a good way to spend a saturday morning...

We went to the beach this morning so everyone could relax a bit.
It was great to see those four kids play for an hour and a half...
so happy to be outside. Silas and I dozed against a rock.
Nature is the best medicine. Always.

I wish Lauren, the one from Maine, had a computer...

...so she could see her kids hanging at the zoo.

Lauren is one of my oldest friends and here are her two eldest children, Isabella and Django. (There are 5 altogether.) They are visiting with their grandfather for 12 days and we get to hang with them for a bit and WOW they look exactly like their parents!
(I say WOW because that's what Lauren has always said in a very positive and enthusiastic way ever since I have known her in college...On the phone today she said it loudly enough that Silas said it from my arms...then she told me that it was the first word of her first three kids!)
They are such a great family...living in an old hotel deep in Maine with a cow that they actually milk everyday, chickens, ducks, pigs and a donkey. A truly inspiring and disappearing kind of lifestyle.
They don't have a computer so I guess Lauren will be going into town to the library to check this out...she is missing Isabella and Django just enough to do that...so, maybe, HI Lauren! I miss you!
(here we are at the orangutans...with guitar guy who provided us with a cool zoo soundtrack!)

"112 Things To Do Before You Are 12"...

A great birthday book for Mac with lots of good ideas of must do things... eat falafel, sleep under the stars, go to a fair, swim with dolphins, go to a powwow, stomp grapes, try kayaking, cross a suspension bridge (and make a wish in the very middle, our addition)...
So, today, we started with the bridge... the Spruce St. Bridge.

And Emmett did one other thing he's supposed to try before 12 years old, he faced one of his fears... heights! They crossed it once carefully and slowly (the video) and then about 5 more times eventually running. EEK! I, on the otherhand, felt posivitely nauseous holding a wriggly Silas while the bridge swayed back and forth. Since motherhood I have lost much of my love of things wild in any way, shape or form...rollercoasters, rock climbing, surfing etc. Pitiful. Maybe one day I will rediscover this long lost side of myself! For today I was contented to creep across, make my wish, watch a hawk swoop over that beautiful canyon...then, wait on the other side, nursing Silas and watching my brave babes experience yet another first.

hand-me-downs are awesome...

...especially when they are sparkly spanglies from a super cool and inspiring older girl!! Thanks Molly! You have fabulous taste in shoes!