Vernal Equinox

The first day of spring was lovely. I wanted to go out and take pictures of flowers, so I took Kate and Andy and went to Point Defiance. We got kind of a late start because Andy decided to take a really long nap, so we didn't get out there till about 5:00. (The light was probably better then, anyway. It was really sunny earlier.) Doug stayed home to grade papers.



Kate and Andy check out the daffodils.



(And other things.)



A nice lady offered to get a picture of the three of us together.



The attempt was amusing.



After that Kate wanted to go over to the duck pond.



She spotted these two redheaded widgeons in the crowd. We thought they were cool.



I think these signs are new. (Comma splice!) There were so many people there feeding the ducks. There were entire slices of bread floating whole and uneaten in the shallows, bobbing forlornly against the rocks.



I've always liked this tree. It's just so knobbly and interesting.



Next we had to stop by the Japanese garden.




These trees are just gorgeous every year.




Finally--on to the playground!



Andy on the swing.



It's hard to get a shot like this in focus!



Andy back at the car. "Nooooo! I don't want to go!"



Awww!

Today is quite a bit cooler, and spitting rain intermittently. I'm glad we got out yesterday! Ah, spring!

Rose and Juan

Rose and Juan were married at the Soundview Ward chapel on February 12th.  Rose was looking for someone to take pictures, and a mutual friend asked me if I'd be able to do it.  It took me a month, with all the other stuff we had going on, to get all the pictures processed, a few more days to get ahold of Rose after that, and then a few more days to get these posted on my blog.  I know Laura wanted to see them, so I thought I'd just share a few here.

I borrowed Larry Golden's wide-angle lens and his external flash.  I ended up using them about half the time, and my 50mm with no flash on a higher ISO the other half.  I knew the lighting was going to be tricky.



At the end of the ceremony, Rose and Juan jumped over a broom (with everyone's flashes going off).




The group shots were a big exuberant mess.  There's something about that second shot that just makes me smile.



Dancing...



...and cake!

  Smile!

It was a wonderful, happy evening. I enjoyed meeting Rose and Juan and their families. Best wishes to the happy couple!

When come back, bring pi.

This was google's title image today. I just wanted to post it for my dad, who can recite pi to 50 places. How's that for a party trick? (I can only do 12 places.)

Chalk Neighbors

Sidewalk chalk with the Kim girls! (This shot sort-of-indirectly-inspired by Color Me Katie.)

Our sidewalk chalk was worn down to teeny-tiny nubbins (and then we used up the nubbins) so we picked up a new set at Target. It turns out our neighbors have the same set!



우리 옆집 얘들 담이 와 하누리.



(This was actually last week, but I had to get permission to post the pictures of the girls.)

Today we went out and drew some more. Andy got ahold of a piece of chalk, and he was making some marks on my drawing, then toddling over to Glory's drawing and making some marks on hers, back and forth, back and forth. It was so cute.



Waiting for Spring!

Spring Cleaning

I got Kate registered for Kindergarten yesterday. Whoa. They had an open house earlier this week, so we went over and saw the kindergarten rooms and met the teachers. One of them does a lot of art projects with the kids. Her room was festooned with windsocks that the kids had decorated with apple prints. She said that later they do fish prints with real fish. When I took in the completed registration papers I requested her for Kate.

I'm feeling an urge to get things done. Besides the school stuff yesterday, we also got our tax things together, and I hand-washed a couple of skirts that needed it (this takes a while). Today I cleaned window tracks and washed the kitchen curtains. The window tracks generate a disturbing black sludge. Ick. Perhaps there are places where window tracks do not generate this sludge--maybe it's special Pacific Northwest sludge. I ended up having to bleach the curtains, which seems to have worked. I shall have to institute a regular window-track cleaning schedule.

Lots more to do! Forward momentum!

Following dreams = bad science, annoying earworm.

Last night I dreamed that I was cutting up apples to put in a blender (for reasons which seemed perfectly clear at the time, as dreams do). Someone mentioned to me that apples are monocots, and I (I swear I am not making this up) started singing, "A blessing on your head, monocot, monocot."

So this morning I had to look it up. It turns out that apples are not monocots after all. They are dicots.

Take that, randomly-musically-firing neurons!

Andy at 14 months

Taken February 27.




Andy loves music. He likes to dance, bouncing up and down, and he often cries when the song is over. (He does this at church, too. Song ends, Andy cries. Aww.)

He's still eating pretty much anything we give him, but he's starting to show preferences. He doesn't get quite as excited about green vegetables. Grapes are a great favorite.