Daniel plays his ace

Daniel stayed over last night.
He patiently gets pulled in two or more directions at once.
He's held in high esteem, our Dan.

Recently...

The cousins came over for their annual summer visit. Last year we tromped around shirtless. This year we tromped around fully clothed and with rain boots.



Effie made cinnamon buns. Although dubbed “too sweet” by the chef, the entire batch was gone in half a day.


Effie made an "apple pie":


Hula Hoop Golf at dusk:

Joined a new club

Is it Max?


Is it Otto?


Noooooo... its Eff sporting 1/112th of the stash contained in the box of goodies that arrived today from Rachel and co. Yeeee Ha.


_______________________________________________

We raised the net today... after a breif "rally", Effie was getting a little frustrated at her coordination skills so she had me do this instead. Lovely:

Bad Minton

We buy our winter boots in the summer...

we make bizarre concoctions with strange ingredients and then actually bake them in the oven.
we prefer being on the trampoline when its raining because you get more bounce.
the kiddos buy costco-sized tubs of halloween candy (in August) and they don't own a store to re-sell it all at.

oh, and we open our birthday boxes 3 weeks early (thanks Pump!):



are we weird?



____________________________________

We’ve been blog-tagged in a couple of places to come up with “six quirky, yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.”

Since this blog deals in the quirky and the boring of our lives already, here are six mildly quirky, extremely boring and most-assuredly-unspectacular details about our house…

1. We built our house smack dab in the middle of a road. An age-old logging road - but a road nonetheless.
2. Prior to building our house, we lived for 5 years at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by trees, in a trailer that offered little to no natural light. So we designed our house with windows in every possible location and now have no place to put bookshelves. And we have a lot of books.
3. We had all of our interior walls painted the most whitish colour of white possible. Not only did we know this would make things brighter than what we were used to in the dungeon but we thought that this was the simplest solution to the weighty burden of having to make decisions on absolutely everything. Since then our white walls have been a source of much mockery. Slowly but surely this will subside, however, as our walls - mainly just the lower portions (curiously) - slowly transform to a sort of finger-printy brown-black colour.
4. I don’t like heights. So, logically, we built a tall house with a steep-pitched roof underneath several needle-shedding/ gutter-clogging conifers.
5. Our house is nameless. Our property has a name, but not our house. Bored yet?
6. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………

Summer Weekend

Mainly we were glued to the tv watching the Olympics since we just got cable this morning, but otherwise...

Effie made some major modifications to her fort this weekend, adding a yard for chickens, a vegetable garden and a sheep corral:


Fergus recently completed all the levels in Wii Lego Indiana Jones so he's now back on Lego Star Wars. Good thing he recently erased all of his progress and has lots left to do:


We found some ugly bugs hanging out in one of the oaks and were later unable to identify them in any of our books. Effie has dubbed them "vampire bugs":


We got some flowers that came with wee little mesh hats:


And Gillian continued her birthday month with cake at Grandma and Grandpas:

Uncle Pump

This is Uncle Pump. Up until a few years ago, Uncle Pump lived a couple kilometers down the trail from us. Now he lives a couple of days drive away, in the mountains (in the west-central part of British Columbia) with Marisa, two dogs and a turtle. Oh, Uncle Pump also goes by the name Jeff (Gillian's brother):


Here is the house Uncle Pump built:


Uncle Pump, living in the middle of nowhere as he does, would like us to come visit. He pretty much lives in paradise, so we are eager to make it happen one day. But, um, Uncle Pump also has these creatures hanging out just off the deck... and Fergus is a tasty fellow:

Mail

We live rurally.
Our mail gets delivered to a centralized mailbox.
Sometimes the most exciting part of our day is walking down the trail to fetch the mail.
If we're lucky, there is something interesting to be found inside.
If we're super lucky, inside will be a key and we get to open up the really big box to find a large parcel inside.
If we're just kinda lucky, instead of a key will be a piece of paper telling us to pick up a large parcel from the postal outlet in town.

Excitement mounts.

We finally make it to the postal outlet and are greeted by a large package.
Sometimes it is something spectacular.
Sometimes it is something we were not expecting.
Sometimes people spend WAY TOO MUCH money sending us things.
Sometimes it is...

Introducing the Northwest Unschooling Non-Con Host's Ugly-Wire-Vase-With-Fake-Oranges-And-Now-With-Bonus-Dragonfly-Adornment thingy:

Digging for Fire

Gillian: "They’re digging a grave."
Craig: "Oh."




These unique landscaping plans came to an abrupt halt however when, quite early on in the grave digging process, Effie got stung by a wasp that was caught up in her croc. With Effie safely inside, Ferg then went to try to retrieve said dropped croc and got repeatedly stung on his derriere. Soothing cream and ice-packs were on order for the rest of the evening.

Wasp-Nest Removal Machine:

did I mention it was the hottest day of the year?

Kid-led adventures

The other day we nipped out back for a short walk and ended up scaling Bob’s Mountain. Spontaneous hikes ahoy! We started out by doing some of that trail-blazing/ bush-whacking stuff on our property that the kiddos are mucho fond of at the moment and basically just kept going… out to the Goose trail, through the park and up the mountain. Ferg found a caterpillar and took great care of it for a kilometre or so, always making sure it was alright after each and every time he dropped it. But his wee legs tired out (Ferg’s, not the caterpillar’s) half way up so Effie and I - she in her Easter dress, me in my flip-flops - hit the summit solo (okay, it’s not really a “mountain” per se). Thirst drove us home quickly but Effie was determined to come back with a proper picnic two days later.

Ferg’s caterpillar, “caterpillar”:


At the top


For the second trek up the mountain, the planned one, Effie made peanut butter roll-ups, I made chicken-salad sandwiches and Fergus supplied a healthy handful of Werthers candies. Bob’s Mountain is not all that far away - it is pretty much just straight above our neighbours and has sweeping views in all directions (if you look hard enough). But to get the four of us up there - on a completely kiddo-led journey - was quite a feat for us and perhaps a sign of things to come as we grow more mobile as a family.

Scary trail-side scenery:


The poor result of an ill-fated group hiking shot:


Down the other side of the mountain, and at approximately the half-way point of the back-door route between our place and The Swede Up The Street (now with puppies!), is Wayne’s Rock. The rock is so-named, as far as we can tell, ‘cause some yokel once spray-painted his name on it. And even though Wayne also managed to get the adjoining trail named after him, his measly, mis-shaped rock is not nearly as nice as the be-knighted boulder on our property, “Craig’s Rock”… nor does it sneer, grumble or lay motionless quite so effectively.

Wayne’s Rock (boo):


Craig’s Rock (yeah):


After stomping all over the inferior rock, we followed the trail through the older growth and down to the lake in time for the sun to set. At this point Effie argued her case for an hour-long, circuitous lake walk but we (ie: the more patient of the two adults; ie: not me) managed to negotiate some leisurely lake-wading instead. And then it was off for some more bush-whacking, in the dark and sans flashlights no less, and home.





Here’s our three-and-a-half hour route… it’s like a Family Circus comic around here today!!!

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

Happy Birthday!!!

Strangers

new shoes


interloper