Camping

Hazel wants to camp there (Whidbey) every time.  We had crazy fun family time with a true sleeping-in-a-tent camping night.  The kids loved it.  Our mini-vacation including climbing trees, riding bikes, using a slingshot, fishing, beachcombing, and hot dogs.  Even Harvey had a hard time settling down at bedtime (he was harder than the kids!) and ended up in the tent snuggling first under Abby's sleeping bag so she couldn't stretch out and later between me and Hans.

Setting up camp:

 

 

 

On the water:

 

Eli caught a fish!

 Beachcombing:

The kids were disappointed when we called a halt to fishing and worked our way back to the boat launch.  We only caught the one fish, and that was in the first 30 seconds of the line in the water!

 

What we found when we returned to Farmor's and Grandpop's house:

Naughty Harvey slipped into the house unnoticed and was peeking at us from the master bedroom window when he heard us pull in.

Pip "thumbs up" lunch with grandparents:

It was great to camp at Harlan's and Karen's.  Their backyard is way cooler than ours.  We're happy their home from their 40th anniversary adventure!

We're Going Camping!

Memorial Day weekend.  Iffy weather.  What do we plan to do?  Go camping.  Except, since we have young kids and much prefer an easy trial run of our new full-family-size tent, we've opted to camp in a backyard.  We're making things more exciting by choosing to not camp in our own backyard, but to set up the tent at Farmor's and Grandpop's on South Whidbey.  If it does rain, we have someplace dry to be, I don't have to camp cook, Harvey can come and run free in their invisibly fenced yard, and there is glorious plumbing available.  Harlan and Karen have only just returned from their 40th anniversary trip to France, England, Wales, and Norway, so story sharing will be one of our main events.  This is going to be fun!

Airport Time

It all starts on Friday.  Mom calls to say the flight is looking bad for Saturday and maybe I should come home today?  I talked to Abby, whose only response was, "I'm not going today," said in a firm, monotone voice while not looking me in the face.   I hated insisting we go since the start to our vacation was already delayed and leaving early would be too disappointing.

Saturday comes and the flight home only has a couple seats still available.  We pack prepared to be in Tucson some extra days without a majority of our luggage.  Abby starts to cry when I tell her we most likely won't be sitting together if we get on the flight.  Luckily?  Unluckily?  Everyone shows for the flight and we watch it depart without us.  After the initial disappointment of the change in plans, Abby is ecstatic to go swimming, Papa is relieved to not be driving to Seattle, and I'm enjoying all those Dean girls.  After a week of email-only communication, I get to talk to Hans on the phone.  Many phone calls later, Hans will spend a miserable night on a cold, hard floor at LAX to get to Eli and Pip in Portland early Sunday AM, and I will go to Phoenix on the Arizona Shuttle to fly home.

Sunday AM is church with the Dean girls.  Miss Finley was excited enough after church to run across the nursery and give me a big hug.  I love those girls!  Flights are miserable now out of Phoenix, so we scrap that plan, forfeiting the shuttle cost.  Hans arrives in Portland and our family is now split into only two places instead of three.  Abby and I visit the Tucson airport again even though we know the flight is overbooked.  Two announcements state no non-revs will be flying today, but I know things can change quickly.  8 minutes to departure, I ask again if there's a chance anyway and am told to hang on, some passengers may not make the flight.  5 minutes to departure, a family of five arrive.  Dang it!  Flight 631 again leaves without us and we return to Erin's for more swimming.  Hans drives the other children home and picks up a very happy-to-see-them Harvey.

Monday arrives with slightly warmer Arizona weather.  Abby and I swim while the girls are school.  Hans gets Eli off to school and has a slow morning before heading to work with Pip in tow.  Today's flight has 21 non-revs listed and only 10 available seats...not too promising.  Abby and I head to the airport again for our now-daily "airport time."  I'm not expecting to get on the flight at all, but am encouraged by not being on the bottom on the list for seats this time.  Hans calls for the billionth time asking for an update, stressing at the thought of coordinating work and the kids on Tuesday.  Boarding is in full swing and I hear my name called.  I hop to the counter, but sadly, there is only one seat available at the moment...  Boarding ends, and still we wait.  Final call.  Another final call.  Another final call.  Someone is missing the plane!  We get our seats for 15B and 22D.  Uh-oh.  On the plane, I stop at the exit row and explain to Abby where she needs to go.  The flight attendant asks if we would like to be together?  She moves two people from row 17 to the exit row for us.  Another standby passenger rushes on the plane to be in the exit row and is sent to Abby's former seat.  Frantic phones call touting success before turning off the phone.  We made it!

Arizona

Seems like a delightful curiosity to have chilly, sunny weather while Abby and I are here.  Erin's pool hasn't warmed up more than 80 degrees which has Abby all in a dither.  She just wants to swim while she's here and "too cold" is not the answer she wants in Arizona.  The Dean girls are something else.  Finley smiles and the whole room lights up.  Maggie and Evelyn are sweet and funny.  All of them are having so much fun playing with Abby and Abby's been a great helper by keeping them distracted so Auntie Erin can have a break.  I just love all these girls!

One Little Snafu...

Home tonight in my house.  Not where we planned to be tonight, but it's probably for the best.  I am just wiped.  Miscommunication with the boarding place left us unable to drop Harvey off and then we had a mad scramble to get Hans to the airport before his flight.  Now things are squared away and I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.  New plan: Drop Harvey off Tuesday morning at 8 AM, then drive to SeaTac to meet a parent who will provide me with tickets for Abby and me to fly to Tucson and drive my younger ones to Portland for special Moeki/Opa/Auntie Meta/Emmett/Kai/Uncle Alec time.  Eli and Hazel have been hatching plans about how their going to sleep in the big bed together in the big room and play with Emmett during the day.  I'm excited to travel with my almost-10-year-old daughter to Arizona.  Abby is just neat.  I love being her Mom.  I'm letting the kids all sleep in one room tonight and also skip school tomorrow since they've already been excused per our original plan.  Maybe we'll get to finish reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban together tomorrow!

Good Helper

Pip is something else.  She's lying on the sofa and I ask her to hang up her towel in her bathroom.  She seems to shrink further into the sofa and tells me, with a sad little shake of her head, "No, I can't.  I'm too little."  Think again, missy.  You are not too little.  So she curls herself up, closes her eyes, and tells me, "Kitty's too tired."  Well, then, Kitty should take herself to her room and go to sleep in her bed.  Amazing how that gets her to hop right up, take the towel from me, and head toward the bathroom telling me how she's a good helper.  Heaven help me with this child! 

Sometimes she's a kitty named Maya; sometimes she's a doggie named Scout.  As a kitty, she meows and nuzzles our faces for kisses, closing her eyes to make it more sincere, and she hisses at us if she doesn't like what we say or do.  As a doggie, I have to grab her paw to help her onto the bed for her nap and instead of settling down, Little Miss just pants with her tongue out, hopping on all fours on the bed.

Pip has decided to eat and topped the scale at 30.3 lbs with clothes last night.  Foods of choice: cereal, banana, peanut butter bread (pb and honey sandwich but we can't call it a sandwich or she doesn't want it), chips and cheese, chicken, fish sticks with ketchup, scrambled eggs with ketchup, key lime Tillamook yogurt (she doesn't like yogurt with chunks, which she calls scuzzies), pb toast, celery on occasion, noodles with a little red sauce (mostly just to color it), mac and cheese, fruit snacks, chocolate, vanilla ice cream, milk, apple juice, some crackers, peas...  Mostly listing all of this for Mom since she gets my sweetie in just a few days.  Thankfully, she's better at thinking about and telling what she wants so I don't have to waste food attempting to find something she likes.  She's also better at the "take three bites" if we have to resort to that.  She loves choices and deciding of those what she'd like.  Then she grins and the exasperation of the ritual makes me shake my head, reminding her to say "please," and getting her food.

Oh My

Pip woke up at 4:52 this morning screeching and yelling.  I had let her fall asleep in our bed and waking up in her bed really ticked her off.  She stormed into our bedroom, stomping, crying, and growling, slammed the door behind her and then roughly crawled over me to get back into our bed.  She has a temper!  I'm still laughing about it even though I wasn't able to fall back to sleep.  I would love to get a picture or video of one of her tantrums just to tease her when she's older.

Life in the Fast Lane

Or not.

We're getting ready for a big week around here: Hans's trip to Costa Rica.  Hans prefers I travel at the same time so he doesn't have any extra days away from us.  Right now, the plan is we drop Hans off at the airport Sunday night (the 15th) and continue on to Portland.  Oh, this is all after dropping Harvey off at Critter Sitters to be boarded while we're away.  We'll stay the night in Portland and Abby & I will fly to Tucson on Monday the 16th.  Not sure how long we'd be there.  Not sure how long we're wanted.  Hans returns to Seattle on the 22nd at 11:20 AM.  I'm betting he'd like us there to pick him up.  Well...I could have Mom meet him with Eli and Hazel...or not.  I'll probably make Hans just take the shuttle home.  Not sure how all this is going to work out.  Seemed so simple when it was something way off in the planning.  Now that things are coming up, it's so much harder to figure out details.  Maybe I'm just not that into the details?  Two annoyances that have cropped up: Tuesday, May 17, is my last MOPS meeting and it's the children's rescheduled spring class photo day.  Trying to figure how all that will fit in to the scheme of things...  So far I've phoned the school to get the permission forms for the kids to miss so much school not due to illness or family emergency and to sort out what to do about the pictures (which were to be on May 3, but had to be rescheduled due to the MSP testing).  Hazel's starting antibiotics for an ear infection today...I'm on antibiotics for a sinus infection...we're such a fun bunch right now.