Welcome, Welcome!

So, I managed to get this video to work, but still no pictures. Hopefully I will figure out this problem ASAP. Before Zach's family arrived, I decided to let the boys make a welcome banner for them. (Sorry, I didn't think of this for your visit Gma! I hope you still felt welcome :). So, here are the boys trying their hands (and later feet) at painting.

Excuses, excuses...

We've had several guests over the last couple of weeks. My Grandma came several weeks ago and Zach's family came last weekend. And we did all kinds of fun things. And I've got pictures. But for some reason, I'm having all kinds of technical difficulties with said pictures. So, bear with us. We apologize with the delay.

Pre-School Craziness

I don't know how it is where you live, but here people get a little crazy about pre-school. I remember going to someone's house for dinner when the boys were about one and a half and getting on the discussion of preschool. I hadn't thought much about it at the time. The hostess told me I was a moron and that I should already have them on a waiting list if I really loved them, which I clearly didn't. I'm paraphrasing only slightly. I also found out that night that some people pay almost as much for a month at one of the really good pre-schools in our area as what I paid for a semester in college.

I've been trying not to freak out, I mean, I never went to preschool. And neither did Zach, which is a better comparison, because I'm not really doing a whole lot with my degree right now, except pretending to be cooler than I am.

So, I'm trying to spend the time creating an educational environment, but, I'm not great at this kinda thing without some kind of outside force that I can let down to motivate me. Because I'm the kind of person who spends an hour or so working on a new blog banner, just to post it, chicken out, because I used an image with a watermark on it that I bypassed, and then spend another half hour coming up with another, though less cool one. This is all during the time that I was planning on using to prepare some kind of preschool activity. Luckily, I found one in the process. But what are the chances of that happening every time?

Anyway, here is Attempt #1 at some kind of pre-schooly thing.

We glued some of the fallen leaves onto the tree trunk and I talked to the boys about autumn and seasons a little bit.

Ben and Sam were actually pretty interested for about ten minutes. They really enjoyed using the glue, which they'd never used before. But of course, I only had one, and that caused a few problems. But it actually went pretty well, I'd say.

I hear that the part that really matters with kids at this age is the process, not the completed work. Which is great for us. Because they tore all the leaves off the paper once they were dry. So, no pictures of completed works. Sorry.

Glues sticks and leaves, classic childhood

So, hopefully, somehow my darling children won't be scarred by not being in some kind of pre-school we can't afford or for not having a more put-together type mom. But, if all else fails, at least we'll have these beautiful projects. Oh, wait. Ben tore them up when he was done.

Huh.

In the Garden

One of the many things that have been keeping me from this here blog is our garden plot. We got one in the spring and had a friend take care of it for us over the summer. But, apparently the ground was cursed or something, because almost nothing grew. So, when we got home we dug up 3/4 of the garden and laid a bunch of chicken wire down (to discourage gophers) and then put the dirt back in. It was quite a bit of work, since the ground was like a rock. Luckily, for me, Zach did a pretty hefty portion of it.

Now, the hard work has paid off, because the seedlings we planted are growing beautifully.

Those are snap peas on the left on the bamboo trellises and on the right are lettuces and a bok choi.

In fact, dozens of the radish and carrot seeds that I planted in the spring are coming up now. Go figure. Of course, they are coming up with a bunch of weeds, but such is the way of things.

I've been trying to have the boys help me, but it is slow going. They enjoy the idea of gardening, as far as it pertains to digging and watering things, but not always the in such a way that will keep things alive. Which is one of the goals.

Ben, playing with a piece of eucalyptus bark, after "helping" me in the garden.

Those are the lettuces on the left, then some marigolds and spinach and a strawberry plant, that is not looking great. And I planted a bunch of garlic bulbs over in the area that looks like just dirt.

Once I took Sam with me, and he helped by filling his mouth up with the water that Zach had sent with us and then spitting it onto the plants. The following is a documentation of the event:

Sam is spitting water onto the dirt from the water bottle

Katie: Stop it, Sam. That's not funny.

Sam: Mom, it's a little bit funny.

(he said this about ten times for each plant)

Sam: I think this little fella needs a drink.

He fills his mouth with water and spits it out on him.

So, here's the thing..

Ya know when you have some big event that you feel that you really need to blog about before you can move onto something else or you'll forget and then you'll be doing one of those long-after-fact type blogs, which can be cool, but are often pretty lame-o. Are you familiar with this?

Anyway, I've been waiting to move on till this silly trip back to California was documented. And in all the hubbub of life, I just haven't gotten to it. And I've finally decided that I'm not going to. At least not for a while. I'm going to move one to the rest of our lives. Starting.....now! Well, in a little while, anyway.

Monhegan Island

Despite the great outcry for more pictures and information about our trip across this great and very wide country, I'm going to go back a little bit and tell you about our trip to Monhegan Island.

Now, for starters, Zach and I have not been away from the boys for more than a couple hours since they were born. So, we decided to take advantage of the time while we were with my parents. And we decided to go to Monhegan Island, which is ten miles off the coast of Maine.

View of the village from the dock

The whole village is just dirt roads and there are only a couple cars that the hotels use to shuttle bags back and forth.

We got some lunch right after we checked into the hotel and headed down to lobster cove

Lobster Cove and Moxie

(Moxie is a drink from Maine. Zach really likes it. I don't. It's okay at first and then there is this terrible, terrible after taste. It's like Satan's plan.)

Me, taking a break after hiking along the rocky, misty trails.

Unidentified beautiful cove

This is me showing how lost we were. The maps are not terribly specific and in an effort to keep everything "pristine" there are almost no markers. So, we were never really sure where we were.

Zach above the crashing rocks and waves.

(Scary note - according to local legand, they have never been able to save someone who fell into the water on this side of the island. Step carefully.)

Zach and Seagull

As I was taking the above picture this seagull swooped in about five feet from my head and landed right by Zach. Uncomfortably close. And it stayed there. So we left.

But it followed us. Luckily we lost him once we got into the trees.

Zach and Fog

I don't know if anyone else will think this sign is as funny as we did, but we were laughing about it for quite some time afterwards.

Monhegan Island Lighthouse

We found these swept up on the beach. Hey Chris, are these yours?

Our hotel room.

It was basically just a bed and a dresser and there was a shared bathroom that was outside in the hall. But it was terribly quaint.

Lace Curtain Window

One of the island traditions is to build "fairy houses" out of woodland elements. This is a pretty sweet fairy pad we saw.

Me and the crashing waves. We saw a seal swimming around in this cove.

Misty Mountains

There was supposedly a hurricane coming in that was going to cancel all the ferries coming to the island. If that had happened we would have stayed an extra two nights. But it didn't. But we had fun anyway.

...and we're back!

3 months

24 states
2 toddlers
10,000+ miles
1 crazy summer