Mad me

I posted this picture in March after planting a whole bunch of flower seeds. All this time I've been watching & waiting, waiting & watching, and this.....

is what I get. ONE. MEASLY. FLOWER. The disappointment has sapped my will to weed, as you can see (and I'm pretty sure that jungle in the background is nothing more than weeds, either, unless the seeds I planted were for invisible flowers). It makes me cross.

Rawwwwwwwwww

Yesterday Danny very generously took me to lunch at a raw restaurant she discovered in Seattle. [Fortunately for me, I didn't lead her on a wild goose chase disguised as a "quicker" way home until after the lunch; otherwise, she might have made me wait in the car while she ate :) :) ] We shared a green smoothie, lasagna, pizza, & salad, and for dessert I had carob mousse & Danny had cheesecake. All of it was 100% raw and very delicious, especially (for me) the lasagna & carob mousse (which I ate until I felt sick, suprise, suprise). It was fun time for me, so thank you again, Danny, and we'll have to go back again (my treat!), and bring our husbands, too :)

Fun, fun, fun

Danny and the boys are staying with us tonight (yay for us!) and this afternoon we took a trip to the park. The weather was so lovely that Danny & I decided we should pitch a tent and stay there.

One of Derek's favorite things about playing with the bubbles was trying to catch and pop them.

The wind carried most of them away, but he was not to be deterred :)

I have resisted the temptation to photo-shop away the oil slick that has apparently settled on my face.

The next generation of the Pearson brothas :)

Hello, kitty cat!

This one makes me smile :)

Crummy light, but a good example of the hooliganism that ensues when Uncle J is in charge of the entertainment :)

Also, this is one of the best quotes from the day: Derek went downstairs and asked Jan some kind of question, to which Jan replied, "You'll have to ask Auntie Hilary." So Derek comes upstairs and immediately yells back to Jan, without saying one word to me, "Uncle, Auntie says yes!"

A GIGANTIC HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

to my Jan Michael! Here he sports the 31-year birthday crown. It's a pretty big deal to have a birthday around here.

I'm a recent 31-turner myself, so Jan Michael said I had to wear it. (Also, I have a creepy look on my face, so it's best not to click on the picture to make it larger.)

Warm weather, I love it

I took a nice, meandering stroll last night, and it was quite lovely. Usually I walk for exercise, and I move at such a clip that I don't pay much attention to what's around me, but last night I decided to mosey along. I heard some of the nicest summer sounds (lawnmowers mowing & kids playing) and smelled one of the nicest summer smells (barbeques!) and saw lots of pretty summer sights.

This picture doesn't do the valley justice at all.

Not so pretty, but it reminded me of Little D, so I had to take it :)

Bikes

We tried a new trail this afternoon. It's hot today, and there were some big hills, so we are a little bit pooped. But it's the I-accomplished-something-fairly-difficult kind of pooped, which is far better than the I-sat-around-all-day-like-a-bump-on-a-log-and-now-I'm-worn-out-from-doing-nothing pooped.

For our Moms

"If the whole world were put into one scale, and my mother in the other, the whole world would kick the beam."

Another reason to celebrate!

We wish you the happiest of the happy birthdays, Danny! We love you! [And just think - next year you should be celebrating in your new house! :)]

As a small token of our esteem, we present to you:

Almond Butter Balls
1/2 c almond butter
1/2 c sunflower seeds
1/2 c raisins
1/2 c honey
Grind sunflowers seeds until fine. Place in bowl with other ingredients. Mix well & form into balls.

Anniversary golf

Before we started the first hole I informed Jan that I would be beating the pants off him. At the second hole I promptly sent my ball screaming into the rough, so here we have my somewhat smug husband searching the stream to see if it landed there. Pride goes before a fall, they say :)

Jan throws a tantrum about his ball teetering on the edge but not quite making it in, haha!

We had to use some serious self control to obey this sign. Sheesh.

Hmmmmm....

Hole in one!

Celebration of the hole in one :)

Excellent form! My dad would be proud.

This hole is the bain of my putt-putt career. You're supposed to hit it just so between the different clumps of rocks so it careens nicely down the different levels straight to the hole (which is where I took the picture from, and which Jan can do with no trouble). I always hit the ball straight into the rocks, it pops up into the air, and it lands pretty close to where you see it in the picture. Blarghhhhh.

Pretty waterfall, more wretched water

Happy anniversary for us

9 really lovely, amazing years. There are lots of things I would do differently in terms of being a good wife if I could go back in time, but I would not for one minute trade my precious husband for anything in this life.

This morning while we were taking these pictures, Jan kept cackling mischieviously and saying, "We'd better take another," and now I know why!

I will kiss him into behaving!

Ahhhhhhh

Pleasant things about today:

-A morning visit to my husby at work, which included an outdoor stroll
-A walk with a friend
-A lesson in how to choose a good watermelon by a really kind & helpful produce man
-A nap in the sun
-An end of the day bike ride with my husby

The weekends are just packed!

Drilling & smashing coconuts is the sort of fun you can have when on the raw food diet :)

The bees' knees

I'm reading an interesting book called Robbing the Bees - A Biography of Honey, the Sweet Liquid Gold That Seduced the World and must share some of my new found knowledge:

"Arriving back at the yard with her foraging spoils, the bee recognizes her own home by the unique pheromonal scent of her queen, an aromatic chemical coat of arms that is relayed from bee to bee and tracked around the hive. Each bee carries a bit of this scent with her, a perfumed security pass that the guards at the entrance identify before waving her through the door. Wrong-smelling trespassing robber bees are turned away, discouraged from pilfering honey that isn't theirs."

"If [the bee] has found a particularly good nectar source and need reinforcements, seh will dance. Bees perform precisely choregraphed dances to communicate fear, alarm, joy, and the location of food and water. In the joy dance, the forager places her front legs on the back of another available bee and shakes her abdomen in a kind of bee conga. The interior of the hive is dark and crowded, so the dance is more of a jubliant mosh pit... Other bees will mimic the mosh movements before flying out to the reported loot."

Shane's wish

This is really neat, and you should check it out: www.shaneswish.com

Happy anniversary Brent & Danny!

"A happy wedlock is a long falling in love." Theodore Parker