"Instant" Results of Our Spring Garden Party

One of advantage of being four months behind on the blog is that I can see the amazing results of our spring gardening efforts outside my front door right now. In many ways it is a vivid contrast, when you compare our raised garden beds in July and August to what they were in April. The grass, I have to say, was a bit greener in the spring, but I think Damon's done a pretty good job of keeping the lawn looking lovely.

By the end of April it was time to get the yard and garden in shape after a long winter. We got all the kids to come out and help in a family gardening day.

Here's Damon gathering weeds from around the blueberry bushes, . . .

April

. . . which now are full of leaves and have already had their berries harvested. Below them is a jungle of squash vines.

July

Holly was definitely interested in those sweet blueberries.

August

Adah almost looks like someone out of "American Gothic."

April

Now below, you see the spot where Adah was standing from a different angle. The biggest change is in the full leaves on the trees, the purple wildflowers growing, and the wardrobe. Adah was in fleece in April. Maggie's comfortable in her leotard and chiffon skirt. (She was having a little photo shoot; don't ask.)

July

Gunnar and Maggie were obviously hard at work here. The children had been charged with cleaning up all the bricks, sticks, jumpropes, buckets, and other paraphernalia that had gone into building "Bird City" in a thicket behind Gunnar.

April

This must be Maggie's "Statue of Liberty Pose." Our winters (and sometimes springs) may be a bit dull and gray, as far as the sky goes, but man oh man do we get green grass or what? Now, look way behind Maggie back by the fence. See that vague brown flat area? Those are our raised garden beds.

April

Check them out in late July! This is about a month ago. Those plants under Adah's elbow are basil plants. They are now about as high as her waist! Mmm-mmm, pesto. Now we just need to start growing pine nuts and garlic.

July

I love that we have a garden. After several years doing some major landscape projects, it's nice to mostly be in the maintaining stage where we can just devote 1-2 weekends with each season change to the big stuff and then the day-by-day care is not so overwhelming.

Stay tuned for a more summer garden photos. The raspberries are almost worthy of a post all their won.

The Cute Kids of April

Here's a small collection of the cute things that happened around our place in April.

Batman on his Batmobile

Adah taught Holly a few scales.

Gunnar really took to writing and drawing a lot this spring. One day he came up to me with an envelope and asked, "Mommy, what does this say?" as though he were teaching me something. I looked down and he had written his name! I was astonished. I had no idea that he could do that. I nearly cried and asked if I could have the envelope. It's tucked away in a scrapbook, along with his earliest drawings of tigers and Perry the Platypus. He's a little skeptical of being observed while at work.

As is this one.

And this one is totally unaware of being observed. Maggie was already reading a bit when she began kindergarten, but she really mastered it during the school year. She loves Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems and Fancy Nancy, which are great vocabulary-builders.

Adah loves to read as well. She stays up way too late and will read just about anything. This year she discovered The Frog Princess series by E. D. Baker. I found The Dragon Princess for her at the library and she's been working her way haphazardly through the series ever since, intermingled with books on many other subjects, from dog and horse care to Little Women, which she started this summer and hopes to finish by her birthday.

In April Holly was standing up and cruising around on furniture, but pretty much crawling anywhere she wanted to get quickly.

Bookmarks & Balloons

Maggie entered a bookmark design in our library's annual bookmark contest. She drew a lion next to a stack of books and wrote, "Read out loud with a lion roar!" She won an honorable mention award at our local branch. (I think she didn't win because librarians really don't want any roaring in the library, but who's to say?)

In mid-April there was a small party to honor all the winners.

The library wanted some balloon artists at the party, and word got out (on Facebook, I think) that I can twist balloons. Well, my friend at the library did some twisting of her own (of my arm) and I agreed to my first real gig. I learned a few new animals for the event, got some practice at Christian's birthday party, and brought Adah along because she's pretty good at it, too.

Adah wore an elephant hat and I wore mouse ears to make things a little more playful. We had fun twisting balloons for all the little party-goers and I now feel much more confident in my artistic abilities. At least when it comes to balloons.

Fiesta in San Antonio

During the time we were in San Antonio it was the city's annual Fiesta. As far as I understand, it's basically a week-long party with parades, concerts, and all kinds of festivals and events. It actually started right before we left, so we weren't really around for many of the events. Not to worry! Creative and fun Joette planned a little Fiesta of our own for the Family Home Evening activity before we left.

First, the kids helped us make cascarones. These are hollowed-out eggs filled with confetti; tissue paper is glued on top to keep it in until the right moment. For weeks Joette made sure their family carefully cracked eggs just on one end and then cleaned out the eggshells and saved them just for this.

Then what did we do? Cracked them, of course!! On each other's heads! Don't worry, we were soft.

Then it was pinata time. Again, Joette's ingenuity made for a simple and fun activity. No need for messy papier mache. Just get yourself a paper bag with handles, fill it with candy, and dangle it from a rope. Decorating it with crayons or stickers is optional. The kids really just care about whacking something and getting candy, right?

She made one "pinata" for Gunnar, Kiera, and Anya.

A second "pinata" was for the bigger kids . . .

. . . literally.

It was a bang-up way to finish our visit! Thanks, JAWs, for being great hosts for us to have a sunny and warm break from our gray and rainy Northwest spring.

Downtown San Antonio

On Monday, April 11 we left the JAWs at home, work, and school, and our little clan went into downtown San Antonio to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk. We were partially successful.

We first wandered around the Alamo Plaza. I wanted to go through the museum first so that we would know what we were looking at. However, it wasn't labeled very well and we weren't sure where to go.

Adah's shirt matched the cactus flowers on the Alamo Plaza.

Being nearly lunchtime, we decided to head in the direction of the Riverwalk and find somewhere to eat and then do the full Alamo tour afterwards, since we'd need to return that way to get back to the car.

See the cute, hungry baby? She needs lunch.

After burgers and mix-your-own sodas at Fuddruckers, we descended below street level to meander along the famous Riverwalk. The San Antonio River is a natural waterway, but what now goes through downtown is completely manmade. Restaurants with their patio seating line the river and flat-bottomed boats travel along the water.

It was shady and serene as we wandered along the pavement. We happened upon a wandering Mariachi band and got to listen to a few numbers they paid to some restaurant diners. That evening there was going to be a parade on the river, with real floating floats (good one, eh?). You have to get tickets for it and they were beginning to set up the seats. They aren't visible in this photo, but much of the way had a row of folding chairs at the edge of the water. It proved to be a very reassuring barrier between Gunnar and the water. I didn't have to worry about him getting too close and falling in. So, if you're ever going to to the Riverwalk with an active young child, I recommend going the afternoon before the Fiesta Parade.

We eventually made it back to the Alamo Plaza. They were setting up a podium and chairs for some Fiesta-related event later on. We wandered around the back and eventually made it into the Long Barracks where the museum is located. We watched a video about the famous battle of the Alamo and then looked through the exhibit a bit. THEN, we finally headed over to look in the actual Alamo. As I approached the front door, a small sign printed on regular paper said, "The Alamo will close at 3:00 today." It was 3:05.

AAAAAAAGH!! Are you kidding me? I was SO DISAPPOINTED and SO FRUSTRATED. We had wandered all over that plaza TWICE that day, and nowhere had we seen a sign indicating that the chapel would be closing early. The docent who'd presented information after the video we watched in the Long Barracks didn't say, "Now be sure you hurry over to the chapel before it closes in 5 minutes." Nothing. I've been haunted with the knowledge that if we'd just hurried up at an single moment during the day we would have made it there before 3:00. I suppose most people head straight to the front door upon arrival. That's what I get for wanting a little historical context to what I was going to see before actually seeing it. SIGH.

We'll always remember the Alamo . . . at least the outside of it.

Sea World San Antonio

One of the highlights of our San Antonio trip was a visit to Sea World. We looked forward to this for months and the whole family pitched in to save money for it by skipping treats and other extras so we could put the saved cash in our "Sea World Jar."
All eleven of us went to Sea World on Saturday, April 9 and went straight to "The Cannery Row Caper." It was a silly show with detective sea lions, a very amusing little otter (?), and a cameo by a giant walrus at the end.

The show schedule had us moving from one venue to the next. After "Cannery Row" we saw "Azul" which featured dolphins, exotic birds, and some pretty amazing diving acrobatics, by humans and dolphins alike. From there we raced over to the Shamu stadium for the big killer whale show. This ended up being slighly disappointing because it was so crowded that we couldn't find seats together. In fact, I think Maggie, Holly, and I might have been the only one who got seats. The girls were disappointed to not be in the splash zone, although Maggie was pretty satisfied with the misting we got. I was definitely satisfied that a misting was the extent of our "interaction" with Shamu.

After racing to three shows in a row, Kiera and Anya were pretty worn out and ready to go home. Jed and Joette drove home and got the girls settled with lunch and naps before Jed returned to Sea World for the rest of the afternoon.

While we were still waiting for Jed to come back, I took Adah and Christian on the Steel Eel--their first roller coaster ride. Adah's not so sure she liked it. She says it made her tummy feel really weird. Christian went for a second ride with Damon and Jed, but Adah demurred. Damon snapped this excellent photo of the coaster barrelling down a hill; unfortunately the kids and I were at the back of this train and hadn't made it into view yet.

Damon and Jed took all of the kids (minus Holly) on the Texas Splashdown, your classic amusement park log flume ride. Sorry, no photos of that one.
Towards the end of the hot day we went to this water playground for some cooling down. The kids all got SOAKED in the fountains and sprays.

Damon cooled down a bit as well. Jed and I mostly watched.

Our final stop of the day was at the dolphin pool. We had just missed a feeding, but we could still see the dolphins zipping back and forth through the pool and poking through the surface of the water.

We--along with other spectators--tried desperately to stretch our hands out and beckon the dolphins close enough to touch. In the photo below you can see the back of Christian, Adah, Maggie (just her head), and Jed. Damon is wearing the dark hat behind the guy with the white hat.

There were some trainers that I noticed giving some hand signals to the dolphins. After a little spin-and-point of the fingers, a dolphin came bounding across the pool and then did this sliding move to land on a ledge just under outstretched hands. Well, when I saw the trainer do it a second time, I made a beeline for the spot the dolphin was heading, dragging Maggie behind me. I lifted Maggie up against the wall where she and I were able to touch the smooth skin of the dolphin, just in front of its dorsal fin. Below, I'm wearing the gray hat and a turquoise shirt; Maggie's profile is obscuring my face. (We're just to the right of the guy in the red baseball cap with the drink in his hand.)

After our turn, I quickly set Maggie down and then lifted up Adah; she reached out her hand just as the dolphin slid off the ledge and back into the pool! It was a major disappointment on the heels of Maggie's elation. (It's still a sensitive subject in the McMillan household.)

Just a few minutes after touching the dolphin the employees announced that Sea World was closing and we needed to head to the gates. It was a long full day of exciting sights and new adventures for us all.

Spring Break in San Antonio

My older brother, Jed, is a JAG officer in the Air Force (a lawyer). He's currently stationed in San Antonio and we went to visit him during the girls' spring break from school at the beginning of April. Damon and I felt quite adventurous, and slightly crazy, taking four young kiddos on the plane, but we managed without any major catastrophes.

The only actual catastrophe on the trip, actually, was the fact that almost every one of us was sick! I can't remember the complete course of events, but I do know that Adah was the first to get sick a few days before we left. She was feeling better by the time we traveled, but by the time we arrived in Texas it was spreading. Everyone but me ended up with a fever. Add that to the 30-40-degree change in temperature between White Salmon and San Antonio and you had confused little gang. While I was panting under the ceiling fan, poor Damon was feeling chilled and wearing his fleece. The kiddos were rosy-cheeked and flushed. You can see that Holly's looking just a little glass-eyed and runny-nosed in this photo.

And, of course, we regretably passed on the fever to my niece Anya. She and Gunnar both spend a little time sacked out on this couch in their jammies, although in this photo they look pretty happy.

We tried not to let the sickness slow us down too much. After taking the first day in San Antonio to mostly relax and let the cousins play together, we jumped right into the fun on Friday.

We were lucky that the girls' spring break coincided with Christian's 8th birthday! His party on Friday was a carnival. All the guests played games and earned tickets that could be used to "purchase" popcorn, cotton candy (the edible kind--see below), and all sorts of little trinkets and prizes. Jed and I are manning the "redemption center" at the kitchen counter in the photo below. I was the party's official balloon artist, twisting flowers, dogs, swords, and other balloon creations.

Cotton Candy the clown (not edible, and a.k.a. my sister-in-law Joette) was the party's main event. She painted faces and then did her show, complete with a special magic trick for the birthday boy.

As if a carnival birthday party weren't enough for one day, after dinner Jed's family introduced our children to Chuck E. Cheese's. We'd never been. Jed redeemed some coupons and we got piles of tokens and ran around with the kids playing games and riding little rides.

Kiera had fun on this heli-bike ride. Maggie took a spin as well.

Maggie and Damon faced off in this watergun shoot-out.

The flashing lights and bells and electronic music were a bit overwhelming for Damon and me. We were kind of amazed that Jed and Joette like taking their kids there so much. We found out later that they'd never been on a Friday night before going with us. Usually they go on Monday or Wednesday and are practically the only customers. Either way, our kids had big fun playing skee ball and other arcade games and then turning in tickets for plastic bracelets, jumping frogs, and other goofy toys. What else can you ask for from Chuck E. Cheese?

And, what else can you ask for from San Antonio? Stay tuned for more posts on our fun visit.