Another Cabin Improvement

My friend, Susanne, had a medicine cabinet leftover from a remodel a year or so ago.  She wanted it out of her garage so our cabin got an improvement.  Thanks, Friend!

Before:
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After:

4-13 4 cabin medicine cabinet

 

I also worked on the front yard.  There’s a circle of “flowers” (okay, mostly weeds and overgrown grass) in the middle of the lawn.  It will look better and be easier to maintain when I can dump some dirt and grass seed over it.  But it will be slow progress, done only when it’s warm, dry, and we’re not at the beach.

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Two birds with one stone:  moving pretty purple flowers next to the deck where they won’t be mowed over and another opportunity to plant something where I want Dwayne to build.  There’s always a master plan, my friends.

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And this tree is significant in that it’s not dead.  It was supposed to be a weeping flowering cherry, but it has grown straight and tall and was overshooting the space in our own yard.  So I uprooted it, pruned it down to size, left it in the garage overnight  before it was tossed in the back of Jim’s truck and carted over to the cabin.  Jim will be the only one more shocked than myself to see how well it is blossoming.  Seriously, how did I not kill it?  Well done, tree.  Use well your second chance at life.

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Flitting with the Fairies at Meerkerk

I’ve written about Meerkerk Gardens before, a rhododendron plus garden with an additional 40 acres of nature trails.  The garden also specializes in fairies, and we happened to be in the neighborhood on “Make Your Own Fairy” day. 

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Volunteers had scoured the gardens for wings, bodies, and appropriate fauna accessories and then provided hot glue guns and some beads and ribbon scraps.

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Luckily, the kids didn’t know about the cupcakes and apple juice until after they had spend lots of time creating their dolls.  Wesley was happy to decorate a single fairy wing.4-13 Meerkerk faires 10

 

And the Woodland Fairy Queen was happy to pose for pictures with the interns.

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Piper just likes putting things on her head.

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We meandered through the gardens until the girls came across the 1 mile nature hoop and they badly wanted to explore it.  All three kids walked the whole thing quite happily!

4-13 Meerkerk garden 4

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More Easter Pix

We went to a church on Easter Sunday that had brought in a complementary photographer for those that wanted family pictures.  We took advantage before the kids got into the goodies!

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Jim hates this picture, but it’s my blog, and I love this shot (and him).  And when he came into the picture, the kids were happier.  How’s that for layered meaning!

3-31 Easter family pix Jim

Bad, Bad Daddy…Need to Fix Him

We splurged on chocolate bunnies from a Swiss bakery we like on Whidbey Island for the kids’ Easter baskets this year.  When Piper took hers down last week after lunch, she discovered that instead of missing its ears, head, and shoulders as she had left it, the bunny was nibbled down to its feet!

I had the advantage of knowing it wasn’t me, and I hadn’t caught Wesley covered in chocolate lately, so we became very suspicious of a certain daddy.  I confronted him during a double date that night and made it very clear the sanctity of chocolate Easter bunnies and beloved daughters.  But the girls were ready with their revenge.

They made a bait bunny…

4-9 Bunny trick

 

….put it in the cellophane bag the original bunny had come in…

4-9 Bunny trick 2

…and then “hid” it on the fridge as bait for Daddy.  Then Kyla set up an elaborate trap with chairs and blankets to catch Daddy when he tried to steal the bunny.

Fortunately, I was able to distract them with a video so I could remove the trap so that I could actually reach the refrigerator, stove, pots, and dishes.  There’s a reasonable possibility that Daddy would have seen the trap long before he saw the ersatz bunny.  And Daddy apologized to Piper and she cheerfully forgave him.   All’s well that ends with a good trick.

Like I Would Gloss Over this Title…

(Article copied in full from http://movies.msn.com/mom-pop-culture/butt-kicking-teen-queens/photo-gallery/feature/)
My favorite film heroines are Hermione and Katniss.  And bibliophile Belle gets a special place in my library-heart.   But if the Codex of Alera books every get some screen time, Kitai would really kick butt.  

 

Girl power!: Butt-kicking teen queens in movies

By Myriam Gabriel-Pollock
Special to MSN Movies

Forget those boy-obsessed, giggling teen girls [insert eye roll]. Underestimate these young ladies, with their well-placed arrows and wands and throat chops, and you’d be in a world of hurt. They’re too busy taking names and kickin’ butt to worry about their hair and their makeup, although they still look right awesome when the enemy has been vanquished.

With strong female characters like Katniss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games,” Merida from “Brave” and Hermione Granger from the “Harry Potter” series, a new standard for teen movie queens has arrived, and not a moment too soon.

Who wants to be rescued? Not these no-nonsense young ladies. This is a new era, one where the old “damsel in distress” scenario has grown tired. We don’t want to see the fair maiden in peril, waiting in despair for her noble prince to rescue her from some wicked fate. We want her to take matters into her own hands and annihilate the bad guys, blow up the castle and get the heck outta there, without waiting for Prince What’s-His-Name.