I attempted a fun adventure day for the family to celebrate Daddy’s birthday, so had rented 4 inflatable paddle boards for the day.  Then we had the crappiest September on record, weather wise, so I postponed 3 times before I realized that we had no more free weekends until mid-October.  So we took our chances and went to a lake in Lynnwood.  Nice lake nice day, with enough wind to make paddling really, really hard.  Being who she is, Piper was the only kid not crying after an hour, and just put on her determined posture and got herself to shore.  I dumped my board on the sand, then swam through lots of waterlilies to reach Wesley, who was pretty much sobbing.  I pushed his board in while he steered.  Dwayne was doing the fatherly encouraging of his son, but managing not to actually encourage or help him.  Sigh.  This is why kids need more than one option for parents.  But we wrapped the kids in blankets and towels, and let them warm up while we took care of the equipment. It could have been an awesome day, but we spent more time inflating and deflating the boards than we spent in the water.  Lesson learned.  We’ll try again on a hot August day with no winds!

The fine print says that all blogs must contain some food posts, so I submit for your drooling pleasure…..

…..Dwayne’s fish tacos! 

They taste even better than they look.

Luckily I carry a camera in my pocket—there’s so much to do on the first day of school I often forget to snap a picture until the kids are walking into their classroom…or after school.

Or, if you are a middle schooler, that night at dinner.  Uh, sorry, Kyla.

Happy 3rd, 5th, and 6th grade, darling kids!

We left you in suspense mid-July with Dwayne’s itch only half scratched.  Well, it was fully scratched but the project was only half done.

July 20th-Sept. 1, we left the cabin like this:

Arriving yesterday, we had 24 hours to install the four 12’ 6×6 posts as the foundation of The Pergola.

The auger was pretty useful.

 

For posts, and boys!

This little guy came out to inspect us wearing what all dinos are coveting this year—a jet pack!

To celebrate our accomplishments this weekend, we went to Emily and Matt’s, because, well it’s Emily and Matt’s!

Wes and Daddy enjoyed swinging together.  Well, one of them enjoyed it.

Have to wait for the end of the month for the next installment of the Pergola Saga!

She woke up a dozen years old today! She is generally into experiences more than things, so she started the day with 3 Audible credits and Mama & Me pedicures.  Yeah, totally unselfish of me, I know.

We followed that with a trip to Haggen to, um, “make” her birthday cake.  It was lovely!

Grandma invited everyone over for dinner, and we all got to celebrate this beautiful girl.

But she’s not too grown up to wrestle Daddy with all the other kids!

Kyla, you are such a treasure in our family!  You are kind, affectionate, thoughtful, empathetic, intelligent, curious, compassionate, and introspective.  You’re not going to become a lovely person—you already are one!

Wearing an old dragon pillow cum costume, and dancing on the kitchen island with a watermelon, Wesley is just having a typical Wesley afternoon.

I’m giving myself full credit for this fix!  (Though I promise to own it if it breaks next week.) 

With 4 loads waiting in line, the washer yelled at me Wednesday night with lots of beeps and F-51 codes. The owner’s manual was no help, as it just said for any codes to call for repair.  That’s not good enough, Greedy Whirlpool!  (I also calculated that waiting 5-7 days for a $200 fix, plus going to the laundromat was worth the trouble of trying it myself.)

But on Thursday, I did a search and a competent-sounding guy on YouTube came up right away. He had the same code with the exact wash machine, and demonstrated step by step how he fixed it.  

Ideally, I would have had two non-interrupted  hours to work on it, but that’s not how motherhood works.  So 15 minutes here, 30 here, and trading kitchen and bedtime duty for tools, I took the appliance apart, found and cleaned the sensor, put it all together again (correctly, the second time, I admit), reattached the hoses incorrectly, and rinsed my first load in hot water.  But I trouble-shooted my own idiocy and today, did all my laundry!  And the kids sorted and put it all away, because goddesses with these skills don’t sort socks. 

[Insert mad dance moves.]

Hurray for the Internet!

Like I said, the goal this week is to play it to death.  Kyla wanted a day at Wild Waves with her BFF for her birthday. But  further circumstances meant we took BFF’s lil’ sister, and if you are going to have 5 kids, seriously, bring 6 for even numbers.  So we brought one of Wesley’s friends, so that Wesley wouldn’t be the only boy for once, and everyone had a ride buddy.

I hadn’t been to WW since it was still mostly Enchanted Village…when I was in high school!  It’s as changed as you think 25 years would do to a successful theme park. 

Here, the kids are pretending they are too small for the rides…

…and then how they felt being big enough to ride!

I’m totally patting myself on the back for a successful day, 11am-8pm, all kids well and happy.  We did a ton of rides, and the kids got as wet as they wanted. 

The cost is ridiculous, but bring your own food and use PTA or Prime Card discounts to get at least $20 off each ticket.  It doesn’t make a small dish of $5 ice cream seem less expensive, though!

We got 1 night at the cabin as we try to play out the last week of summer vacation.  Vivian and Elle made pancakes for the Super Six.  Emily made me eggs fresh from their chickens.

Breakfast was a very small part of their morning—it was a frog catching day!

[To the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone?]

Where do all the towels go?

Wet and dripping?

Where do all the towels go?

Every single day?

Where do all the towels go?

Hang them every time!

When we will we ever learn?

Today we’ll forever learn!