paid $17 and ours were even organic.



We came home and in the next few days proceeded to make strawberry shortcake, , strawberries and cream, strawberry pancakes, strawberry yogurt, peanut butter and strawberry sandwiches, and of course strawberry dacaris and smoothies..oh, and strawberry lemonade. Then we froze 5 big freezer bags full.



Life is good.

Kindergarten Graduation Party

Today was Sela's kindergarten graduation party at Perrigo Park. It was so much fun...they had a treasure hunt in the sand volleyball courts, face painting, huge bubble wands, and lots of sun. I was able to take Nina and leave Rollin at home with Erin so it was not super stressful for me. Nina felt like one of the gang and had a great time. Hard to believe kindergarten is almost over. Can't slow down time no matter how hard I try.

Don't we all love Saturday!

What an absolutely gorgeous week this has been. It has been so nice to just play and eat outside with the kids. Both Rollin and Moriah are so happy outside. Saturday after Zig tackled the big task of mowing our yard, the girls roped John into a baseball game. Somehow the kids kept multiplying. Sela and Nina spent at least 20 hours with Sarah and Eliza this weekend going back and forth from our house to theirs. We had a nice mellow sunday going to church and sitting outside visiting. We are all enjoying our living arrangement and Erin and John even left Moriah tonight and she did not cry once. She cuddled up next to Zig in his chair while he was doing work on his computer. I had to take a picture just so Erin would believe it.