Baby Card

A quick card for Ida, who likes orange.

I don't think I've tried papercutting with watercolor paper before--it's pretty thick but it works!

Playing around in Olympia

We had a fun Saturday at the Hands on Children's Museum in Olympia. I had a Groupon voucher that was good for five people, so Kate's friend Liberty came with us.



Big chair!



You can do cool things with balls and hydraulics.



They've added an outdoor installation since we were there last year. This is a "Stick Works" sculpture by Patrick Dougherty. Lots of cool twists and turns to run through.



We spotted this in the art room.



The pin board is great fun! (I think the kids could spend hours playing with this.)



These pneumatic tubes along the wall shoot pom-poms and scarves into the air. The scarves get some really good hang time.



"Can I see my house from here?"



A quick lunch break!



We were headed back to the museum but got sidetracked by the wading stream out front. (Part of Olympia's East Bay Public Plaza. Really great idea--like a spray park, but more stream-ish.)



Off come the shoes!



These huge irises were all over the plaza. So pretty!



The girls spent quite a while in the stream (playing River Clan Warrior Cats).  Then we popped back into the museum for a quick run-around before it was time to go.



I love the light in this area.



Liberty is moving soon. (Sadness!) I know Kate was happy to be able to spend the day with her. We had a great time!

Wall Blocks

This is the front edge of our yard after I ripped out the ivy.  Pretty sad.



This is our next-door neighbor's yard. The contrast is striking.



Our neighbor has these wall blocks that come up to the edge of our yard.  I decided that the obvious thing to do was to get the same kind of blocks and continue the wall across the front of our yard.  I tracked down the blocks at Lowe's--regularly $1.98 apiece, so I kept checking back on the website to see if they would go on sale.



On April 10th I was heading over to that end of town to run an errand.  I remembered to check the Lowe's site before heading out, and saw that the blocks were finally on sale. (Yay!) So I went over and bought 76 blocks. My car is not big enough to transport 76 blocks, but the Lowe's guy and I loaded 25 into my trunk and I brought those home.



My first block in place! (This was so exciting.)



Miriam Webb helped me pick up the rest of the blocks the next day in her husband's truck. Lots of lifting! (According to the website they're 24 pounds each.) I did remember gloves, which help a lot with those rough edges.



I've been working on the wall a little at a time.  I wasn't able to get any done while the kids were home on Spring Break, but it's coming along!  I got this picture on April 25th. I'm almost up to the mailbox, at which point I'll probably have to stop till we get that taken care of.

I like having a project to work on outside.  I can go out and lay a few blocks while I'm waiting for Andy's bus to bring him home.   I've been finding a great many fat, happy worms. That must be some really great dirt. (I've acquired some groupies--the robins have started following me around.)

I realized that it probably would have worked better to dig out the whole edge at once, and then lay down the bottom line of blocks and get them straight, but no, I had to dig out and place each one individually. The wall does have some slight undulation, but it's really only noticeable if you stand directly over it. And once I get some things planted along there it won't show at all. Plus, I think the street is a bit crooked anyway. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.