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Happy Birthday, Beloved Husband!

DeniseLeave a comment
So, have I mentioned that my bright, bright oldest is dyslexic?  She decorated Dwayne’s gift. 

These kids love their dad so much. He really is the best of men.  
Bless him, he made his own Crème Brûlée for dessert, to be washed down with an Old-Fashioned.  Yep, he’s got birthday down.
Piper has her own dessert.  Weirdly, both Piper and Dwayne think this is cute.  It’s been months. 


Happy Birthday, my love!

Pre-Birthday: Dwayne is 44.997 years old!

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Dwayne wanted a little adventure for his birthday weekend, so we grabbed some friends and did the Snoqualmie Train and Falls. 

I did my best to ruin it for Wesley by reviewing the water cycle. I ruined it for the rest of them by leading a walk. Dwayne fixed it all by taking us out to dinner.

You can see that the weather is changing. Just before we left the restaurant, we saw fireworks…which turned out to be lightening. One minute down the road, the front came in that gave Western Washington it’s biggest lightning storm in memory.  It was an exciting ride home!

Another good adventure, Babe. 

First Day of Middle School, Home School, and Kyla’s Birthday Party = Phew!

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What a day!  Can you just feel how much Wes loves starting school?  I’m not publishing the shot in which he glares at me instead of his work. 
Piper is far more cheerful about her first day of middle school.  It may have had something to do with it just being 6th graders at school for the first day, which is why….
…my 7th grader could have her 13th birthday party with her other 7th grade friends all on the same day. We had lunch, (over-)decorated cupcakes, and went to a local pool. 
Siblings were quite happy with the cupcake outcomes.

But I was not too sad the next day when both girls went to school.  But it will be a long year of home schooling….

My 13 Year Old!

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I have such a marvelous teenager!  She is more responsible now than I was at twenty….or thirty.  But she’s also a loving person who is a lot of fun to be around.  Kyla loves her tablet (aka, Audible & OverDrive player), reading the old blog posts about when she and her siblings were really little, being outdoors, and learning.  She’s almost too good to be true, but I have to remember that each of the kids takes their turn of being “the hardest”.  The early elementary years were tough as we got a grip on her dyslexia.  But whatever she’s been through, she has the character of a champion!  

 Kyla, you deserve all good things and I hope you feel as loved and as appreciated as you truly are!

Kyla’s favorite sleeping buddies—Rosy Grayfoot and Wes.

An email exchange between Wes and his mother

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Gkhtophgiytrekhligf horgkhyitrykiot m id u  guigugfugglglksgh gfuiysret

 love wes

*                      *                      *                      *

Dear Wesley, 

Your typing sucks.

Mama
*                      *                      *                      *

No candey for you hfdsfuiyhsuifdhsuifydsigfyusgfcyudstfdsg vdstrastdstxtrdytardstsdr tas    dtrsdrytasdtyasrfytdrcfts trfdstdrytsuy love wes

*                      *                      *                      *
Bad, bad, bad email.  Pbblllttt.

Mama
*                      *                      *                      *

Yousuioureioydgfuigdfjgdhsgcyuhdsgfcgsfycsyftdweyu bad mom geyfgewjhfgdsgvdsgfdhfbsjyhvufdytgufdhgfuyhgfdhjdfhgjvc bad mom fjhgdsfgdshgfjdvdjhgudfhgjjhfghfhgdfgljjdfjgfhkjdhgjhgjhgfkhkgj  bad mom dhytfre7twtueyeu7yuteruiteyutertriutuwetewteuweruiwtuqq 

*                      *                      *                      *

We WILL be practicing keyboarding today.

Adoringly,

Mama
*                      *                      *                      *

Jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj frum wes to bad mom
*                      *                      *                      *

Wow, your spelling is worse than your typing.

Meh.

Mama

*                      *                      *                      *

Spell “From” 5 times.

Love,

Your Teacher

*                      *                      *                      *

Wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwto bad mom frum good wesley

*                      *                      *                      *
Prepare to do pushups as well.

*                      *                      *                      *

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

*                      *                      *                      *
Two weeks later:

no school on saderday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*                      *                      *                      *

What?!?!  How do you spell “Saturday”?!?!  With a “ur!”, that’s how! And a “t”!

Mama
*                      *                      *                      *
   You fartfarttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

*                      *                      *                      *
I love you too much to use nonsense words to tell you so.  

Pbbblllltttt.

Mama

Venice: Last Breakfast with Whiny Wesley

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It is not a kind nickname, but Whiny Wesley comes by it honestly.
We had enough time to meander to breakfast and do some window shopping this morning before we had to hop on a plane home, and Wes was in top form. But he has a hard time keeping it up when he’s laughing.  Here, Piper and Papa do their best WW imitation.  

(Funnily, Piper’s Wesley face looks a lot like her normal what-are-you-doing-I-disapprove face.)

Then Wesley had to do an impression of them doing an impression.
Then Piper did some good Big Sister stuff and taught Wes how to make a star with the Cat’s Cradle string Kyla usually carries around her neck.
And Piper wants you to see her made-in-Italy dress.  I love it!  Really, Dwayne can build his columns, but I want to do all my future clothes shopping in Italy.  Please.

Venice: Our Last Supper

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After our rowing lesson, we meandered slowly to our restaurant of choice, Taverna Al Remer. The “mer” part marks its specialty, seafood, but we loved it at least as much for it’s hole-the-wall, old brick and stone and candle lit alcove atmosphere.

Arriving at 6pm was at least two hours too early, but we were already headed for a 12 hour day, and we were hungry.  This was exactly the sort of place Dwayne and I wanted our last dinner on the Continent. 

 And we stepped out to this lovely view.  Yep, a perfect evening after a lovely day. 

 

 Wesley was a wee bit tired and Kyla is an awesome big sister.

Getting his new shirt gave him renewed energy.  I think he’s kinda cute.

It has been eleven consecutive evenings out in beautiful places that we may never make it back to–because there are so many wonderous places to go in the world.  But I have many, many fond memories of this adventure together.  I love traveling with my family!

Row Venice

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One of the best reasons to have a travel agent is that their job is to know things that I didn’t even know I didn’t know.  For instance, everyone has to take a gondola while in Venice.  As you can see from this stock photo pulled from a Bing image search,
it’s picturesque, in and out of the boat (Wes loves his souvenir striped polo shirt!), and it’s the only way to see a lot of Venice. Notice the lack of sidewalks here? It’s about $90USD for a 30 minute ride before 7pm and much more after.  One family we talked to on our family tour earlier said they had done it the prior evening, and that it was charming…if one ignored the hucking a loogie by the gondolier who also spent the row talking on his cell phone. 
But I absolutely would have done it if our travel agent hadn’t already arranged an adventure for us.  We used Row Venice,

 ….a non-profit organization of passionate women and expert vogatrici, Venetian by birth and by choice. We are dedicated to the preservation of the traditional Venetian cultura acquea and at its center, the voga alla veneta, the Venetian style of rowing: standing up, facing forward, native to Venice and made iconic by the gondoliers. Many of us are also athletes and regatanti devoted to this Venetian sport that’s as old as the city itself.

Come row like a Venetian with us. Get off the beaten path and onto the Venetian waterways in our beautiful bateline and try it yourself!

What a great family adventure!  Piper would NOT take a turn at the oar, but it wasn’t within the spirit of the adventure to fight that battle.  We each got a chance to sit back and enjoy the canals, and we also to hit the open waters.  The water is so interesting, because while it is our adored Adriatic Sea, it is also where the mountain rivers merge into the lagoon.  This makes a confluence of fresh and salt water (and great fishing!), but so much silt that there was no part of the canals or open water that we could see more than a few inches deep. 

A gondola is a boat that is actually slightly curved, like a banana floating on the water.  It’s not obvious when you look at them, but it’s how they can be rowed straight with one rower on one side.  This boat, the bateline, is symmetrical and requires a front and back rower.  Both Dwayne and I got to do the back position of steering and yes, feel free to think it was easy and I was steer us effortlessly in the direction we were supposed to be going.  (Dwayne did great, of course.)

I would do this again–I hope Piper will join in next time!

Venice: Aw, sweet doors, arches, lions…and, what the heck, devils

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Oh, sweet, sweet Europe.  Venice, when what’s-his-name conquered, went from the city of the Guy Standing on the Crocodile (on the right) to the city of the Winged Lion (left, above, and below).  
But Venice has many things it’s known for. The 400 bridges connecting 118 islands is home to Venetian glass (though to preserve the city, long ago, the furnaces were all banished to a nearby island that is still home to all the glass blowing), carnival masks (once upon a time, worn by the population for 6 months of the year!), …. 
…amazing doors and archways….
…and grotesque faces on walls, posts, and everywhere there isn’t a lion’s head. The faces keet the Devil out, though we were still able to get in, so you decide if it worked.
 
Shouldn’t every city square look something like this?!?! 
 Please?!?


Gelato (Suzo’s is the acknowledged best shop) can create it’s own popular monuments.  


Hey, a winged monument–of an animal that actually flies!

Venice: THe Most Beautiful Bookshop in the World

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Our tour guide gave us a few minutes to explore this very special bookshop.  In the center of the stores narrow aisles is a gondola full of books; hardcovers, paperbacks, children’s books and travel books are stacked all over the store, spilling out of every nook and corner.  

But the piece de resistance was the “bookcase” in the back of the shop. 


We had a terrific view from on top of those books! 

Piper was too busy petting the bookstore cat to enjoy the other sights. 😺