She's almost 13!!!

Abby is unloading the dishwasher while Eli is getting himself a glass of ice water.  Her eyes filling with tears, Abby asks that Eli not use a certain glass cup because it's the only one we have that "is perfect for making parfaits."

We talk about how *maybe* this isn't completely rational, but Eli, can you please not use that particular cup for water anymore?  Everyone is allowed a few irrational quirks, right?  THAT BOY says, "Like you liking this song?"  (The song being this one.)

Stinker.  Yes, exactly like that.

Total Must-Share, Even With Chaos

Today's Hazel's 6th birthday.

I came back home after dropping the kids off at school today to an email from Hazel's teacher:

Tanya Rolfs

To Me

Just thought I would let you know that Hazel is coming home with a gift from Reid.  He was so excited to give it to her he got no sleep!  He waited and waited for her to show up and was so excited to give it to her.  It was so funny!  So you can put in her baby book she got her first gift from a boy!

I wrote her back: 

Oh my.  Yesterday I cracked up when I picked her up from school.  She got almost to the car & had to turn around to hug Reid, then hug Madison, then sign "I love you" to Stachia...then start to the car again, then get turned around to hug Reid & more signing & goodbyes.  Then she walked to the car with that hunched-over, foot-stomping "I can't believe how I have to endure all this" face.  Goofy girl.  Hans & I have no idea what we're going to do when she's in middle school if this is starting now!

And got this in reply:

Tanya Rolfs

To Me

Well luckily Reid just thinks of her as his really good friend.  And it was so funny because I asked her if she opened it and she kinda shrugged and looked at me funny as Reid yelled, “I opened it for her!”  And she smiled and nodded at me.

So when I picked up the kids, I asked Hazel about her gift from Reid.  The present was in a pink gift bag and is a colorfully, polka-dotted unicorn beanie-boo (which she first names "Fallusha" and we get her to change it to "Petunia") and a set of heart stickers.  Eli starts teasing her that Reid might have a crush on her and want to kiss her.  She then proceeds to tell me how he always tries to kiss her and he did kiss her on the cheek in the classroom, but good thing no one saw that, and he always likes to nuzzle her cheek.

Hans just laughs.  What are we going to do?

I would *love* to be better at writing down events with us.  These kids can be so entertaining!  Hoping things settle down once we're through this move.

Reason 738

Why I love my kids:

Hazel just angrily opens the front door and comes inside, slamming and locking the door behind her.  Her stomping feet and sour expression as she whimpers to her room do not provide much information to her unhappiness.  After listening to her bedroom door slam, Hans ventures outside and questions the older two.  The problem?  Eli took all the superpowers.

So...Um...Yeah...

I noticed Eli's shoes were a little tight.  Well, maybe a lot tight...but he never said anything!  I traced his foot, measured it, then looked into ordering shoes the proper size.  After my disbelief at the size chart, I had him try on Abby's shoe.  Then I had Abby try on her shoe.  Then I had Abby and Eli put their feet together.

It's official.  They have the same size foot.  Eli's may be a smidgen bigger.

It begins!  Abby's reign as tallest is coming to an end.

We Took a Vacation!

We left on Thursday (Day 1) and were fortunate to borrow Hans's parents' little RV.  Having never done an RV trip, this was quite a novelty for me and VERY exciting for the kids.  Our first night was spent at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend.  I loved walking the kids around to find places I remember from when we went as a huge Pickering clan when our grandkid number was less than the final 29.  Took a picture of the kids at the anchor:

Day 2, we spent the morning beachcombing in Fort Worden and found quite a bit of minuscule sea glass before heading out to Port Angeles and the start of our Olympic National Park experience.  We stopped at Sol Duc Falls and hiked around.

We decided to spend the night at Mora, a little outside of Forks (where all those Twilight vampires live).  Picture of our "mini-home" as Hazel constantly corrected us to call it.

Day 3, we headed to Hoh after discovering we missed the tides for good tidepools at Mora.  Did you know there is glaring lack (positively) of cell towers in and around Olympic National Park?  Hoh was amazing.  First thing, we checked out the Hall of Mosses:

Licorice Fern

Moss, Moss, Moss

Eli was dumbfounded to learn that a rainforest is not always tropical.  He had been telling Hazel how we were going to be so hot and uncomfortable when we were in the woods.

Hans preferred the other, slightly longer, loop trail that wound close to the river.  Our campsite was close to water too.  We tried the Ranger Talk in the evening, but since it didn't start until 8 when the mosquitoes were is full swing, we didn't stay long.  The Ranger doing the talk was awfully crabby too.

By this time, we'd started writing down all the different states we were seeing license plates.  The kids loved pointing out every new one we saw.  We ended up with a list of more than 25 states and 2 provinces.

By Day 4, we realized we were under-planned for this adventure.  I loved our meandering, seat-of-our-pants trip.  It was getting a little stressful when we left Hoh because we were so very, very low on gas and had no real idea how far until we saw another gas station.  Between Forks and Kalaloch, there isn't much of anything available.  Our first stop was Ruby Beach on the Pacific Ocean:

Hans kept explaining the significance of it being the Pacific Ocean to the kids and not Puget Sound, Strait of Juan de Fuca, or the saltwater we are ever around.  We explored some tidepools:

Hazel was NOT excited about the sea life.  She wanted nothing to do with the tidepools, the salt water, or any sea creatures.  Being on Hans's shoulders was as close as she was willing to get and that was with serious (and loud) reservation.  As soon as she could she ran away from Hans:

Hans tried again to show her something, but she refused to get any closer:

We didn't stay too long at Ruby Beach.  Eli was running through what he thought was shallow water, but found out the hard way that the tide pulls sand away from around large rocks.

We were able to get fuel at Kalaloch and spent some time on the beach there.  The sand was really fine and almost fluffy feeling.  We had the nicest weather everywhere we went too.  After the coast, we traveled east to Lake Quinault and FINALLY got Hazel to take a nap:

We stayed at the Rain Forest Village Resort.  Lake Quinault was like stepping back in time to the 1920s and 30s.  I really enjoyed myself there.  After getting ourselves parked at the campsite, we checked out the World's Largest Sitka Spruce.  I think it's almost 58 feet in circumference.

Day 5: Morning at Lake Quinault:

Hazel was Supergirl.  I was corrected when I told Hans he should notice how fast she was running because, she said, I meant how fast she was FLYING.

We set off for what turned out to be a more than 3 mile hike to see the World's Largest Douglas Fir tree.  Interestingly, the Quinault area is known as the Valley of the Giants.  It has 6 of the largest trees of their particular species.  My manly men peed on two of them.  I am just so proud (gag).

Hans wanted to collect some maidenhair fern for Abby to press.

My MANLY Men

Taking a break after 2+ miles.

Our last night, we stayed at Dosewallips State Park along Hood Canal.  It seemed liked the kind of campground people packed their kids up and stayed for a week.  Nice, but loud.  We didn't dally much there since we were wanted to get Abby back in time for her ceramics class.

We had so much fun!

Gidget Pictures

I just need to chronicle my husband's love of our newest family member.  I asked for a recent picture of Gidget.  20 minutes later, he's filled the camera.

And I only selected a *small* sampling of pictures...

4th of July

Our littlest was in top form last night!  Despite getting her little hand shut in the door, she had a fine time before and during the fireworks show last evening at our little Riverfront Park.  She ran and ran and ran around our blanket, ran to and from a set of chairs about a hundred feet away repeatedly, ran with Eli around the tree at the far end of the field from us...  I think the favorite was her running around the blanket after a rousing game of Duck, Duck, Goose with her siblings, shouting and pointing, "Peacock!  Do-do bird! Peacock!  Do-do bird!  Very pretty peacock!  Do-do bird!"  Mama and Abby were "peacocks."  Papa and Eli were "do-do birds."  During the show, Pip informs her father that, "just because you're a teacher doesn't mean you know *everything*."  Poor Hans.  If only that were the end of it!  Later, she tells him not to scratch his bug bites and loudly lets us know that she has to tell him these things because he just doesn't know.  Wowza.  I remember Abby and Eli thinking Hans was the smartest man in the world because he's a science teacher.  Seems Hazel will not be so easily impressed.