Baseball

 The kids went to their first baseball game last weekend.  Portland Sea Dogs!  They were super-interested in it for about 1.5 innings.  OH. My. God. Baseball is seriously the most boring sport ever and I have decreed that there will be NO baseball players in my house because I certainly could not endure watching endless games. 

Unfortunately, they started advertising in the 2nd inning that kids were invited to "run the bases" after the game.  Which of course Makili heard and immediately wanted to do.  So we suffered through the entire game and then waited in a ridiculous line (and we thinking we were smart to be at the front of the line, but they screwed us over and made us be at the end!) and Remick faceplanted in the middle of the base runs.  But I suppose it was the perfect day to subjected to such torture.  It was 70 and sunny in beautiful Portland.  So I suppose it could have been worse.

Depending on the day:)

Sometimes we are animal rescuers:)

And sometimes superheroes.

Happy Easter, Happy Spring.

I hope your Easter and spring time are full of all the wonderful joys of the season: short sleeves, hanging from trees (and rigging up harnesses to do that), climbing trees, riding bikes, planting seeds, getting dirty and enjoying the sunshine in all its forms.

Work Crew

These boys are wearing me out. One thing that keeps them busy is working on the house with Dad. And siding you know takes FOREVER! So there is pretty much endless work for them to do. They like to practice drilling holes and hammering nails. Makili insisted that he have a tool belt like Dad, which of course Dad made happen, so he goes out there with HIS hammer and begs Dad to side the house with him the moment he gets home from work. At which point, I sit down for ten minutes and breathe.

We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary last weekend. Ann and Larry took the kids and Raph came up with the romantic idea of reliving our mundane moments of early dating, when we first lived together out on Seapoint Beach. When we had no money, and sat around playing video-games (I'm a little embarressed to admit it). When I made a lot of quilts and we cooked a lot of yummy dinners together and we went to the beach and woods. We mountain biked together and went on hikes and we went out to eat occassionally at the Indian restaurant. So that is what we did (minus the video-games and quilting). We explored Cutts Island like we used to 10 years ago, and I have to say, it was so beautiful. And it was nice to spend time with Raph without worrying about what we were trying to get done, or accomplish. (We did that on Sunday! after our "date.")

New Garden Success

This is the first year that I've grown parsnips, which if you know anything about parsnips, get harvested in the spring. So it was a year ago that I put those little translucent seeds into the dark ground and then had to wait and wait and wait to see if they had grown to a worthwhile size! At the beginning of the month, we dug them up, which of course is highly gratifying - a reason to dig in the dirt in early March, and to pull out real food from the garden in March. Unbelievable! We had a pretty good harvest, which of course leads me to want to plant more:)

Summer in March!

How often do we get to put on our bathing suits in March? Wear flip flops? Eat a melon seaside? Look for crabs? Shrimps? Snails? Dig in the Sand? Work in the garden? What a treat!

Of course, I'm now sitting by a fire again and temperatures are not supposed to be too high this week, but it is March, after all!

Recent Obsessions

With the move from inside to out, all of our focus shifts. And instead of the complete and total obsession with Diego, Makili has moved on to focusing on Diego's zipline. He had me to the point of broken nerves one day by asking more times than I could handle if I could build him a zip line. How about now? Are you ready now? It didn't matter if I told him I would in the summer or if I flat out told him NO, he just kept on me ALL DAY! So Raph at least bought me some time and mental health rehabilitation by building him the rope ladder up into the tree and a tree swing. Makili now spends all him time dragging everything he owns up into the tree.

Huge pile of lobster rope from dump: free
Ton of treasures from around the house and yard: free
Hours of uninterrupted play: priceless.

Before I move on...

Before I move onto other things, some more photo highlights from our trip. Noticeably absent from these pictures are my parents. I'm going to have to work on that!Ege trying to eat Raph.
The new boyfriend...
The jumper
Pretty nieces.


Motorcycle craziness.
The 2-year-olds loved feeding the chickens.

Casey LOVED ice skating!
Surprised Laurie.
Makili's first solo motorcycle ride. (I had nothing to do with it.)
I love this photograph.
Amanda hiked a mile up hill and then came back down carrying two children and a smile on her face.
Sunset Fire Pit. BLISS.
Nice lighting.
Paddle boats.
Exploring.

The cousins

My parents grandchildren in one place. First and only time to dates. Pretty cool.

the youngest: Hudson the early walker, happy-go-lucky, early riser, bruiser of a thing.
Remick: the never stop talking, cute as a button, full of personality from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, pistol
Kaylee: the inexhaustible, Lady and Tramp-loving, limber, always saying something, incessantly climbing sprite
Makili: the easily wonder-struck, sunny, often-whiny, gear-obsessed, artsy, love
Jenna: the ultra-competitive, quietly stubborn, arm around her younger cousins, champ
Casey: the chatty, excitable, sensitive, introspective, eyes-wide-open, darling
Austin, the perpetually positive, painfully sweet, exceedingly curious, open-minded sprout
And the oldest, Brittany: the soft-spoken, easy-going, family-loving, beauty
And the newest cousin: Ege, the garrulous, generous, kind-hearted, messy, Turk!