Have a sunny day

Semiannual candy toss

It's November! Perhaps next year's xmas parade will be in August!?!

Eh, Mon

Eh, mon,
Cool, mon -
You a silly
Fool, mon.
Dennis Lee

Live Stars Wars

We’ve managed to get through 5 of the 6 Star Wars movies in the past two weeks. A shocking display of commitment on our part (we’re still at the 20 minute mark of the first movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, started a year ago). Effie’s really into SW. Ferg comes and goes but hasn’t yet been scared off by any of the noise, severed limbs, etc. This weekend has officially been dubbed “Daddy’s Solitary Preview of Star Wars III To Check For Yucky Bits”.

The kiddos recreated scenes from Star Wars the other night complete with bowling pins as blasters, lightsabres as lightsabres, and bunk beds doubling as the millenium falcon. Effie played close to 10 characters. Fergus stuck to R2D2. It was a packed, if unsafe, house - all two people in the audience got “pewed” many, many times.

How do I get to Carnegie Hall?

Since the keyboard/organ thingy we inherited from the jumble bin happens to be located down the driveway in the unheated garage, tinkling the ivories is a bit of a special occasion for us. Such performances usually accompany a trip to the garbage cans, the compost or, in the summertime, the “garden”. Yes, a special occasion!

As part of a test of a newly discovered non-youtubian video player (or, if you prefer, in honour of American thanksgiving... or, if you prefer, prefer - in honour of Abbi), here’s the Goose-man blithely belting out some blinding bossanova beats a couple weeks back…


Carnegie Hall from mesmith on Vimeo.

Pancakes n' Pirates

Effie made 'Sugar Pancakes' w/ leftovers from Halloween



Arrrrr... (check out those shoes!)

Home industry

Effie tells me she's writing a play.



And she made me a newspaper.

Less Mess

This photo is titled: “The light shineth through the windows but thankfully an incorrect camera exposure setting masks the strewn about mess that is our lives (not to mention the dust and finger-print smears on the windows themselves)”. Dot JPEG.



Lately, people might assume we’ve given up. Two examples being the (perhaps) untidy state of our house and the matted, tangled mess that is Fergus’ current hairstyle. But its really part of a greater lifestyle choice promoting unhurried, fun-led, family freedom. Its kind of impossible to expect Fergus to construct his multi-layered lego worlds with cars, train tracks and discarded bits of balloons in a small area that gets cleaned up every night. And THAT hair comes in handy as a crash helmet every time he’s a monster hidden under a blanket and crashes into the furniture (3.5 times a day).

Ah, what a great excuse! In fact, the other day someone at my office said my briefing note lacked cohesiveness and I replied with: “It does not! It is simply part of a greater lifestyle choice promoting unhurried, fun-led, family freedom… so ppbbbth”.*

*Not really.

Howdy y'all

Another World

Effie often has to remind Fergus who he is during some of their many dress-up-and-acquire-a-bizarre-character play sessions. Sometimes he’s a person called “sister” and tonight he was "something the dog" complete with a rather large rope leash.

Last night, though sporting a lovely pirate hat, Fergus was a fellow named “Deryck”!?!

Random Sunday

String art has been all the rage



Effie is very proud of this dress' heritage, it having once belonged to Hannah. Looks like she's kind of modified the look with Generalisimo flare.


If you stand too still around here you're liable to get papier-mâchéd.


Effie sorted her "payback for the horse" cash into 5's. We didn't charge her extra for the American $.

Not done with the gushing

Unidentified Person (to Fergus): "Are you still wearing your pyjamas?"
Marty: "We don't like to use that word. We prefer to call them our 'life clothes'"

Here we go...

Kelli, Gillian, rice grain in-a-tie-dyed-onesie, Diana, Mary, Ronnie

Ferg chillin with his peeps

Final gushings...

VIDEO Ferg and friends

Run for the border

As much as we think Americans are silly cause they still have pumpkins and turkeys for sale like a whole month after thanksgiving, we noted that it didn't actually start raining on our trip until after we crossed back over the border into Canada.

We had a pretty decent drive home from the best-weekend-getaway-to-Oregon-EVER. Fergus got his finger caught in his hair at one point and then he even graced us with a change of clothes when we got home.

Mount St. Helens


The ferry cafeteria is a primo spot for some car racing...

Portland

Trader Joe's and Ken's Artisan Bakery in Nobb Hill... not much better than that!



VIDEO Pizzaman

Amy in Corvallis

Diana exposed many, many people to the wonder that is Amy Steinberg through her deep connection with Amy's hugely inspirational lifesong, "Exactly". And thanks to the organizing talents of Mary, we were privileged to witness a room light up!

Snippets of Amy's performance... featuring Steffi, Kyra, Effie and Qacei with the intro and starring Abbi's and Diana's hair:

VIDEO Amy Steinberg live at Sunnyside Up, Corvallis, OR

Unschooling PNW Tribe

Tiki, Kelli, Diana


Ferg, Chloe, Ronnie


Beardo Weirdos


MJ, Effie, Marty

Scenes from a Corvallis non-con

Have a sunny day...


Ferg and his pal MJ


Hours of fun with an air vent...



Literally...


Amy Steinberg performs...


Scotty shreds...

Here we are...

Loving every second of this incredible gathering... from the incomparable Sunnyside Up, to playing in the Oregon sun, to terrorizing Jon and Mary's house...







Simply stated: reason #176 why we are HERE...
(ie: there are a pile of reasons why we are where we are - this one, an 18 year old hanging with a four year old, is pretty much at the top of that pile)
VIDEO "Cakes"

Road Tripping V.13.5

Our intended plans of driving through out the night down to Corvallis, OR for the unschooling non-con went a little off the rails when, in the ferry line-up, some silly person decided to notice the car-goo puddle under a front axle. Thankfully (or not), we were early for the 9 pm sailing and had time to turn around and limp for home. However, early yesterday morning the little fix-it man said it was just normal air-conditioning condensation dripping out and that the rattle noise we had heard was unrelated and no threat to safety. Bugger.

So, we started out again and had the extreme pleasure of driving through un-ending Seattle I-5 rush-hours traffic... an unprecedented 13.5 hours to get from our home to Corvallis. But we're here - yeah! The kiddos were troopers.

Ferry Terminal


Rest stop


South of Olympia (I think)


ooooh... Target! We missed you!!!!!


We made it to Diana's in Corvallis.


Marty got to meet Effie's horse...