did I mention?

We started watching Downton Abbey this weekend. Need I say more?

Spokane Things part the third

Sunday.
church in the morning (of course). (Met Pete- the much anticipated partner of Dawn)
Family Bike ride in the afternoon!
It was the hottest day so far. . .
Martin organized this as an activity for the St John's Families.
It started at a place that we had to drive to (Spokane Valley- 15 minutes drive away) so that meant a big pack-up of gear. We took the kids bikes and Martin's two bikes and our bike trailer for Timo. Bodhi stayed home (thankfully!)
The ride was along a small portion of the Spokane River Centennial Trail. The River was super beautiful to see. There were people floating down it and someone even saw someone snorkeling in it!! The ride was really cut short because of the heat. It reminded me so much of being a kid at the ranch. Blazing heat, clear blue skies, beautiful pine trees, a fantastic waterfall, desert conditions... Mimi and I saw quail and someone else saw a wild bunny.
Our friends the Browns joined us and it was great to spend that time with them. Also a new St J's member and one of her daughters.
It will be great to ride this trail with the kids when the weather is a bit more accommodating. The trail is an amazing resource here. We keep hearing other talk about it but this was my first experience trying it out.
I wore some clothes that I don't often wear (orange yoga pants and a bright pink yoga-wear tank). Mimi was super impressed with my outfit. I think it looked as close to a Barbie outfit as she has ever seen on me. She even told me that I looked beautiful and "cool". I wonder if this will be the last time i hear that kind of compliment from her! :)

We came home exhausted from the heat and I whipped together supper options for the kids and we welcomed a babysitter into our house and headed out to join Dawn and Pete for an evening at a local winery. Arborcrest hosted a concert at their site (only a $5 cover) from 5:30- 8:30. We were joined by Dawn's other friends Matt and Mindy and we had a great time visiting and eating and drinking wine in a beautiful location. Sadly we realized that this was only the second time we had actually procured the services of a babysitter in Spokane. It is no wonder that we haven't seen much of this city or had many opportunities for adult life... 

We. Must. Get. Out. More.  (and church events do NOT count!)

Spokane Things Part the second

 

Saturday
Yay!!! Another day off for Martin (if  you can call working at 5:30 pm a day off...)
The day started with a bit of garage sailing :) and Mimi decided to join me in the adventure. She was bound a determined to find a barbie to buy. We had seen a box of Barbies and accessories at a thrift store in Vancouver but I told her that we wouldn't be importing Barbies to the US and that we would find one at a garage sale in Spokane. The girl does not forget such promises! Sure enough she found a really decent Barbie at the first one we went to- this Barbie rides a horse (her legs actually articulate somewhat functionally!). I wasn't going to buy the horse (not realizing that it was specially designed to go with the barbie) but the little girl selling the toys said that Mimi could just have it. :)
All in all we went to 3 sales and I got a fan (it is getting really hot here), some art paper, some paper for making homemade business cards on your computer, a food dehydrator, and a bed fence (so that Timo doesn't fall out of our bed - I have been looking for one of these for MONTHS and this one is a really great one!).

After lunch we hung around the house a bit imagining that we might go to the Spokane Aquatic Center.  After extensive searching for Martin's swim suit in vain, we decided to get a little water action with the water park in Manito Park. This is a little bit of a walk away so Martin took the Xtracycle with Mimi and Ami rode his bike while Timo and Bodhi and I walked. It was tremendously refreshing.

 

A very cool thing about today was that there was a massive, neighbourhood-wide ladybug hatch. They were EVERYWHERE in great swarms of flying red bugs. Very impressive. Although I think I was nipped by 2 of those amazing red bugs...

Mimi proved for the first time that she is totally capable of doing the monkey bars today. She has been really wishing she could do them for a long time now. I gave her a little help (these monkey bars are really quite high off the ground) to understand just how important it is that you use your weights in swinging to reach the next bar. She was triumphant.

We are staring to eat more and more veg from our garden.

Doing Spokane things!! -finally!!

So this past weekend was too good not to write a bit about what we have been doing.
It started on Friday (Martin's day off) when I announced that we would be going to get cherries from an area called Green Bluff. It is located about 40 mins away from home. If we took a better route it might even be closer. My idea was to get cherries because I love the taste of cherries in the summer, and raspberries because we need jam for the winter!! I scouted out where to go and we headed for a farm that only puts organic products on their trees. The drive was beautiful (after getting out of the city). Warm weather and lush fields and sunshine. When we arrived at the farm we discovered that the cherries(only pie cherries left) and raspberries were all gone. However they had beautiful apricots!!! hooray!! the Other taste of summer!!! We picked lots and lots. Everyone enjoyed the picking and tasting :)(Timo included!). We decided to eat lunch at their little cafe which was nice to have someone else make lunch.

 Then we set off to find some cherries and raspberries elsewhere. We made "wrong" turn and ended up going to a farm that I had read about that looked interesting. It was a u-pick veggie garden with a "mad scientist" farmer, growing nutrition boosted veggies (using garden tea) on a beautiful property and a Canadian to boot! We spent quite a long time at his farm -Looking at the emus, sheep and poultry, petting the cat and the collie dog on site- as well as picking cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, basil, strawberries, and golden and black and wonderfully purpley raspberries. I plan on visiting that farm many times this summer and into the fall. He is growing Kabocha squashes that are to die for!!

squashes and cucumbers growing...

in one of the green- houses- Timo is sampling celery.

We came home and had a left-over salady meal and then I headed out with my friend Dawn to attend a concert that her friend was singing. It was part of something called "first Fridays" in Spokane. First Fridays is a chance for people to get out and enjoy art and music all over the city. It is a very popular Spokane thing to do! The location of this concert was just on the north side of the river (you could see some falls from the concert) at a place called Chateau Rive. It was a promotion of this new(ish) event space and the concert took place on the grass in this picture.

this photo is from the internets!

The band played from almost where the photo was taken and the river is right behind the photographer. On arrival we discovered that wine was complimentary as well as veggies and humus! It was fun to be there with Dawn as she was awaiting the arrival of her Kiwi partner- excited anticipation/whiling away the hours until it was time to go to the airport...

It was fun to see a slice of life that I don't get to see much of...

Dawn is a very attractive woman who used to be in broadcasting so many people remember her from her time on the local news. I wondered about how many people attend this sort of event in hopes of finding someone to hook -up with. Sure enough Dawn was hit on at least a couple times! I realized how bad I am at making people (men) feel comfortable in this sort of situation!...So after the concert was over we wanted to check out the building and the various businesses that make it their home. The most important one to us was the "Chocolate Apocothary" where we had to sample chocolate covered almonds and then have some double chocolate gelato. Poor us. :)

next stop, Saturday!!

Berkeley time

I see from my blogger-stats that my blog got viewed a whole bunch a couple of days ago. I figure that is a sure sign that I need to at least update with a wee post...

I am in Berkeley as i write this. I am back here doing more Anat Baniel Method training. This segment is focusing on Anti-Aging and Vitality (or as we like to call it Immortality!). I am staying in my old neighbourhood and driving in from the airport i was really struck by how i  know this place. I don't need a GPS to get around, I am able to drive fast on the freeway with all the other Californian drivers and I even know what radio station to listen to! I'm not sure why it struck me as strange but perhaps because I have moved to a city which did NOT take long to get used to. Spokane's layout is fairly simple, my routes for errands are not complicated, the drivers are docile... what is there to get used to?

Timo is with me and he is a super kid. Totally accommodating and delightful too. I feel extra pleased that his childcare has worked out the way it has. For the first 4 days he is staying with a sitter who i met in February and who lived up in this neck of the woods. She is lovely and is a student at the Franciscan school up at the GTU. Since the last time we were here she has moved to the border of Oakland and Berkeley. Wouldn't cha know, she moved within half a block of my ABM colleague and carpooler, Chris. It is absolutely perfect!!! The other sitters are people who i have used before too. Huzzah.

I don't have the capacity to post pictures on my blog while i am here because I am using my host's computer and I forgot my camera cord anyway. I was expecting to have a computer-free 9 days!!!If you want to see recent pictures of Timo you have to visit my sister Caitlin's blog to see the latest cousin summit in Vancouver earlier this month.

Ami and Mimi have traveled to Victoria with my parents. They are the best grandparents EVER!- driving to Spokane to pick up the kids and then having them for a week!! WOW. I understand that there might be camping in the schedule if the weather behaves. . .

May 19th

So I thought I was looking forward to the weekend with the 3 kids by myself. Now I am not sure if my experience is really coming close to my expectations. I have now had the kids for 4 days by myself. It is really uninspiring to cook for one adult and 2 kids- especially when it has been warm and the kids tummies have been acting up. I am tired of instructing them to do things. I am tired of the "whiny" voice. I am tired of raising my voice. I am tired of not really having adult conversation other than on the phone (and those conversations have been really great- don't get me wrong!). I am tired of waking up in the night (although not sharing the bed with one adult AND one baby is really much nicer). I don't like cleaning up barf. I do like the funny conversations and observations of 7 and 5 year olds. I love how they play together so well. I am almost ready for them to go back to school.

The kids are really into posing for photos these past few days (even almost instigating them) and so I have been lucky to have scored some fun shots. Here's the three of them having fun on the kitchen floor. Ami was holding/visiting with Timo and Mimi came along and suggested that she sit in Ami's lap and Timo could sit in her lap. This is what came of that suggestion.... 

  

Things i like about Spokane- part 1 in a series?

I have very much been enjoying seeing the dawning of Spring here. In other places where I have lived there is no clear moment when you really know it is spring. Maybe it is also because I only know this place in winter-mode. I am astonished with all the beautiful trees here. I especially am loving the dogwoods. They aren't like the white dogwood that I know from the house that I grew up in. They are way bigger with wee flowers that have beautiful rusty colours along with the cream. There are other beautiful trees that seem to have rusty coloured flowers along with the new lime-green leaves. I love the weeping cherry trees and some fabulous weeping forsythia too.

Things are emerging in our garden that I didn't know were there. The most prolific of those things is the daffodils! Daffodils should be the city flower perhaps?

Our veggie garden is starting to sprout and i think i will put in the seeds that "get planted after the last frost" this weekend. Must start them soaking this afternoon.

The water in the Spokane River is incredibly high these days and there is a flood warning for Spokane! (I am not worried considering where we are in the city ;) ) The falls are spectacular as a result.

This makes me wish I had a picture or two to put here. Perhaps that will be my weekend challenge!