June 28th Jens the Photog

Jens took some pictures today. He really liked getting to hold the camera. Let's hope I haven't created a monster!

June 28th Slip and Slide

Nothing like friends to make a morning extra fun. It is so SO hot--it got to 108 Sunday night and it is looking like we will hit that again today. So it was 90 by 10 this morning, perfect for sprinklers and Slip and Slide in the back yard.



Then we had some lunch. The big kids ate outside and the little girls ate inside. They thought they were pretty funny.

July 26th Faces of Sylvie

Sylvie has discovered that she likes corn on the cob.

Also, she had a little slide incident which involved her falling right on her face in the dirt.

June 27th The House

So. My big project lately has been painting the house. It took months to pick a color, but only one day to spray the color on. The kids spent the morning at a friend's (thanks, Sophia) and Mike brought them home for nap and quiet time in that afternoon. I worked from 6 am to about 4 pm. The sprayer definitely made the project easier than a brush and roller would have been, but there are lots of places I need to go back and touch up. In the sunlight and with the wet paint, it was hard to tell if I had gotten everything thoroughly. By the time I finished I as exhausted. It has taken a few days to recover from the Big Day.

I still have a long way to go, too. I spent a few hours today priming the gutters and painting trim in the front, but there is still a lot left. The picture makes it look more done than it actually is. I also need to choose a color for the front door. I was thinking about red, but Mike thinks that is over done.

Before:

After:

We opted to paint a lot of the trim. Our house has a ton of it, and it doesn't all improve the appearance, in my opinion. It definitely looks a little more clean without all the strange white criss-crossing the house.

On another house improvement project note, we finally had a tile guy come. The tile has been ordered and should be here on Friday. I hope it will be put in quickly.

June 25th Blueberries

It is a delightful time of year in California, when everything is getting ripe and there are lots of good things to eat. I went blueberry picking today with the kids. Jens remembers going last year and was thoroughly excited. Sylvie, who has been clingy and whimpery lately mostly sat in the stroller, ate raisins, and cried, although she did manage to pick a few blue ones (and a few green ones) to put into my bucket. You can sort of feel her mood in the picture below.


On a completely unrelated side note, Sylvie is finding more and more to talk about these days. She is trying to sing along to Old McDonald and has gotten adventurous about trying new words. My favorite consistent word lately: "Haha." Can anyone guess what that is? Anyone?

It is applesauce. And she calls it that every time.

June 21st Power Washing

I have been working the last week or so to get the house ready for painting. It is a lot of work! I finally finished power washing, which was a sometimes perilous job. As you can see from the picture, I can't reach all the way up to the tip of the gable. I am not sure how we are going to get that part painted, but we will have to figure it out. I was really sad to discover that there were some places where we still have dry rot, even though we thought we got it fixed. The spots are up higher and no one had noticed. Boo.

I have finally picked a color, so you will have to stay tuned.

June 20th Suit Dudes

I cleaned out Jens's drawers this week and took out all of his pants. Even his Sunday pants were ready to go--he somehow cut them with scissors. So we had a problem this Sunday. Jens has some nice, new corduroys for church that he refuses to wear. He simply WON'T put them on, even though they are super handsome. So after he refused that option, we remembered that we had a hand-me-down suit in the closet (Thanks, Scotty!).



Jens put it on and it fit perfectly. He looked and felt so grown up. He was excited to wear his belt, tie, and have his shirt tucked in like a grown up. He ran to show Mike, saying "You will wear a suit, too, won't you Dad?"

So of course, Mike wore a suit to church, too. They both looked very handsome.


While we are on the topic of clothes, I would like to note the difference that is already appearing between my taste and Jens's taste. Today we were at Target and I told him he could pick a new shirt or pair of pajamas. We looked at the pajama options first. There were some really cute dog jammies that I showed him. "No, Mom. Those are too cute. I want something tough." !

He picked out a pair of baseball-ish jammies, then we went to look at shirts. There were some cute polo shirts, some stripped ones, a nice dress shirt, even some "soccer" shirts. His choice? The Avatar shirt, covered with robots, aliens, and fires. I told him no. His second choice? Bright yellow with a big electric guitar and all sorts of tatoo inspired swirls and designs. Ack! Luckily he decided to stick with the pajamas.

June 20th Happy Father's Day

We had a happy Father's Day, aside from Sylvie being sick. We had crepes for breakfast and Mike got to go on a treasure hunt for his Father's Day present, which Jens was very pleased with.

Mike is now the proud owner of his own Badminton/Volleyball set. He also got something to wear--see if you can spot it!

We love Dad!

June 17th Fun with Matisyn

We were so happy to have the Johnson girls visiting us last week. Jens and Matisyn always have fun together (in between their power struggles and tantrums) and Kristin and I always have fun together, in spite of their power struggles and tantrums. We weren't super exciting while they were here, mostly hanging around and just spending time together. We went to the park one day and the aquatic center, where the kids turned to popsicles as soon as their toes touched the water.



Jens and Mati had the most fun playing in the sprinklers and with the slip and slide. We are talking hours of fun.




Kristin and I managed a few walks and even a breakfast out, thanks to Mike. Next time maybe Matt will get to come, too.

June 15th

I replaced

the thermostat

all by myself.

June 13th Like-a-Bike

At last, the time has come. Sylvie is ready for the Like-a-Bike. She is barely tall enough, which makes it frustrating, but she is determined.

She actually just worked herself into a sweaty, crying mess over this bike. I had to distract her with a banana. But she will get it.

And yes, she is wearing a pj top with a diaper. And frankly, she might wear that all day. It is summer, after all, and we just got home from a camping trip. Everyone likes a pajama day every once in a while.

June 13th Cooking

After two huge bowls of spaghetti and servings of peas, Sylvie decided she needed a little more.

June 12th Yosemite

We just made it home from a weekend of camping in Yosemite Valley. We sure enjoyed ourselves and the kids got really dirty. We did most of the packing and prep on Thursday night, but in spite of that we didn't manage to leave on Friday until noon. We are slow movers, what can I say. Happily, we remembered to Dramamine everyone before we left, so there was no vomiting this year! The drive as beautiful and we didn't get lost even once. We also didn't have to stop until we got into the park.

We were with two other families and somehow, in the crazy 2 minutes of reservation when sites are released, we all managed to get sites in the same campground pretty close together. That made for fun campfires both nights. Friday night we didn't do much, aside from setting up our site and eating. After the campfire we all got into bed and Jens and I started reading The Boxcar Children. He loved every minute of it. When he got into bed, he couldn't stop giggling to himself. Mike tried telling him to calm down, but Jens said "I'm so excited!" He also HAD to go potty 3 times after we got into the tent so he could use the new little LED lantern I got for him.
We all slept pretty well until Sylvie woke us up at 6:45, smiling happily and throwing everything out of her bed.

After breakfast, we met up with everyone and headed out. Here we all are, waiting for the shuttle to go to Happy Isles:

Happy Isles had a fun little nature center that Jens loved. We could have stayed there for an hour, pushing buttons and watching video of bears breaking into cars. It also has an easy little trail with some bridges that cross the beautiful river. Everything was very full--the rivers and waterfalls were fast and beautiful. Jens spent most of this hike feeling concerned about falling into the river and getting swept away.

Then we went on to Mirror Lake. Jens walked the whole way by himself, although he did complain a bit. I told him that when his legs were feeling tired, that meant he was getting stronger. That seemed to encourage him. This trip was Sylvie's first time in the back pack. We were wondering how it would go--she LOVED it. In fact, when it was standing in the campsite, she would try to climb into it and threw a very angry tantrum when I put it away in the car.

Mike was The Man--she is 32 pounds now, and he carried her all morning long. I offered to take a turn, but he said no. Saturday afternoon Mike went for a run (8+ miles--aren't we supposed to be on vacation?) Sylvie napped, and Jens and I hung out at the camp site. We read some more Boxcar Children, he dug a pretty impressive hole, and he collected pine needles to make a nest. JP and Natalie got in around that time and we went to see the Lower Yosemite Falls. One of these days we will get to hike to the top. Maybe when we come by ourselves. (Natalie took some pictures for us, but I don't have them yet)

Sunday we took it easy. The kids actually slept until 7:30, we had a leisurely breakfast, and then packed up. We took our kids over to the Yosemite Visitor's Center and let them check it out. They enjoyed climbing on the rocks and looking at the animals. We also peeked in the Ansel Adams Gallery, which was pretty. I didn't get to look much, thanks to a little person.

To finish our trip, we stopped in the field facing El Cap and watched the climbers while we ate a very casual lunch. We saw 3 pairs and I think they are all crazy.

The drive home was uneventful. The kids both fell asleep within the first ten minutes of driving and Mike and I enjoyed the scenery. We are lucky to live in such a beautiful place.