Medieval Village

Medieval Village week - along with Christmas, Easter and her birthday - is Effie's favorite time of year!!!


This year she had her own tapestry loom made for her:




Boys in period costume:

Busy lately (in a boring kinda way)

Sawing, drilling, painting:






Cutting grass:


A break in the clean-up action - Canadian style:


On the non-boring front... took Dad (or at least his behatted head) to an exciting soccer game:


Rock climbing:


Silhouetted at the lake:


Effie's latest passion - painting cakes:

Ketchup release party

Well he sat on Eff's hand for at least five minutes before flying away but he's out in the wild now. Have good life Ketchup! All 20 days of it!!!

Roundup

At Matheson Lake last week. We ran into Finn there who was on the look out for frogs. Finn has since boarded a plane for Scotland where he and his Dad are under strict instructions to bring me back Jelly Babies (which I have been longing for since since the Waynforth's visit in May):



My 3 on 3 hockey team won a gold medal in government-worker olympic hockey last week. Which is to say our team was better than all other wanna-be challengers at getting a ping pong type ball across a goal line, on grass and using miniature dollar-store hockey sticks. Picture whack-a-mole but with cheap plastic weaponry and a flurry of co-workers’ ankles. Anyway, boy o boy, was I ever a hero when I got home, medal in hand. So much so that everyone wanted their picture taken with me:



One of Eff's recent projects:


At the ocean:




And for all of Helen and Adrian's South African relations out there... yup, she's still pregnant as of last night. We kept creeping up behind her and scaring her but that didn't work:


Ferg - cleaning and smashing:



This pile took 4 hours to clear out today - our road is great for this sort of thing. We would have gotten rid of it all faster but the stalwart ride-em police car held out for a goodly long time.


And finally, Ketchup turned into a butterfly today. Yeah Ketchup!!!


Oh and this.... the other day, the local grocery store was pumping out Morrissey’s latest song over the intercom. For a “music snob” like me this is pretty much the equivalent to the end of the world. Could it get any worse than this? Oh yes it could - the clerk was humming the song at the checkout.

The hordes will descend

A month from now there will be a rather large contingent of unschooly types here for a week of wild, joy-filled frivolity. And naked tree swinging. It is going to be a blast, this pinnacle of summer, but… we have a lot of cleaning, prepping, mowing, clearing, etc. to do in pretty much every waking moment from now ‘til then.

A short checklist:

Purchase of the long coveted/ hard to find Inflatable Palm Tree Cooler: check…


Assorted junk and dead vehicle removal: partial check…


Taming the jungle: hmmm, not quite…


Sun Room clear out: a ways to go…


Crawl Space organization (to store toys and assorted detritus from house): don’t even talk about it…

And the most vital of all…

Septic Tank pumped: check!

Family Dance

Scenes from the second annual homelearners dance... I think the tunes were a little more appropriate for the audience this year as Gillian spent the past six months getting some of the more standard fare out of the library. I remained steadfast in my refusal to play anything with the words "pour", "some", "sugar", "on, or "me" however.

This is where the kids were (until I started pumping out the Miley Cyrus that is)...


Meah in a box:


The Helen birthing watch continues. We thought maybe The Macarena had gotten things started but false alarm:


Juniper!!!


Fergus dancing...

Beach

Beach Day with friends...



Beach Baseball


Beach House I


Beach House II