SHADOW LAKE BOG

We finally went to the Shadow Lake Bog! It is a 96 acre protected habitat just down the road from our house. It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool! We saw some fungi that were really neat! We also saw some mushrooms, and BIG root balls! Scientists found some fungis and stuff in there

that they thought were extinct! Ho, but look out, there are some bears in there! (We did not see any though.) Grrrrr!

It was an adventure!

By Eva

busy in british columbia

This weekend we made the trek up to B.C. to visit Grandmom. She has been looking forward to our arrival, and planning carefully to spoil the kids. She bought two packages of bacon to fry for Josiah (He was thrilled- "I can even eat two strips at once!" he said. ) and had a lot of overripe bananas to make the highly acclaimed and expected banana fritters. It was wonderful to spend the weekend with her, though we packed it full of activity and it passed too quickly.

The children love to hear Grandmom's stories- she tells them, usually accompanied with a song- late into the night. We arrived at her house at 9:30 pm, but the kids got a burst of energy, of course, and she said they could all sleep with her. They scurried into their jammies, and asked for some water- Naomi said discreetly to me "Apparently Grandmom doesn't have a kitchen sink! I'm glad to see she has one in the bathroom!" Confused about her misperception, I questioned her, and she told me that Grandmom had poured her a drink from a little jug. Naomi, having read so extensively about foreign lands (and Canada being one) just assumed she had fetched it from a well somewhere. I had to explain that actually Grandmom just has a filtration system, which we don't. Finally ready for "sleep," they laid in bed (and I later heard, jumped on the bed) and heard stories for hours... Jason and I fell asleep quickly, but just before drifting off, I heard from the next room "Once upon a time there was a shepherd boy named David..." and my heart was glad. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how blessed my children are, and most of this is because they are surrounded by so many dear people who love them completely.

The next day, after Josiah had his fill of bacon, we went to Dim Sum with Grandmom's Taiwanese neighbor, Landy. She wants to take us to her favorite restaurant every time we visit. We enjoyed sampling all the different treats- the girls were quite adventurous and tried nearly everything but the chicken feet. Josiah was adventurous for him, and tried the "outside white part" of a few things. Jason enjoyed one of his childhood favorites, "hum bow." Landy remarked that the hum bow there was not good- nothing like homemade or from Taiwan, and she didn't usually order it. For dessert, we tried to order mango pudding, but it never came by. Landy said that it was easy to make, and she would come over that evening to teach us how. Well evening came, and she kept calling mysteriously to delay her arrival. When she finally came over at 9:30, she was carrying a steaming plate of homemade hum bow! She wanted Jason to try the real thing. It was truly far superior to the restaurant version. Homemade bread dough filled with gingery seasoned ground pork and perfectly shaped into a decorative dumpling- no easy feat! As Grandmom said, "Do you see what sort of person Landy is!?" Her generosity is inspirational.

Sunday we headed off to the Vancouver Aquarium, one of Jason's favorite places to visit as a child. It is a great aquarium, and we were all fascinated by the variety of life inside. The kids could have spent the entire time in one room- they never wanted to move on from a display. A highlight was seeing the baby beluga, just born this June. Brings the much loved Raffi tune to life!

After a few hours at the aquarium, the kids were "starving," but, cheapskate parents we are, we couldn't bring ourselves to buy even one order of french fries for $5.95, so we loaded them up hungry, and promised food soon. Poor Josiah doesn't do too well with hunger and fatigue, and when we got about 45 minutes down the road, all of the sudden I felt his hand on my arm! He had just unbuckled himself and walked right up to the front of the van because he was so sad that he "just wanted to snuggle." I was alarmed at his dangerous behavior, which made him even more upset. Just when you think you know what your kids will and won't do... Anyway, he got some food shortly, and was a different boy.

We stopped to buy ten salmon from a family friend who fishes the river in Fort Langley; they are great looking fish, and comparatively local- exciting to have them in the freezer for winter! Then we took Grandmom home, and said our farewells. As Eva said wistfully, "It's hard to say goodbye." Grandmom is so dear to us, and we would love to see her more, but will cherish the time we have with her, however short.

the truth about furniture

Josiah is playing that he is Uncle Tim today. His teddy bear, Jimmy, is "Little Timmy." As you can see, he is wearing him in a manly, simplified version of the baby bjorn- that is, his leather belt around his waist with Jimmy/Timmy shoved recklessly in. (Apparently he learned to parent back in those carefree times when they didn't worry about strangulation.) So he just called me over to help him with the buckle. As he touched and examined the belt, the conversation went like this:

"Mama I know you put these designs on the belt, but what is the stuff that is the belt made of?"

"It's leather. That means it's a cow's skin. Your shoes are also made out of cow's skin. So are the couches."

"Cow's skin?! Like SKIN, with the hair ripped out."

"Yes."

"So when we sit on the sofa we're sitting on COW'S SKIN."

"Yes."

He paused a long time, staring at the sofas, then turned to me with a hopeful smile...

"So, is there meat inside?"

ambition- gone sticky

The kids love to hear real stories of any kind, especially about grown-ups when they were kids, and especially if those grown-ups misbehaved or did any sort of strange things. I am constantly telling them stories about my childhood; no matter how mundane they seem to me, the kiddos are riveted. Jason is still catching on to that concept, though, and usually tells them he doesn't have any stories to tell. Finally the other night when they were prying and begging him to reveal his past self, I told him "You do so have stories! It can be anything! Low standards, here- it's all interesting! What about Hoover?" (Hoover was his dog.) So he began a series of stories about the family pets, which the kids found completely hilarious. (This included a true tale of their dog Cocoa, also called "Piggy " who ate kittens, which I found quite disturbing. The children, though, were intrigued.)

So then, with this positive response from the audience, he moved on to tell the tales of some of his childhood companions, who, due to different situations and perhaps substances, took some different paths in life. One particular fellow who starred in a few of these tales, spent a year or so living under the highway in Bellvue. (His choice, so don't think I'm too callous for bringing it up like that.) Jason told the kids how this guy panhandled, but stayed a cut above the rest by keeping his area very neat and clean, and also, playing top-notch air guitar for his benefactors. The kids were, I think, completely blown away- first to think of an adult fun and crazy enough to play something called "air guitar..." And then- opportunity! -"camping," and playing air guitar, for money!?! This meant that all mom's talks about work ethic and doing something productive... they didn't really mean a whole lot. If there are jobs like this out there, why prepare for anything else! Let's just practice our strums! So after a great demo from Dad, they were off down the road to carefree, high-rolling musical careers.

This morning Josiah was eating his breakfast of choice- apples and peanut butter spread in a fan, with a little pile of "prooms" (prunes) in the middle. With no time to waste, he worked on perfecting his air guitar technique between bites. Suddenly, after about five prooms, he proclaimed with dismay, "Oh no! My air guitar is all sticky!" He carefully gave it a few good strums, but to no avail... He shook is head sadly and said, seriously, "All it will say now is proom, proom proom." He stopped playing. Naomi sighed, put down her milk and said, "Buzz, don't you know what air guitar really is? It's not really a guitar, it's just air pretending to be a guitar!"

What started as a granted request for stories from Daddy has turned into oh-so many teachable moments. So glad my children are learning.

a little sweet and sour on Naomi

The picture included has nothing to do with the following anecdote- I just like it. Naomi is holding one of her favorite flowers from our yard- a Julia Child's rose. Somehow the rose looks to me like it's her image in a flower...

Me, as a breakfast chef, facing some stiff competition

A few days ago the kids sat down to breakfast and immediately the questioning started... What are we having? Toast? Is the bread homemade? Is it white or wheat? What's on it? Apparently the answers left a bitter taste in Naomi's mouth, because before the food even appeared before her, she became sick-looking, slumping in her chair and performing a litany of sour expressions. (Complaining aloud is clearly not permitted- the facial expressions are a little hard to control, so she takes full advantage.) I hear a big sigh, then she brightens, "Hey! What if you could eat someone else's stomach! Wouldn't that be cool? Just eat what you want that they already ate!" So exciting was this idea, she looked as if it was about to come true. "I would definitely eat Anika's stomach, because she gets to eat so much junk!" says Naomi, looking around, as if waiting for her cousin to appear so she could dig in.

(*An aside here in defense of a hard-working, fruit-slicing, mama (my dear sis): Anika doesn't eat any more "junk" than my kids- they just remember everything that they hear that she "gets!")

So that's what it has come to. The breakfast I am serving is LESS appealing than eating predigested food from someone else's stomach. Perhaps sweet little Naomi should hire a new cook.

A FUN RACE

This year I did a triathlon for the third time!
(A triathlon is where you swim, bike, and run.)
My best friend Taryn did it with me! She had never done a triathlon before! Crossing the finish line I saw my family and friends cheering for me, and, of course, I felt happy!

by Eva

a family pet, of sorts

This is the sweet, stray cat that comes around our house- calls himself Candy Smooch. He is deceptively snuggly and soft, but actually so tough that he eats rottweilers! He is, let it be noted, a BOY kitty-cat, and has a son-cat that looks exactly like a teddy bear, whose name is Chocolate. A cool thing about Candy Smooch is that, when he grows tired of crawling, he uses a “special muscle that cats have” to stand and walk on two feet! Oh, and one more thing- if ever a “mean robot” gets into your house, he will get on his knight hat, grab his light saber, and kill it. Even though it’s really, really tough. I’d say he’s an all around good cat, wouldn't you?