Last January, our baby-group cum book club (and five of my favorite people in the world) took a weekend away and I finally got a kid-free few days at the cabin. September is a much different Langley experience than January! I read a lot less, but ran the two miles to Braeburn to earn my breakfast and went out on the SUPs twice, once at Goss Lake and then out of the marina to see none of the herons and eagles I promised my friends. But I did get my Favorite Picture of the Year out on Goss. Yep, that’s 48-year-old me rocking that handstand!

I am loving my little side projects.

First, I took the little strip outside our bedroom window that has always just been the junkyard; project scraps, bulking items, things to go to the dump, weeds, wood, and debris piles. It’s also where all the (large amount) of driveway debris gets blown. I wanted to make a raised bed so the debris could still be blown this way and it not get into the garden. Shade plants were also necessary. Even if the RV wasn’t parked right there, the amount of sun in the peak of summer can only be counted in minutes. 

I mentally played with many designs and finally decided on this teardrop to somewhat bring together an asymmetrical area. This meant the garden bricks needed to be cut in front to make it work, but that’s why we have a chop saw and more diamond blades than wood ones. I filled it with good dirt, kept my eye out for clearance shade plants, finally found the perfect spot for my dragon birdbath, caved and bought the rest of the flora at Flower World and put it all together.

To none of my 3 follower’s surprise, it is actually winter when I write this and all the plants are winter dead (which means actually alive) and this little pocket shade garden has flourished for the last 5 months. The dragon, too.

My other project that has been on my list for 19 of the 20 years we’ve lived here is to improve the under-the-deck cover. The deck is still sturdy but the yucky rigid plastic sheets held up by rusty screws and leftover wood siding worked as well as a holey umbrella to keep our garden equipment sheltered and dry.

My idea was to finally remove the plastic and replace it with corrugated roofing angled toward a gutter to flow out to an old rain barrel. It didn’t have to win pretty points; anything looked better than the previous system and couldn’t work worse.

My kids were not particularly useful on a project that often needed another set of hands. Kyla would always help out if she was home, but she has the busiest schedule of the kids. Wes and Kyla did help me cut the aluminum and held it in place–even Piper eventually got roped into a little bit of assistance. But mostly I got creative with string and bungee cords and ladders. My swearing was a little less creative but still effective.

It took a few weeks of making lots of mistakes and miscalculations, but I built something that was an improvement in every way over the old way. Let’s see if it also lasts for 50 years!

Much less of a junkyard now!

To be more accurate, her butt is always in the wrong place.

Going into her junior year as a Running Start student, Kyla is ready to tackle the world. We’re just hoping she becomes as good at driving as she is at math….

We have friends who also enjoy glamping so last winter, we made side-by-side reservations at Washington’s oldest state park. I “colleged” this area and have fond memories of riding from WWU to Larrabee on the interurban trails and looked forward to taking the least whiney kids with me on another ride. We did it all–the bike ride, the lunch in Fairhaven, the sunset on the Larrabee rocks, the gourmet dinner that only expert glampers can produce (we are hangers-on and beneficiaries, not experts). Piper got doggo time, Wes got Jack time, Kyla got nature-stimming time, and Dwayne and I got friend time (and the couple plays cribbage as well!). Next year, Lake Chelan!

Bonus: I got to show the girls a little bit of Western’s campus. It’s not long before they need to think about state schools….

Wes brought 3 school friends and his cousin on a camping trip to Leavenworth. Scratch that.

*I* brought five 13-year-old boys (fine, Cousin was 13 minus 10 days at the time) camping at the Leavenworth KOA for what turned out to be the hottest 3 days of summer. Oops. It made tubing down the river all the more refreshing, though. The boys were old enough that when they got bored, I could take off and bike around the area to fill my own bucket.

Water was definitely the happy place! Between the pool and the river, the boys cooled off. They all got to practice their ax skills and campfire building as well.

And I just cannot work up too much shock on how messy the RV got. I had the back bedroom all to myself though, a necessary refuge in a warzone.

I love playing in the dirt with this kid!

TimmyCat is the anti-support animal, but having Nugget makes Piper much more enthusiastic about heading out to our farmer’s market or local parade. He’s gotten a bit bigger since he was adopted in May, and he likes clinging to his people as he gets some sun. Piper interacts with people interested in learning about or petting a bearded dragon, and he usually gets attention from younger kids. Today, we took him to our local city birthday celebration and party and you could tell Nugs really enjoyed the festivities. Please ignore/accept Piper’s aversion to cameras.

Wes’s room was just a disaster. He has the smallest room and it’s transformed from Kyla’s nursery to Wes’s tween room really by just swapping used furniture for other, bigger used furniture bit by bit, and then stuffing it full of “treasures”. I thought about offering Wes a loft bed to give him another room redo and him more floor space. Still going with the used theme, we found an entire set on Craigslist that he loved. As we cleared out his room, we realized that his carpet was even worse than I thought. It hadn’t survived the potty training phase, the slime phase, the stolen scissors phase, or any other of my kids’ life phases very well. And if one is going to replace the carpet, one should just paint the walls (and the ceiling). The upshot is Wes got the exact room he wanted AND *everything* had to be touched, removed, and sorted. He did some serious decluttering and I did the repairing, cleaning, and painting, and together, we sighed with relief when it was done.

Before-ish

During-ish

As a finishing touch, Piper painted this mural for her brother. I love how she made the lightning. It’s based on some video game graphics, blah, blah, but it turned out really well!

Just for fun, this boy is on a growth spurt. Here’s a sweater Grandma made for him several years ago–he’s officially outgrown it!

For her 17th birthday (and the next 3 Christmases), Kyla really wanted to go on the Alpengirls’ Cascade to Coast 15-day camp. It included white water rafting, 6 days hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and 3 days of kayaking around the San Juan Islands. Pretty much, it was Kyla’s ideal vacation and her siblings’ worst nightmare.

The leaders were the only ones with cell phones and cameras, so they took 400+ pictures to share with families once they returned. It looks pretty fun with all the gorgeous scenery of our beautiful state.

Let’s see what it looks like in a few months!