Summer 2015

lets go.. get this stuff down!

1. Carrie throwing the Frisbee for an hour to boys at grandpa's pool
2. "Who invented 'taking turns' anyway..?" - Levi
3.  blindfolded pool noodle fight - carrie and vivian
4.  Claire (and other peanut gallery) coaching Rachel on her "mean face".
5.  RAIN at cousins camp
6 "BETH!  It's happening AGAIN! " - Theo requesting help with his nasty nose
7. Eric heroically finding Darcy's lost flipper in the ocean
8, huge art project - "Pull!"
9. crazy foosball action
10.  great lightning storm and running to get bedding off the trampoline in the rain
11.  Greek myth story told by Lucy with lightning in the background
12.  Rachel VS Carrie spanish-ice cream fight
13. Hugo's walking skills
14. "When I die, I want this car on my gravestone, with the inscription 'Crappy Car' carved under it" - Levi, holding up the car he tried all day to trade away, walking home from the cemetery.
15. Staying up late at Cousins Camp discussing hospitality and quirks.
16. Kids digging tunnel in beach sand
17. "Free sand!?!"
18. Gwen- "You are making a really horrible mistake!" (forcing her into Sarah's car after the museum)
19. Froot Loops flavored potato chips (along with chicken satay, basil)
20. Levi dancing during Busking Day
21. Watching Brad be a dad.
22. Nighttime flashlight adventures with Vivian, Claire, Sarah, Rachel, Gordon and Mom.
23. capture the flag game with rachel, beth/kids, and theo
24. grandma/eric/lucy lunch date
25. lucy bursting into tears when lawrence kids start to talk/wish they were moving
26. jerry's frog talk
27. crazy airbnb camp site with giant yurt, teepee, drum set in awesome granite creek, and neighbors intent on criminal harm with wicked nails. Using kids as minesweepers. Carrie pouring melted butter from the paper grocery bag. Shake-shake-shaking punctured can to eke out tomato soup on our ration of canned beans and bacon.
28. You mean all these books are FREE?!?
29. Teaching the kids how to shoot with dad's scoped pellet gun. Eric hitting a match, Carrie exploding the glass jar for the grand finale.
30. Hal's pronunciation of 'dumptruck'.
31. Beth leaping out of bed at 5:30am to chase a squawking rooster around, catch it, consider killing it but instead stuffing it in a cat carrier in the garage, all so Rachel can get a couple more hours sleep in the backyard.
32. Sending the Gregory kids off on an unaccompanied minor flight
33. Levi's birthday at Skywalk
34. Baptisms at the temple with Mom, Sarah, Rachel, Sydney, Eric
35. Sydney and Eric getting doused by giant wave at Morro Strand. Sydney getting within 10 ft of an otter
36. Theo and Jack eating spicy food at Beth's until Jack eats a red ant and gets bitten on the tongue.
37. Mark Porter's wedding reception- Bry jumps out of a cake
38. Sarah and Lucy go to One Direction concert
39. Levi and Theo get unsupervised playtime, use it to tag carport with spray paint. Viv's head explodes.
40. Dad pays Eric $4 to climb through hole in fence, move dead possum further into neighbor's yard.

circa 2012

2015

A year in the life

We made it.  We all made it to 1 year old.  Hugo is 1 year old!

Police Car!

Last night, after a spate of Hal stalling going to bed (asking for water, or more blankets), he'd finally quieted down, and I thought we were good for the night. 25 minutes later I heard him come to the door.

I marched back there, already yelling, "Get back in bed, Hal! Go to sleep!"

When I entered his room to ask what was going on, he said, "Police car!"

A bit of background: recently he's been going to bed with a dump truck, a crane, a red car, an orange car, sometimes a plane, and yes, a police car.

"No!" I said. "You don't need your police car."
"Police car!"
"It's probably already here in your bed! Go to sleep!"
"Police car!"
"Hal, close your eyes, hold still and go to sleep. You shouldn't be playing anyway"

 Finally, he just grabbed my hand, and moved it to his thigh....where I could feel his police car, trapped inside his pajama pants. After I stopped laughing, I reached up through the tight ankle part of his pants and moved the police car out of there.

He went to sleep shortly after.

Carrie, we rember you!

If we did make you a cake this year (which we didn't) it would probably look like this:

"Man, that was awesome..."

Theo had his school sleepover last night. Haven't you always wanted to go to sleep on the floor of your classroom?

Hal over the last six months

"Owl is the grand and rather clever old man of the forest. He can also spell Tuesday.." - Winnie the Pooh

I was picking up some kids for school and saw this guy on a wire. the kids who lived there said they saw him there the day before also.   i didn't have my glasses on, so at first he just looked hurt and blurry.. but when Colin and I rode back later on our bikes (with glasses on), i realized that his foot was stuck in the twists of the wire.  it was windy and he was exhausted and trying to keep his balance on one foot.  the more he tried to fly away, the tighter his foot wedged in there.

I called a rescue, who said to call PG&E, because of the wires, and that they are under obligation to come out.  so i called them and we decided to wait and watch.  I didn't know how long they would take, but to their credit, a nice guy and his bucket truck showed up within 15 min.  He was surprised to see the owl alive, because "usually, they are electrocuted".  He got  gloves and an extra shirt to put over him.  he had some trouble freeing his leg, and ended up hurting him quite a bit (pulling the leg at bad, bad angles) to free him.  then he lost his grip and the owl spread his wings and floated down to the ground.  The guy tossed me his shirt and i tossed it over the owl.

His leg was in terrible shape, black and rubbed all the way to the bone.  It looked burned, and the foot was swollen.  But he was a magnificent creature.  I have never seen one "in real life".  His coloring, his alien face, his huge, pupil-less, starry eyes, and his sharp beak and talons made for an almost unreal experience.  it felt like i had captured a ghost or a pixie.  About the same size, chickens are heavy and the owl was like holding a feathery balloon.  He weighed almost nothing.  When we put him in a plastic tub, he immediately went to sleep... or died.

We got him home,which was tricky because it was a BIG plastic tub, and colin's tire decided that was the moment to go flat and it was 3/4 of a mile away. 

When I got no response from the first 3 phone calls, and it looked like i might have to keep him over night,  I looked up how to care for injured owls.  I found an article that was hell bent on making sure you didn't even THINK about keeping that owl - "unless you are ready to commit to obtaining, thawing, and dissecting copious amounts of dead rodents, at all times of day and night for the next 10 years, an owl is not for you." - was my favorite argument.

well we found a rescue and a vet and raced to make it there by closing time.  All 7 of us went in to the tiny waiting room... a girl took the box and said, "ok".

then he was gone and we all stood there for a few extra minuets, to see if anyone wanted to make a nat geo special about us... no interviews?...

ok.  um.  bye.