My Super Family

Every year my family spends a weekend up at Silver Falls. I think we all look forward to a couple of days of solid fun. This year, we were sitting around the campground, when something extraordinary happened. All of a sudden, my sister's cell phone rang and she announced, "It's headquarters guys! We have a mission!" My parents and sisters scattered, running into their cabins and leaving the rest of us sitting in bewilderment. When they returned, they confirmed one of my long-held suspicions. I come from a family of super heroes.

Let me introduce them to you. This is my dad, aka ColaMan.

Here is my mom, leading the super cheer. You might also know her as the Gingham Granny. 

My brother, Tactical Man. 

I didn't get a good picture of Tactical Man's wife, the Cajun Crusher, but here she is snapping a picture of her husband. They make a great pair.

My sister: Phosphorus. 

My sister: Methane

My sister: Sulphur.

You really don't want to mess the three of them when they get together.The PhosphorusMethaneSulphur combination is dangerous one.

Also dangerous, my sister Super Caffeinated Girl. She'll definitely give you the jitters.

My sister: Psychic Girl. She may be PG, but watch out bad guys! 

Due to the serious nature of the mission, Isaac, the kids and I were recruited to join the family business. We were provided capes and quickly assigned names. I think Barak decided Isaac should be Speed to the Flight. 

Lizzy is Bug Girl. 

Barak went with the classic title of Batman. 

And here is Super Junior. He may look small, but he is very capable of getting what he wants.

The call from headquarters was in regards to some kidnapped gnomes. Once we were organized, we quickly set out on the trail to find and rescue them.

Bug girl had to consult some of her allies (ants) and ask for directions. 

Silver Falls was pretty crowded that weekend, and we had many people stop and ask us about our quest. We had little time to spare for these conversations, but a certain park ranger confiscated  ColaMan's water gun and asked us a series of question. Bug Girl stepped forward to speak on our behalf and was able to confirm that we are in fact, Beaver fans. That solved the problem, and we were back on our way! (It's a good thing he didn't ask Methane or Psychic Girl. Things might not have been smoothed over so quickly.)

After much searching, we found the first baby gnome!

A little farther up the trail we rescued the second gnome!

At last, all three baby gnomes were located, and our mission was a success!

Rejoicing ensued.

All in all, it was a good day's work. 

Can you tell we had a good time? 

More evidence that Isaac is an awesome dad

We were all in the backyard, when Sebastian started digging around in a big patch of dirt. Isaac noticed, turned on the hose, and proceeded to spend an hour playing in the mud with his kids. I love that man.

Seattle

In April, Isaac had a conference in Seattle, and the kids and I decided to come along. We were all very excited about our mini vacation, and it wasn't until the day before we left that I realized I probably could have left the kids with my parents and really lived it up in the city. I imagined sleeping in, lounging around in the hotel room, reading or watching whatever garbage on TV that I felt like, and wandering the city at will while Isaac was in his meetings all day. Once he was done, we could have gone to dinner together and enjoyed conversation without interruption. By that point, however, it was too late to change our plans. Oh well. The kids had a great time, and I would have missed them. Here are somethings we did. 

Of course, we had to jump on the beds, first thing.  

and admire the view from our 17th floor room. (Isaac's work paid for the hotel, so we were right in the middle of downtown, only a couple of blocks from Pike's Public Market.)

We had to check out the Space Needle. Barak took one look at it, and said, "I'm not going up there." So we  admired it from the ground.

I told the kids they could pick one thing to do while we were there: The children's museum, the zoo, or the aquarium. The vote for the children's museum was unanimous. I have now been to a children's museum in Seattle, Portland, Salem, Baltimore, and Lafayette, CO. They have all been different, but they've all been a lot of fun.

There was a lot of dressing up and running around. I lost Sebastian about seven times while we there there, but in the end I left with all the kids I came with.

Instead of walking back to the hotel, we decided to take the monorail. It was too bad that Sebastian fell asleep before he could even see it; he would have loved it. Maybe if he had done less running away from me throughout the day, he would have had some energy left . . .

The next day we spent walking around in the rain We spent a couple of hours at the downtown library, which was awesome. We might have been able to spend all day there, but it was lunchtime, so we set off to find a park I had read about that had a waterfall in it. Despite the map which I consulted repeatedly, I managed to walk past the park and continue in the opposite direction for 15 or 20 minutes. The kids were really starting to get annoyed, hungry, tired, and miserable, when we finally found it.

I'm honestly not sure it was worth it, but it made a fun adventure, and we met a couple of cool firemen along the way.

Friday night has become Movie Night at our house, and Barak insisted we do it in Seattle, too. Ice cream and a Winnie the Pooh movie. Life is good.

Walking along the waterfront with these three (Sebastian was stuck in the stroller, and a little annoyed) was a great deal of fun. 

On one of our walks, Barak suddenly demanded the camera. He wanted to take a picture of this building, for some reason. 

Not to be outdone, Lizzy had to take a picture, too. She decided on some flowers and her brother. 

One thing I did not take pictures of was the afternoon we spent at the beach. It rained on us, but the kids were so happy to dig in the sand and Isaac and I enjoyed watching all the sailboats. Sebastian has been asking to go to the beach nearly every day since then. 

On our last day, we were lucky enough to spend time with some of Isaac's best friends from college days. Our kids made instant friends, and we had a very pleasant time laughing at old stories and pictures and eating weird college food. (You don't want to know.) All in all, it was a very wonderful trip. I'd be happy to do it all again next year. With or without the kids!

Easter

I know Easter was awhile ago, but I almost never post things right after they happen. Not if I add pictures, anyway. This year for Easter, my lovely sister-in-law, Helen, came over to dye eggs with us. She brought all the supplies, and we had a vast array of color to experiment with. 

 Lizzy and Barak thought the whole project was awesome, but to be honest, their favorite part was probably at the end when we dumped the leftover dye down the toilet and flushed. Watching the colors swirl together was both entertaining and educational, as we saw that red and blue do, in fact, make purple. 

 The finished product. 

 Every year my mom makes Lizzy's Easter dress, and my little girl is always so excited. She LOVES it when her grandma makes her something new. I think my mom outdid herself this year. This is the most amazing dress. 

Along with Lizzy's dress, she sent the boys new bow ties, and white shirts, so we had some pretty spiffy looking kids. 

 I have some pretty handsome men in my life. What can I say? Some girls are just lucky.

 A good friend of ours from college decided to serve a mission, and we were excited to get to hear her farewell talk at church. We will miss Loradona for the next 18 months, but we're happy for Omaha. They're getting somebody pretty amazing.

 On the way back to my parents' house after church, the boys both fell asleep. Honestly, is there anything cuter than that?

 The egg hunt was as wildly successful as ever, and the kids came home with way more candy than is good for any of us. I tried to take pictures of them hunting the eggs, but all I got were blurs and smudges as they raced from place to place. Even once they found all the eggs I had a hard time getting a decent photo.

 All Sebastian wanted to do was eat candy. He did not let go of that basket for the rest of the day.

 But never fear! Grandma always makes sure there is plenty of other good food to be had, not just the candy. And that's good, because this boy likes to eat.

It ain't easy fighting bad guys all day.

The usual

I love this boy. I really do.

Motherhood = 1 part pure delight + 1 part utter frustration

I have a hard time getting Lizzy to preschool on time. Not since the first two weeks of school have we managed to make it any earlier than ten minutes late. Her teachers do not care, and the first half an hour or so is free play time anyway. The situation bothers me, however, for two main reasons.
I don't like being late for everything. I was one of those major dorks in high school (I know, you're surprised, right?) who was always early to class, reading a book at my desk instead of hanging out with my friends in the hall. I don't understand how we can have well over an hour to eat breakfast and get dressed, and still not make it out the door on time. Sometimes it takes us more than 30 minutes just to get everyone in shoes and jackets. How can it possibly take so long?
The second reason our tardiness bothers me is that next year Lizzy starts kindergarten. Her preschool teachers may not care if she is consistently late, but I'm pretty sure they take it more seriously when you get to "real" school. And kindergarten start an hour earlier. Are we going to have to get up at 5:00 am every day? I do not do mornings. Maybe we should home school, and just never leave the house again.
Yesterday we were close to being on time. That is to say, we were only five minutes beyond our optimal departure time. Lizzy was dragging her feet. I had to ask her multiple times to get on her shoes, find her backpack, etc. And yet, under the layer of annoyance and frustration I was feeling, I was secretly thrilled. The reason she dragged her feet? Her nose was buried deep in a book, and she wouldn't look up for it for any of the silly tasks I kept asking her to perform. My daughter can read! She can read silently, too, and that takes skill! I am still blown away by how amazing and smart she is. I love that she loves her books, and I have vivid memories of doing the same thing that caused my annoyance yesterday morning: dragging my feet and shutting out the world because I was involved in a book. I'm pretty sure I was a few years older before I started that, but what can I say? My daughter is smarter than I am. We all know that.