Adorable children and good news...

Patience being beautiful.



Jordyn being beautiful too.

Nick doing baby tricks.

Another shot of Nick at Minter Gardens. Notice he's holding his leg up so it doesn't touch the grass : )

Today Don was scheduled to be onsite all day in Richmond. On his way there, he got a call from the client saying, "Don't come in! All of the pieces of the server haven't arrived yet!" Thankfully, he wasn't too far down the road when that call came in...

When he came right home I quickly took advantage of the unused space in his schedule and suggested that he take the kids' passport applications into the passport office. When you take them in person, the turn-around time is only 2 weeks or so, as opposed to 4 weeks by snail mail. Don just returned from the office...it took about 2 hours, but some of that was travel time and he took work to do while he waited.

So....it looks like our trip to California in August is a big GO! My lovely, wonderful mother is flying up to Seattle. I will pick her up in a van full of Littles and we will travel south to California. One thing is for certain: having my mom with me will basically guarantee that I won't drive through the night, as I have been known to do (it's genetic...I get it from my paternal grandmother).

We are planning on spending a couple of days in Moss Beach with Mom and Lee, then over to Frank and Heather's in Modesto for a few more days. We'll definitely see my Dad and Edith on either the way to or from Modesto, whichever works out better for them. And then, we'll head back to the coast for some more days before driving north. Again, my mom is driving with me! We'll drop her off at the Seattle airport and she can fly home while we cross the border. It's so wonderful to have a mom who is retired and has flight benefits!

I'm not sure how long our trip will actually last...it largely depends on how the kids do and how the people who we're visiting do : ) So it might be a week, 10 days, or 2 weeks! The nice thing is that mom can be flexible on her dates because she's pass riding. I do want to be home by the time the boys get home from their summer adventures...

Canada Day Celebration

Don took the girls to Langley's Canada Day Celebration today. They had a great time. Like I was telling my mom earlier this evening, Don is really one of the best daddies I've ever known. The kids are very lucky.

Don took these pictures with his camera, because he's actually a closet blogger and didn't want such a momentous occasion to go uncovered. : )

Pool for Nick

I bought Nick this adorable pool/water park yesterday, so excited because we're having a mini heat wave here and I knew he'd just love this!

Well, I set him in here and he just cried and cried. And cried. I tried to engage him in some water play but he'd have none of it. I finally took pity on him and rescued him, thinking I'd just wasted $40.

Nope! The girls will get hours of enjoyment out of this!

Life is a bowl of cherries

We have the crop of a lifetime on the two cherry trees outside. In 9 years I've never seen them both so laden. While Frank and Heather were here the boys picked quite a few and Heather and I made several quarts of ice cream sauce, but by today there were even more cherries that were ripe and ready to be picked so we set up the cherry assembly line once again.

Don and the boys picked thousands of cherries. The boys both pitted using my very handy cherry stoner. And then I canned, for the first time in years, 14 quarts of cherries. And there are still more to pick!

Just part of the cherries that the guys picked, all washed and ready for the pitter.

Sean takes the first shift...

Then Dylan takes a turn...

Half of our bounty (all sealed!) for the winter...

Minter gardens

Frank, Heather, Don, Nick, and I all headed out to Minter Gardens late Saturday morning. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We had a delicious lunch at the restaurant there and then walked all over the garden's paths.

Heather and I have been friends for thirty years!

Minter Gardens is a lovely place; and so close! We turned our day admission into season passes and we plan on taking my parents there when they visit in July.

Look at this peacock! His "plumage" is going to be amazing when these flowers grow a little.


Nick enjoying the manicured lawns! Please click on this picture and tell me who Nick is starting to look like!

Picking strawberries at Krause's

Saturday morning, right after breakfast, Frank, Heather, Don, and the girls headed over to Krause's to pick strawberries. It's a good thing they went over early because it turned out to be a pretty hot day!

Jordyn has a new favorite man!

Checking out the raspberries.

Strawberries!

Friday morning report...

Frank and Heather are enroute from Seattle!

I have finished my "must do" list and will soon move onto the "it would be nice to get this done" list.

Nick is taking his usual long morning nap, the girls are outside playing.

The weather forecast has changed for the better. Clear and in the mid 60's for the entire weekend. The Smiths, coming from Modesto, will love that!

Life is good. I'm so looking forward to this weekend!

More later...

The amazing 9-month old baby

Well, here he is: the world's most adorable 9-month old baby. He has now been out of me longer than he was in me! I like him better out here : )

He can now pull himself up into a standing position while holding onto the couch and can even cruise a bit. He definitely prefers standing so I don't think the walking will be too far in the future.

He loves to be outside and actually cries when we come back inside. He'll happily ride in his stroller for hours or sit on a blanket on the grass and play. He's a pretty easy keeper, and for those times when he's not an easy keeper, I just have to look at his chubby cuteness and, viola, he can do no wrong! It's amazing. It's been a pretty wonderful 9 months, and I'm really looking forward to the next little while.

Preschool graduation

Today Patience and Jordyn attended their last day of preschool for the year...well, the last day ever for Patience. They had a presentation where the kids sang songs, then they got "diplomas," and then we had a party with lots of goodies. The girls had a great time and now they're looking forward to a relaxing summer. Me too!

Here they are before school:

I absolutely love this shot of Jordyn. You can capture a natural smile on her face about 1% of the time...this is my lucky shot!

Here they are during the diploma presentation. Sorry for the quality of this shot...I clearly need a telephoto lens.

The mystery flowers...

I woke up this morning to find these on my kitchen table! They weren't there last night when I went to bed. Of course curiosity was killing me, so I went in and asked Don (quietly, not wanting to wake up Nick) where the flowers came from. He didn't know! So I went and asked Dylan and Sean.

It turns out that Tom Bennett brought them over last night for me! He came around 10 (obviously doesn't know my bedtime is 8) and Sean answered the door. Aren't they gorgeous? Sean says they were to say "thank you." But if anything I should be saying thank you to Tom Bennett! He gave up 6 days of work (i.e. pay) to drive across the US with Nathan. Because he was there, Nathan had a great time, and I didn't have a single moment of worry.

Tom is such a great guy. I wish he could someday be my son-in-law, but since he's 15 years older than Patience I might as well get that thought right out of my head. But he is wonderful.
Thank you, Tom!

Oh the irony of it all...

You'll never guess where Don and Patience are right now....

At the beautiful Al Anderson pool in Langley; tonight Patience started Langley Flippers Swim Club in their learn-to-swim program!

I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry...

Did we adopt him?

You know you have a large family when your 14-year-old son wonders upstairs in the morning, bleary-eyed, but nonplussed at the unfamiliar 5-year-old sitting at the breakfast table eating cereal. Without batting an eye, Sean asks nonchalantly, "Who's the new kid? Did we adopt him?"

Darrell is my walking friend, Jackie's, little boy. She works occasionally, filling in when other people go on vacation. She's working this week, so Darrell is spending his days with us, learning the joys of playing with dollhouses, and teaching the girls how to work Transformers. I've seen first-hand that Patience is much better at playing with girls than boys. She's loud and rambunctious and sometimes (okay, most times) overpowers any little girl she plays with. Much better matched to playing with boys.

On another note, Don spent most of his Father's Day working. Are you surprised?

After breakfast in bed, he and Dylan went to Radnai's to work on the trees. And when he came home, he decided to knock out one little home improvement project...painting the hallway right outside the laundry room. They were the only white(ish) walls left downstairs and they needed some TLC. We had lots of green from painting Dylan's room...the nice seafoam green color, so Don knocked that yesterday afternoon/evening. It's such a huge improvement.

We did talk to Nathan this weekend. He called at 9:30 our time (12:30 in Virginia) on Saturday evening and we had a nice, long chat. He talked to Dylan and wished him a happy birthday and then they had a conversation about "would Nathan please buy Dylan a car?" And then he called Don on Sunday and wished him a happy Father's Day, as Don was already asleep when Nathan called the night before so he didn't talk with him then. Nathan's doing well, passing every test so far, disappointed that the PT is so unchallenging. This week he has classes and then next week he's underway for the entire week, putting what they've learned so far into practice. That should be a good time! And then, pretty soon after that, they'll be able to start finding out their next duty stations.

Right now Dylan is working at the chicken farm, and Sean is taking the dog for a jog/walk. I love productive teenagers. It makes me want to bake them cupcakes!

More later,
Cathi

Highchair yoga

Reach up...

then touch your nose to the floor...

sit up tall...

and then touch your nose to the floor again...

When Daddy's in charge of bath time...

this is likely to occur:


He's obviously the fun one.

Great pictures compliments of Leslie Smith

These great shots were taken by Leslie when the Cutlers came to have dinner and fetch their French daughter. I'm not sure if she's just an excellent photographer, if her camera is of superior quality, if she was just lucky, or it it's a combination of all three, but I think you'll enjoy these!

Don and camera-shy Jordyn.

Cathi and sulking Jordyn (do you see a pattern?).

Dylan's 17th birthday (okay, a few days shy).

Smirking smiling Sean.

Baby bliss. Ahhhh.

This girl loves her potato salad!

The family sans Nathan plus Lucille. Out of 20 or so shots this was the best one.

Nick tricks

This baby is growing and changing so fast! Everyday he has new capabilities, which is exciting for your first child but horrifying for your sixth...

Here's Nick playing with the fireplace grate, even though he has hundreds of baby-appropriate toys all around him! His fascination with the fireplace lead to us rearranging the furniture...now the couch is in front of the fireplace!

Standing up, looking for food...

Trying to get down the stairs. He loves going outside, and knows the door is right down those stairs!

Being absolutely beautiful.

Trying to get behind the couches... He got his head through but his bum just wouldn't go...