Ice-blocking and lettuce

Yesterday our friends the Grahams celebrated their son Mason's fifth birthday. The party was at a local park and the activity was "ice-blocking." We'd never heard of it, but out here it's not uncommon, the kind of thing people do at birthday parties with basic regularity. You basically slide down a hill on a block of ice - like sledding without the snow (or cold). Fascinating! They tie the blocks up with rope so they can be dragged like a sled and put a dish towel on top for a buffer between the ice and bottoms.

Shot of the monkey during his ice block run:

Today we went on a homeschool field trip to a local farm where the kids, among other things, got to pick sugar snap peas and lettuce. Farmer Rod, who led our group, was great, and Monkey and Roo had a great time. Roo shocked me by eating some of the lettuce she'd picked - willingly, even! Amazing. It was super hot! I was sweltering in my (stylin', black) compression socks and capris...

Green thumb team...

Gardening efforts underway in force. Trips have been made for both of the past two weekends to the local nursery, and both Monkey and Roo got to select which vegetables they wanted to grow. (Roo also requested some sunflowers which are gracing her little plot.) The monkey is particularly keen, diligently watering his plants daily. The parsnips have captivated him especially, it seems - stemming from an episode of Curious George, we think.

I have not yet participated in the gardening ventures except by observation, putting time instead into nesting efforts and - last Saturday morning - a homeschooling workshop in Santa Barbara. The goose has now officially moved into the room lately vacated by her older sister, who has successfully napped for three days in her big girl bed without incident... Thus the new baby's room (which doubles as our guest room) is empty basically ready for the wee girl to move into when she arrives. Now just to unpack and organize the newborn clothing and move toward packing the hospital bag... Hopefully, though, this kid doesn't make an appearance till much closer to my 4/16 due date (the same day that my wonderful in-laws will arrive in town to help us out!).

Mellow Friday activities

Quiet day on the homefront, and I'm at that stage in the pregnancy where just the right amount of activity really helps the day go by and me maintain adequate energy. First we hit Starbucks for morning treats - a rare occurrence which made us all appreciate it all the more... Chocolate milks for the big kids, small latte for me, and blueberry cobbler bar split four ways.

Then after a trip to the butcher we stopped by the neighborhood playground for an hour. It's unusually cold for these parts - 60 in the sun - and quite windy today so we had the place almost to ourselves. The bigs are getting pretty good at pumping...

Props to the Sprint Evo for making photo-taking on the go such a snap...

Room merge

Came down with a sore throat/cold thing last week, joined by the goose (nothing too major, just irksome), and was just getting over it when the monkey and I were hit with a stomach bug on Monday night. Super thankful that it wasn't the stomach flu like we got over Christmas... His lasted about 15 hours and mine about 24, which was nice. Hopefully we're getting that kind of thing out of system before the baby arrives in three-ish weeks (!)

Big news around here is that Roo moved into Monkey's room about two weeks ago. She's in a big-girl bed now too, and overall things have gone fairly well. Both of them love it - it's like a sleepover every night. They are allowed to talk at bed-time as long as they stay in bed, no loud voices, and no silliness. And they are not allowed to come out in the morning, except to go to the bathroom, until they hear someone up (always their dad) or someone comes to get them. They are both a little on the tired side as they're up a little later and night and a little earlier in the morning, but it's going well. Roo is still napping in her old room as I figured it was wisest to do one transition at a time. But we'll move the goose in there probably this weekend, and then she'll nap in her new room (God willing) and the monkey will have his rest time elsewhere. The times they are a-changin'...

Our growing Goose

The goose hasn't gotten a lot of press here lately; an update is in order. At nineteen months, she adores Angus and animals of every kind. She notices and points out every passing bird and airplane. She wants to do everything the big kids are doing.

She's learning new words pretty quickly now (ones we can recognize and understand, though not necessarily ones that others would) - please, thank you, sorry, banana, apple, more, ball, and baby. That last one, "baby," is pretty ubiquitious. It mean baby, birdy, and basically any other animal she happens to notice.

Last week we went to a "preschool open house" at a local farm where, among other things, we watched a puppet show about the life cycle of a plant. About a dozen kids sat in a little gazebo watching the show, and the goose plunked herself front and center to join the crowd in listening. (She lasted there for all of 4 minutes, but it was pretty cute while it did.)

Uncle Dan, Aunt Rebecca, and co came up to stay with us this weekend for a couple nights, and we all went to the beach where Daddy and Uncle Dan went kayak surfing. We went down to watch for a bit and had a great time. The goose loves playing in the sand and is not at all by the noise or presence of the surf as her older siblings were at this age.

We all had fun watching the kayak surfing; today we noticed a terrible smell in the garage and discovered that about fifteen (now dead) shrimp had made their homes in HF's kayak during his outing. Pretty funny.

Let's go fly a kite...

Flying our new kites on the beach...

Happenings

Eventful few days here at Pray Creek West. A few highlights...

Tick finding. HF went trail running last week and, at 10 pm, found a tick on his hip. The following day there was a tell-tale bulls eye mark around the bites, so in he went to the doctor with the tick in hand for analysis. Course of antibiotics for a few weeks to ward off potential Lyme's. Funny part about it is that he lived in fields and wood New England his whole life without ever having had an issue like this; now we live basically in a desert and he potentially gets Lyme's. Who would have thunk?

Computer crash. Literally. A frame crashed onto the top of my closed, new Mac laptop and cracked the interior screen completely. It was entirely my fault and very irksome. Mac quoted $750 to fix it (!) but I'm hoping the $250 solution I found - including shipping it to San Fran for repair - will work. Should know by tomorrow.

Carpet cleaning do-over. On Feb 1 we had the first floor carpets in our house cleaned for the first time (the first professional carpet cleaning I've ever done in my life, in fact). They were in dire need and I was super happy with the results. On Saturday night Angus had diarrhea literally all over our living room carpet - as if he'd taken a paint brush to the room. Unbelievable - both the mess and the timing. After many hours of work he have it back to passable again, but certainly not pristine. Such is life with dogs.

Pop-up camper. On Monday HF bought a 1983 pop-up trailer camper! It was a great deal we couldn't pass up, and we have been planning on borrowing one for from a colleague of his for April and June camping trips. So now we will be able to use our own. Bit of repair/upkeep work needed, but HF continually finds himself in want of hands-on projects in our suburban, rental-home life, so that suits him just fine...