bullwhip

I took a picture of the full moon last night but it did not turn out. The moon was glorious- not quite a harvest moon, but moving in that direction, with an orange tint. Very dramatic in the dark sky here. If you saw the moon last night, you can imagine now the photo that I was trying to take to post here.

Samuel and I made a duct tape bullwhip tonight (thanks Lyla!). We ended up cutting off some of ours so that it would be easier for Samuel to whip. The original was a little too long. The length ended up being about 56 inches and Samuel cut the dowel to be 7 inches. We ran out of brown duct tape and ended up using some red that he picked out at the same time today at the hardware store. This turned out to be just right and I must say the brown bullwhip with the red handle is smashing. Eva picked out yellow duct tape and wants to make another doll out of it.



Samuel with his new bullwhip! A dream come true!

Eva and I had dinner together tonight. Let me tell you about it. It was divine. I roasted the chicken I bought at the Farmers Market yesterday with some potatoes that I dug out of our garden today with rosemary and thyme from my herb garden. We had a salad made with lettuce and basil from our produce basket (bibb?) and a cucumber, also from our garden, and a black brandywine tomato from the market yesterday. Northwest Blackberry sun tea, sunned today. Eva and I talked about Rip Van Winkle and the meaning of the word rip, of which there are many. Jack and Maxwell joined the meal because the chicken was really really good.

Samuel went bowling with Matt this afternoon for the first time ever! When he came back from bowling, he told me he had the "time of his life", which is to say that waiting until he was ready to go bowling really paid off. He had a blast, got a strike the very first time he bowled and even wore the funny bowling shoes!

See the Black Brandywine tomato right in the middle...

We went to the Farmers Market today and brought back the most delicious cantaloupe I have ever eaten. This is such an amazing time of year to go to the market. Tomatoes, watermelon, peaches, cantaloupe...and the apples and pears are just starting as well. Also a chicken from the guy that I bought heirloom beans from. Grapes. Blueberries. Eva got a raspberry chocolate brownie. Cilantro, dill, and some yummy roasted tomato salsa! And the pears we picked on Labor Day are really ripe now so we have been eating a ton of really delicious pears. Oh and I nearly forgot! I ordered the turkey for Thanksgiving! Fresh turkey this year from the market. I ordered from the guy that has fresh lamb and sells lovely yarn and wool.

We are reading Arthur, For the Very First Time by Patricia Maclachlan. Such a good book. Samuel was enjoying the Catfish Bend books, so I am going to get some more of those. I am also looking at The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. We talked today about what constituted different genres- adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, drama, autobiographical, historical- in terms of movies and then books. It started with a discussion of what constituted a horror movie and if Gremlins was a horror movie. I said it was a sort of mild horror movie. I made the mistake of getting Gremlins for the kids several months ago because I had apparently blocked out a good part of the movie, mainly all of the really scary and icky parts and these have really stuck with Samuel. Then he told me never to get a movie recommendation from a teenager because it will most likely be a horror movie. Not sure where this wisdom comes from, although I did have to admit that I saw many horror movies when I was a teenager, probably more than the rest of my life combined. Hmmm... He said his favorite type of movie was whatever Star Wars was, probably a sci-fi/adventure/drama type movie. Yes, that makes sense. Last night he said his favorite books that we have read were The Little House books and the Jedi Apprentice books. I agreed that both of those series were page turners. I added the My Father's Dragon books we just read and also The Secret Garden. Once you start thinking about it, it seems it is truly hard to pin down just one or two. There are just soooo many good books out there!

Yesterday we went swimming and the kids had great fun. Eva loves the water and I am hoping to get us to a pool more frequently. She was talking about swimming lessons a little bit recently, but after spending some time in the water yesterday, she is thinking she will wait on those and learn about the water on her own for now, which seems to be working really well for her at this point.

Bionicles

I cleared a space in the living room and out came the Bionicle boxes. Samuel hasn't really looked at them for a while. They used to be one of his favorite toys and then they went into the garage for several months. Now they are back out and he is making his own with some of them.



The good guy; the bad guys; the good guy fighting the bad guys...

8 1/2

Yesterday.



Today.

Samuel is 8 1/2 today! He loves his new Nerf-like gun, riding his bike, making up strategy games, playing chess, horse riding, his Lego guys Sliver and Titan...He is the first one to laugh when he and Eva try to make one another laugh, he would like to be a police officer-private detective-judge-stock market trader-owner of a secret laboratory that no one can find-movie maker. I hope someday he will be able to build the robot that he is always dreaming of!

apples

Jumpin' Jupiters I nearly forgot...



I am so excited about all of the apples on our lovely apple tree. I put all of the fallen apples last fall around the base of the tree, thinking that the tree would be expecting this out in the wild more than it would be expecting me to pick them all up and put them in the compost pile. And would you believe the number of apples that are on the tree this year?! I had no idea! Fantastic!