Last Gasp of Summer

Kate starts school tomorrow. We're still coming to grips with the idea that we're going to be parents of a Kindergartner. How the time has flown!

I've heard a lot of people in the area say that they feel like they kind of missed summer this year. Perhaps because of the weather. It hasn't been very summery.

We celebrated our last-day-before-school-starts with an outing to Owen Beach.



Throwing rocks is fun!



Kate went that way.




The water was cold, but we figured we wouldn't be able to keep Andy out of it, so he wore his water shoes. Good thing!



After a yummy dinner provided by I Love Bento, we went over to the school to take in Kate's supplies and talk to her teacher. She's so excited!

Andy at 20 months

Getting pictures outside is tricky! He just keeps moving.  I only got a couple where he was actually looking at me (and in focus).



He's been wearing that jacket for almost a year. It certainly fits a lot more snugly than it used to. I guess I'll be looking for a new coat soon.

It's funny to see how different Andy is from Kate at this age.  Kate really liked animal toys and was happy to just hold them and play with them.  Andy's always looking for buttons to push, or things to open, close, or pull off.  He likes to look at books but frequently wants to turn the page before we've finished reading it. 

Still not really talking, but doesn't have much trouble communicating.

He's really enjoying doing the motions to "The Eensy-Weensy Spider" and "Popcorn Popping," and clapping along with "If You're Happy and You Know it" and "Bingo." It's so cute to see him get excited when he recognizes a song. ("I know this one! It goes like this!")

We love our happy little boy!

So, it turns out I can't crochet and read subtitles at the same time...

I have this crochet piece, begun last year, which has been languishing untouched for months. I pulled it out and decided I should try to finish it up in time to enter the fair. This put a damper on my Korean drama viewing for a while. I got the ends worked in this afternoon and now it's blocking. Hopefully it will dry quickly!

I finished watching Coffee Prince on hulu. (I wasn't sure how appropriate it would be, after reading the description, but it was fairly PG, and cute and sweet.) I remarked to Doug that Korean dramas are like the new Shakespeare--unrequited love, ridiculous coincidences... cross-dressing....

Wednesday (the 18th) we commemorated my coming-home-from-mission day by going down to one of the Korean restaurants in Lakewood for dinner. I got some kimchi jjigae. Yum. It's now been seventeen years since I got home. It sure doesn't seem like that long. (It's so weird to see people that I served with on Facebook with big grown-up kids now.)

Doug gave his final on Thursday. He'll be home for about a month before the fall quarter starts. My plan is to do a lot of painting. I put some sky on the model train backdrop on Friday, while Doug took the kids to the zoo. That was the first I'd touched it since February. Time to get to work!

Kate starts school in less than two weeks. I don't think I'm ready for this.

I'm not ignoring you (on purpose)

I was getting some annoying spam, so I turned on comment moderation. I must have messed up something in the settings, because I just discovered a backlog of comments awaiting moderation. Sorry about that!

Bowl o' Fun

Starring Andy!

Kate's haircut, mark 2

We got Kate's hair cut right before I went to Utah (mostly so Doug wouldn't have to deal with all the brushing trauma). It had been over a year since her first haircut, so it was getting pretty long again. Doug took her to Wild Child and she came home with this cute little braid.



I can't braid her hair for swimming and gymnastics anymore. She finished her first swimming lessons at the YMCA, and yesterday she started another session of gymnastics. Andy and I went along and had fun kicking balls around during Kate's class. In the drop-in zone I ran into some of the kids from my photography class, and some of the leaders who helped me out. That was kind of fun. (The photography class seems like a long time ago, already!)

Andy at 19 months

July 27th was the day we flew back from Utah, so I got some pictures at Barb's house and some at the airport.



Andy doing "The Eensy-Weensy Spider" (a current favorite).



In the stroller at the airport.



"Is this your lens cap? Here, let me put that back on for you!"

Andy loves to draw, just like his big sister. Here's a masterpiece from that morning:



I don't know what it is but it's nicely varied and expressive. He recently graduated from only doing back-and-forth scribbles to also doing round-and-round scribbles. He goes for Kate's markers; we deflect him with colored pencils (slightly less hazardous). So far the walls have escaped unscathed, though our fridge is currently sporting some decoration.

He did very well on the plane, and he's feeling a lot better now. Yay!

He's trying to say more words, though they're not really clear. I've caught "ball" and "done." (Easy to figure out, in context!) And a couple of times he's said something that could be "Let's go!"

He's gotten really good at climbing up slides (and sliding down them). That's his favorite thing to do at a park.

He continues to be a really good eater and will often eat more at a meal than Kate does.

And, as always, he's a happy little guy and such fun to have around!

Three Days in Utah

I got to go to Utah and meet RoseE Hadden, who just got home from the Korea Busan mission. I found her blog back in January (where her mom posted her weekly emails home), and we exchanged letters a few times. It was great to meet her in person!



I took Andy with me and flew out Saturday evening, stayed at the Haddens' house, and went to church and heard RoseE's homecoming talk the next day. (She did a great job--my own homecoming talk is but a hazy memory but I'm sure it was nowhere near as coherent.) I got to meet a couple of other sisters from the mission, too. RoseE introduced me to everyone as her blog-stalker.

Andy, unfortunately, was not feeling well (he was feverish and snotty) which put a damper on things. It was horribly hot and he was just miserable. I called Barb late Sunday afternoon and she came down from Roy to get us. After a ride in a nice cool car, and being in a cooler house, Andy did perk up a bit.

Having family in the area gives me a legitimate reason to go to Utah, besides blog-stalking. Barb and Kyle live in Roy (north of Salt Lake) and Peter and Karen live in Orem (south of Salt Lake). I was hoping that we could all get together, especially since I hadn't met Baby Bridget yet. (My dad was able to go out for Bridget's blessing two weeks before that.)

We talked about meeting up at the zoo or a park or something, but with Andy being sick I felt like I didn't really want to do anything out in the heat, or anything too strenuous. Plus Barb was having some trouble with her car. I said, "I'd like to get together, but it doesn't necessarily have to involve actually doing anything." So Peter and Karen drove up to Barb's house Monday morning and we just hung out and had a nice laid-back visit. Very laid-back...after lunch Barb got Hazel down for a nap and ran out to get some more food from the store, and the rest of us all fell asleep watching Shaun the Sheep. Elizabeth was the only person in the house who was awake, sitting on the couch between her sleeping parents. (Kyle was at work.) Family nap!

In the afternoon it cooled down some (seemed like there was a storm blowing in, though I don't think it actually rained) and we went in the back yard and took some pictures. Andy was still not up for much but I got some cute pics of Hazel and Elizabeth.



Hazel is so big! I hadn't seen her since last June. She's nine weeks older than Andy and weighs half again as much. (Seriously... Andy's 20 pounds and Hazel's 30.) She's talking some, too. Very cute.




Cousins! Hazel will be two in October and Elizabeth will be three in January. They're almost the same size.



Uncle Peter is hi-larious.



Barb has some gorgeous flowers in her yard.



And here's Baby Bridget! (Almost two months old.) She's a good sleeper.



Such a cute little smile.



Here's where Barb and Kyle put my giraffe painting up in the living room. It was fun to see it on the wall.



Right by the Korean wedding ducks!

It was a good little trip. I would have liked to go to a Korean restaurant with RoseE, or go to temple square and find the Korean sister missionaries, but it just didn't work out this time, with Andy not feeling well. He took a few days to get back to his normal chipper self. But I'm glad I got to go. Big thanks to Barb, and to RoseE's mom!

Busy busy busy

Andy and I just got back from Utah yesterday. Now I have even more to catch up on. I'm going to have to go back and fill in the gaps.

Last week I did something different--I taught a photography camp at the YMCA. (Marianne Gary was going to teach it, but realized she was going to be out of town, so she asked me if I'd like to do it.) It was quite an experience. Thirty kids, ages 5-11, for two hours a day, Monday to Friday. Whew! Fortunately I had lots of help. There were a lot of wrinkles to iron out (being the first time they've done anything like this) but overall I think it went well. We talked about the rule of thirds, had a photo scavenger hunt, played with window light, and on the last day we did some fun trick photography. I don't really have anything to share, though, since I don't have permission to post pictures of the kids.

I'm also behind on my blogging because I've been watching Korean dramas on hulu. I just discovered them a few weeks ago. It's fun to be able to follow the basics of the language (and understand the nuances of things like verb endings and forms of address) and have the subtitles to fill in any vocabulary that I don't know.

Today I made this (with some help from translate.reference.com):



I asked Kate if she could pick out the Korean, and she did! I was pleased.

(진짜 생일 아니예요, 그냥 예로 쓴거예요!)

Sprayground!

Pictures from the Jefferson Park sprayground, Thursday, July 15.

Portland (pool, pictures, pizza!)

We heard about the animatronic dinosaurs at the Oregon Zoo and thought our little dinosaur fan would love it, so we took a quick trip down to Portland. We drove down on Wednesday afternoon (June 23rd) and stayed at La Quinta Inn, went to the zoo on Thursday and then came back home. 

La Quinta had an indoor pool, so we took the kids swimming. They had some water wing floaties that Kate used. She was really paddling around for the first time. It was so fun to see. Andy loved the water, too. (Nice and warm!)

At the pool we ran into the owners of our old apartment complex (the place we were living when Kate was born), who were there with their grandkids. That was a bit surreal.

After swimming we went to get some dinner. Doug had been to Old Town Pizza when in Portland before, and was able to find it again. Cool place!



The kids colored and played with a wooden pizza puzzle while we waited for our meal. (That's Kate's pool hair.)



We got pizza with kalamata olives, prosciutto, mushrooms, and pine nuts. Yum!

"I can't read while I'm asleep!"

Last night I dreamed that I was in a stage production of The Sound of Music and had to sing "My Favorite Things" (though I was not, as far as I know, playing the part of Maria). I had a script that I was supposed to be learning the words from, but was having some trouble, since (as per my blog entry Not a post about Batman) the words kept changing every time I looked at them. I was getting a bit panicky since I had only a few hours before the performance, and I couldn't get the darn words to hold still.

Instead of "When the dog bites" it said "when the time warps." I remember thinking that was rather odd (and anachronistic), but when I looked at it again it said "When the gems warp."

"Ah!" I thought, "I guess that makes a little more sense." (Not.)

I believe there was also a line about Barbra Streisand's nose, but I don't remember how that one went.

Finally, very frustrated, I took my script to the lady in charge, jabbed my finger at the offending passage, and asked, "Could you just read this part for me?  Out loud?" 

She asked, "Can you read it out loud?"

And I, in great exasperation, exclaimed, "I can't read while I'm asleep!"

I guess declaring myself to be sleep must have trigged something, because then I woke up.

home again, home again

We've been on the move! We spent the Independence Day weekend in Idaho with some of Doug's family. It was a lot of fun and we had a great time. It was also a very long drive and we were happy to get home. I downloaded The Tale of Despereaux from audible.com for the trip, but then we discovered that it wouldn't play on anything we had, so we didn't get to listen to it in the car.

Some friends watched the pillbugs for us while we were gone. (They need to be sprayed with water a few times a day so they don't dry out.) We have babies! They are so cute! Like little tiny white sesame seeds with legs. I haven't been able to get a picture because they are so small, and also rather shy. I gave them some moss that I picked up outside and they seem to enjoy that a lot. (Our pillbug-sitters reported that they also made quick work of some McDonald's lettuce.)

So, I have lots of things to post about but I'm still feeling a bit shell-shocked from the trip. We also went down to Portland the week before that and saw the animatronic dinosaurs at the zoo. I haven't posted about that yet, either.

It got hot all of a sudden. Not quite as hot as that horrible week last year (knock on wood) but definitely not comfortable. I'll have to make sure we have plenty of ice and popsicles in the freezer!