Summer Days

With no set schedule, we are enjoying the summer so much. The weather has been just fantastic and joining the club with the outdoor pool was the best decision (there aren't many around here)! It's so convenient and close that we can go for half an hour or three. The girls think it's so much fun to see their friends and Sela's swimming has already improved so much because she can actually practice. I'm not a big indoor pool fan, so when the kids take lessons, they don't practice much after that. I got Nina a life jacket rather than fight her intense fear of her head getting wet. Makes life much easier.

This morning we decided to go to the Kirkland waterfront for the Juggling Show. Sela really liked it last year. We didn't make it to more than a couple concerts/shows last year because Rollin was all over the place. It was way too stressful. Today he sat and watched the entire juggling show. Wow, I couldn't believe it. We are definitely entering a new and in some ways easier stage with him. He wanted to take his clothes off afterwards and get in the lake and chase the ducks.

For lunch we came home and had our first corn on the cob of the summer...what a treat and oh so yummy to have fresh, local corn!

I bought dog food and other dog paraphernalia yesterday at Costco. We got him some organic doggie treats which Zig scoffed at. The ingredients read like a healthy peanut butter cookie so Zig challenged me to try one ;) I couldn't eat something called wet noses doggie treats. But I'm sure Rollin would!

The puppy has a flight on Saturday so the excitement is building around here (well anxiety for me). Some ladies at the pool were talking about puppies today and how they are so hard that they should have just had another baby. They went on and on, and then I mentioned our puppy coming on Saturday. Everyone laughed in kind of a "poor woman" kind of way. What have we gotten ourselves into?

Playroom Project

We don't have a designated playroom in this house but downstairs there is this fun little storage room with concrete walls and floors. It's totally shut off from the rest of the house and only a closet door gets you down there. We've had the kids' toys down there since we moved in but we didn't think their playroom furniture would fit. We were trying to clean out the garage so Zig wanted to try and see if any pieces would work. We were pretty surprised to see that every single piece fit. One of the big cabinets and one little one are in the dress-up closet but otherwise, we stuffed 8 pieces of furniture down there and it doesn't feel crowded. We're both still scratching our heads about that one. It's not a huge space. Those metal cabinets were SO heavy but somehow we managed to get them down with a dolly and lots of ties (Or whatever those things are called). We did lots of cleaning out of toys and the whole project had us busy until midnight. Now it's playtime!



Taking a break amid the mess

The long weekend

It's been a very nice long weekend. With the 4th of July, it felt like we had two Saturdays..and boy did we need them. We played a lot on Friday and yesterday we spent the entire day at home. Zig did a ton of yardwork and the weather was ideal. It was really refreshing...a bit overcast and just cool enough to make it comfortable to be working outside. I worked mostly inside getting things organized and going through drawers and boxes from the move.

I tossed all of our soaps, lotions, and other body products with any unrecognizable ingredients. That was fun! I am down to my mineral makeup, Julie's lotion, my homemade exfoliating scrub, coconut/almond oil, and a few other essentials. Next to go will be my shampoo and conditioner! Woo hoo! The baking soda, apple cider vinegar experiement is going very well and I'm about to bid farewell to my nasty expensive shampoos for good. I hung onto them just because it seems too good to be true that baking soda and vinegar could leave my hair feeling cleaner, softer, and healthier than my existing products, but so far so good. This all sounds very granola of me, but I just wanted try it and see. I do care a decent amount about how I look and how my hair smells, so this had to meet some basic criteria for me to stick with it! I couldn't be more pleased with the results though. How could I go back to detergents on my hair if this works so well and there is no smell?! I'm sold. Don't worry, not going deodorant free anytime soon! Still shaving my legs.

Saturday night the kids shot off their puny little fireworks and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I wanted to tell Sela about roman candle wars we had as kids, but I exercised some restraint. Maybe next year!

Ahhh, Sunday. With so much work done on Saturday, Sunday was such a day of rest, as it should be, but often is not. Neither Zig or I had any teaching responsibilities at church today so we enjoyed the morning so much. I spent the morning outside with the girls walking around the yard checking out new buds, flowers, and fruits. The kids snacked on our first ripe raspberries as well as gooseberries and huckleberries.






Blueberries not ripe yet


Huckleberries

Gooseberries

I love these poppys that just sprang up!

The first ripe raspberry























I was able to fast for the first time in about seven years since Rollin is pretty much weaned. What a blessing to be able to do this again....I was very touched and spiritually lifted during our meetings today and I attribute that in part to being able to partake in the fasting portion of our worship.

Primary Presidency is great! We just sit back and laugh and watch the adorable kids. Our new chorister is fantastic and my days are much less stressful not being in charge of music each week. It's all the prep work that is so time consuming. The actual being up in front of the kids is often quite fun, though a bit nerve wracking from time to time.

Next week we have no big plans. We did join a little tennis/swim club right near our house with an outdoor pool last week. Nothing fancy, but just a great place to cool off on the warm afternoons.

I am going to get back on the exercise wagon this week. I can no longer deny that I have gotten a bit "soft." Getting in a bathing suit was just the jolt I needed!

Twirlies

Remember when you could spin like this as a kid and not puke?! This is what our little thrill seekers constantly beg to do lately. Rollin's ride may seem a bit on the wild side for a 2 year old (at least Zig thinks so), but he kept asking to spin fast like the girls. I do think he got a tad more than he bargained for ;)It's funny, he hasn't asked for a fast spinning ride since.

4th of July

The 4th of July began early with a patriotic program and pancake breakfast (whole wheat pancakes and fruit) at our church followed by a children's bike parade. Sela and Nina worked hard until about midnight on Thursday night decorating their bikes. We haven't been to one of these before but it was very fun for the kids and it was certainly their enthusiasm that drew us there. We came home and did some work around the house/yard.

Sela pruned all the rose bushes and seemed to enjoy doing it. She kept saying, "this day is going just how I planned!" I asked her what she meant and she said "I got to wear my new t-shirt and I'm working hard now so we can to to the party and watch fireworks." We went to Seattle in the evening to watch the fireworks over Elliott Bay at the home of one of Zig's co-workers. A friend/chef in town for the party cooked some very good food all evening long. Everything was so delicious from the fennel avocado salad to the ricotta honey icecream. The fireworks show was the best one I have ever seen....the view was spectacular. Rollin fell asleep in my lap midway through the show after being a crazy man entertaining all the mostly single city dwelllers for hours.

I tried two new recipes today. The first was a Lime Peanut Cole Slaw. THE perfect slaw. It was sooo good and simple. I will definitely be making this all summer. Then I made a cherry macaroon tart to take to the party. I also loved this recipe. It was all whole wheat, but still very rich and sweet. With fresh cherries and coconut, how could this not be a winner?!

The kids all crashed on the way home and I was shocked to find it was 10 o'clock when I woke up this morning. That rarely happens and it kind of threw my whole day off. I guess I needed sleep!

Chick/Barn Update

The barn housing the chicken coop is almost ready to be stained. Eric is still making the doors.The chicks are growing fast and getting very distinctive markings. Some of them have names. They are all getting very energetic and Sela is doing a superb job taking care of them. They now require their food and water to be refilled twice a day. She takes her job very seriously and thinks the chicks are a lot of fun.

From dusk till dawn...

I finally tackled the garage. We hadn't unpacked the boxes in there since the move. I've avoided that area because it was too overwhelming to think about. I've lived without everything in there for 9 months, so what could I actually need? However, the time has come. There was much purging to be done. I have huge piles of giveaway boxes waiting on the driveway. That feels so so good. I sent the girls to the playroom with bags instructing them to fill them with donations. I didn't know how well that would fly so I gave them a pep talk about how Mary and Laura Ingalls had only a couple of very special toys and look how happy they were. Look how creative they are in the outdoors, etc. This always works (probably not for too many more years!) and an hour later, they had filled their bags. I had to get the bags out of sight fast so there was no going back. Some other fun things about cleaning the garage were finding some old journals from when I was 9 and 12. Sela loved reading them. Nina was so relieved to find all her dress-ups and that the red glitter shoes now fit her. I can't say it was a super fantastic day, but it was productive and that's a good thing.





When you clean your garage all day, your kids find their own snacks, like this hotdog bun I just noticed when I uploaded the photo!
I'm very good at the taking stuff out part!