Heat and Water

The rain woke me up last night.  It sounded torrential at 3am.  I exercised in clouds with a bit of rain this morning.  Then, the sun came out and it turned 80 degrees.  I took the kids out for a treat next to the Ballard water park to celebrate our last day of summer where we don't have a planned schedule.  I asked if the kids wanted some impromptu park time.  Off came the clothes and on went the smiles.  The kids put on a good show for all the homeless hanging about.

Ups and Downs

Up: We completed our (my) goal of reading 100 library books for the summer.  Good job Team Hurst:

Down: I weaned my baby.  Correction - she weaned herself.  She didn't like waiting that long to get food!  I was ready for it, but knowing this is my last child makes it bittersweet.  Those were some good snuggling days.  I got a migraine in the middle of last night.  Bum deal.  I loved not having migraines for 6 years.  Back to the old me.  Lame.

Work.D

 Wake Up And Work Day

I found free urbanite on craigslist and hired another guy on craigslist to pick it up in his truck and dump it in our driveway (he wasn't free!) so I can build paths under our backyard tree.

I have been waiting for months for some local stuff to become available in the quantity I wanted:

Jiminy Crickets, it took all day to dig 4" holes for the pavers.  I will be busy for a while doing this.  The dirt is chock full of root masses because the hill used to be covered in ivy.  Use your imagination and hopefully this will be fun when I am finished.

Andrew mentioned renting a sod cutter next week and I encouraged him to think about hiring someone to come in and do it for him (as to preserve some of his back).  He said yes, and within an hour I had a guy out to get started on the project.

3 hours later and paying too much, we have our garden.  Andrew will be putting up a fence down the line of the garden so we can let the chickens roam.  He will be cover cropping the area throughout the winter and will get serious come Spring 2014.

 We sold our corn dog trees on craigslist because we are having a fence put up between us and the neighbors.  That left gaping holes.

Andrew and the crew filled the holes with the sod so it isn't such a dangerous spot.

Getting up tomorrow to exercise will not be easy.

G-nic

I was worried today was going to be boring.  I had totally forgotten that the Google Summer Picnic was slotted for today.  Fun surprise.  Vasa Park Resort  is a great venue and all of us had lots of fun.  There was a watermelon theme throughout and the food was super delicious.  BBQ ribs, salmon, chicken, pasta salads, grilled veggies, watermelon shooters, ice cream cones, corn on the cob.  Tons of activities for the kids (plus a park) and all the kayaks/canoes you could ever want.  There was a dock with two slides into the water.  Andrew was brave enough to get in the water with the boys for some swimming.  It was a nice 75 degrees with overcast skies.  Thanks Google, that was fun.

Ohhh Mmmm Awwe

People seriously love themselves some cute baby animal pictures.

Some are cute:

Some are cuter:

And some baby animals are just plain adorable:

Kid Fun/Mom Fun

One day, the kids get to have fun:

The next is a mom day.  They got the beach yesterday, today they got the University of Washington Surplus store:

Who wins?  We all do.

On A Trail

We went for a walk in the woods near our house.  It was good to get out.

Seacising

My neighbor and I have a good thing going.  We meet up at 6:45am and do long beach walks followed by weight lifting or other workouts.  We put in three mornings this week.  Feels great to be exercising again.

Walking from my house to hers:

Jackson's face is the first one I see:

Down the steps and across the tracks to the beach:

The familiar heron:

Trains passing by:

Dead crabs:

A rock covered in sea anemones:

Ok...time for some stairs...

First set:

Second set:

Third set:

And the doozy, the fourth set:

Time to head home for push ups and dips!

Free. Hmm?

Seattle's Free part of Craigslist is a bit too crazy for me today.  Happy Friday.

 Free used men's briefs (Downtown)

Black thong briefs. Size L. About 10 pairs.

Message for details and photos

• Location: Downtown
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

 Free Time Machine (Burien)

I'm giving away version 1.0 of my home built time machine. Works well, a few bugs, but mostly ok. Almost done with version 2.0, and need to make some room in my shop. You Haul.

• Location: Burien
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

(Ha!  I was telling my neighbor about this and she said, "Oh yeah, that computer backup thing."  I never thought of that.  I liked it better when I really thought he was building a time machine.)

 Crawling track for baby (Shoreline, WA)

FREE crawling track made per instructions by Dr. Glenn Doman's book, "How to teach your baby to be physically superb." (http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Baby-Physically-Superb/dp/0895296721/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376623217&sr=1-11)

I built this for >$100 in parts. It is well padded, covered in gold vinyl material, very solid, and very safe. The ends need tacking down to finish off the project but it is functional as-is. I worked with my son using the track and it did help. By the time we started training in earnest he was nearly crawling already and did it early in his 5th month.

Great Weather

72 degrees.  Humid.  Rain.

Time to play outside in rain gear.  

We want out too...

Our new tree swing:



P.S. I am embarrassed that our grass has gotten so brown.  Everyone in town is laughing at my anxiety over it.  My neighbors challenged me to find one house with green grass.  I couldn't.  They remind me that in two months our grass will be green again.  It is still so weird to live in a place that doesn't have sprinklers.

Days Of Fun

There has been a blogging lull around here because it has been non-stop fun.  So much fun I haven't had time to snap photos.  My Aunt came into town (I hadn't seen her for over 10 years) followed by a Sacramento friend, we have spent time down at the beach (I spare you picture after picture of shells and such), and I have been exercising so much the rest of the day is spent trying to walk from room to room without falling over.  Maybe I should blog from my beautiful, morning walks.  Oh, throw in tons of school stuff.  We had Blake's kindergarten pot-luck the other night and today he went for his placement orientation.  I thought it was the end of summer, but really it is school prep around here.

Shopping for supplies for the first time:

Jordans

My sporty shoe hunt led me to some Jordans.  I had planned on buying cheap trainers (as the Brits call them), but even the cheap, ugly shoes (seen here) at Payless Shoes were $35.  So I walked into Finish Line and found some Jordan Ace's on sale.  Good enough.  I played basketball and was in love with Scottie Pippen and would never have been caught dead in Jordans.  It is 2013 and I now miss Jordan and Pippen.  I felt this was a learning opportunity.

So today, we revisited the past.  Can we all celebrate what Jordan was and how there might not be a player like this again in my lifetime.  I hope so, but I bet not.  He was so skinny and pure before the days of big time doping.  Don't get me wrong, I love myself some artificial muscle, but gone are those days!  I love, love, love how these guys played:

After watching this video, Blake asked, "Is his bones hollow?"

Girl Time

The older boys are in Sports Camp this whole week so Piper and I get to do girly things like shopping.

Here is footage from her first trip to the mall where she could walk around on her own.

P.S. You might think we are being materialistic, but the truth is my older son has no sporty shoes!  I realized he had no tennies on the first day so I sent him in his hip hop Converse.  Lets just say we had to use some Band-aids.  Bad mom.

Cluck

Andrew was invited back to Plum Serenity Farm to visit his friend Tyler and help out with the processing of his last batch of roosters.  He said there was a high learning curve, but he soon got the hang of things.  We now have six roosters to bake/roast/make stock out of.  Anyone want to come over for chicken casserole?