Smoke and birthdays.

Today is Eleanor's half-birthday, which we celebrate because her real birthday is so close to Christmas and gets overwhelmed, and also because we are CELEBRATORY FIENDS AND CANNOT BE STOPPED, and we had PLANS and were going to do THINGS but the city is trapped under a blanket of smoke from the nearby forest fires and we cannot go outside for more than, like, half an hour at a time. Everything is dim. It is, to be honest, sucking my will to live.

THAT IS AT LIKE 11AM. Smoke as far as the eye can see. So we just walked down to the coffee shop and I let Eleanor pick out a treat

and then we went to the library for story time because Tuesdays be Tuesdaying.

I let her pick supper (banana spinach pancakes? Which is not a thing we have ever eaten before so she is obviously just pulling foods that she likes out of the air and putting them together) and help me make them and then I read her a chapter from The Wind in the Willows because I figure three-and-a-half is old enough to start chapter books.

We have been leaving the house every damn day after naps except the last two days and I have totally lost the knack of amusing my children indoors. WHAT DO THEY DO I DON'T EVEN KNOW. Summer just started and I want to be outside and I know that my house isn't on fire and I'm not being displaced from my home but this whole situation is BUMMING ME OUT.

You know what's NOT bumming me out? MY GARDEN. Ye gads, I am going to have one million tomatoes ripening all of a sudden.

Tomato Row is embarrassingly opulent. And remember these tiny corns?

I mean.

And today I noticed actual teensy cucumbers growing on my cucumber plants, the ones that I overhauled and didn't think were going to grow. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE CUCUMBERS.

So many things pending, but I put covers over the strawberries and since then, we've gotten like five. The crows were eating them, those jackasses. Yesterday, I looked out the window to see two crows land in Melon World, stomp on every plant, take a bite out of my pumpkin leaves, TAKE A DUMP IN THE CORNER, and then fly off. I just.

The peas are coming in, and Joel keeps eating them before they are ripe. They're like the veal of peas, he says. Stop eating the veal of peas, I say, or we're never going to have the peas of peas. Today we harvested SIX PODS of actual, full-grown peas.

We are too excited to even make anything of them, we just eat them straight, and immediately.

Hopefully by tomorrow, the Smoke Monster (which currently stretches as far as Tennessee) has cleared up enough for some outdoorsing. I won't even care about the sinkhole halfway down our street.

Weekending

White shirt wearing.

Color running.

Piggybacking because let's be honest, 5k is really far.

Radding.

Snow coning (for hydration).

Jazz festivalling.

Family picnicking.

Farmer's marketing.

Shoe collecting (Geneva Wren, look at your feets).

Blueberry grabbing.

Face painting.

Cat dancing.

Hammocking.

Tandem hammocking.

Hydrating.

Being SOFT and SMOOTH and ALMOST UNMANAGEABLY ADORABLE.

And it was our first blistering hot weekend, and I forgot sunscreen for myself (put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting fellow passengers, people) and my shoulders are tender, and I've weaned Geneva and now none of my bras fit so I've been wearing sports bras everywhere, because of the fit and because I am a sweaty hog, and then this evening while we were at the jazz festival, the heat broke for a minute and like twenty rain drops fell and it was just enough for one of those aggressively present rainbows. 'Look!' says Eleanor. 'A magical rainbow! I've never seen a real rainbow before!'

Ain't nothing beats free.

Another busy day in paradise. Today was the last day of daycamp, and everyone brought their teddy bears and we had a picnic and then said goodbye to all the staff, one of whom we have secured as a Future Babysitter because the girls LOOOOVE her. 

It was also Free Day at the zoo, so after naps we packed some food and headed out. 

It was hot as blazes, and busyish, but the zoo is massive so it never felt crowded. 

I let Eleanor feed the baby geese from her hand (don't tell Joel [who was at work all evening DON'T EVEN CARE BECAUSE IT'S SUMMERRRRRR]). 

We are trying to model appropriate table manners for Geneva. Eleanor is doing TERRIBLY. 

But she's very good at sharing. 

Geneva is very good at EYES. 

In conclusion: bears. 

We've been getting to bed super late.

If we've been very quiet over here, it's because Eleanor is in day camp. 

It's called Romp 'n' Read and she's super mega into it, obviously. But it means that we're indoors all morning, and the weather has been amazing, so every day after supper we end up at the splash park 

or the park park

and then today the Jazz Festival started up. 

They had a little Hammock Town set up? I dunno, it was weird. Eleanor was into it, obviously. 

Geneva, those are not your shoes. They don't even fit you. 

It's summer and it's glorious and it's worth all those long, mopey winter days, just for this. 

The longest evenings.

When Joel works evenings in the winter, I'm just like, UGHHHH THIS IS THE BUTT and the hours between nap time and bed time are MANY and LONG and I always end up putting the girls down at, like, 6:30. IT IS DARK AND THEY CANNOT TELL TIME WHATEVER. 

But in the summer.

The other day, Joel was working the evening shift, so when the girls woke up from their naps, we strolled down to the splash park, got a truly awful burger from the concession stand, and splashed until it was time to go home and go to bed, late. 

Family Weekend

We have had a bit of a go. Joel had a busy rotation, followed by his major exam, followed by a busy rotation, followed by his research project, followed by a busy rotation. We had a family weekend planned a while back, it was literally the first weekend in months that Joel wasn't working, or studying, or putting together his research project. But then there was a family emergency, and he had to go home, and like twelve hours after he got back, he started his cardiology rotation and was on overnight call every third day or whatever (which is when my parents swooped in, so that I didn't murder my children).

Anyway. We finally had our family weekend. I mean, we had to cancel Family Event the First because of some last-minute scheduling conflicts, and Family Event the Second was Raych and the Girls Go To the Farmer's Market, As Is Their Custom Of A Saturday, While Joel Gets Administrative Things Done.

But Family Event the THIRD was a hike at Beaver Creek, which went swimmingly.

We found the good hiking loop, it takes like fifteen minutes to walk so we did it twice. Eleanor walked and DECLAIMED the whole way. 'This is a FUN hike, I LIKE this hike, it is SO BEAUTIFUL on this hike, that is a tree that a BEAVER ate, probably, hey look a BEETLE.'

And then we went downstairs and played in the beaver dam until they kicked us out.

I had picked up some picnicky things at the farmer's market - a few veggies, an enormous ham-and-cheese-stuffed foccacia bread.

And Joel was like, Hey, there's this greenish area I drive past sometimes that always has a lot of cars parked at it.

It was a dog park. DOGS. Dogs for miles. It went about as well as you'd expect and also I guess we own this dog now?

He would not leave, even after his owner was like, Well, bye, and rode off on his bike (and then came back to leash him up and be like, I'm so sorry, and we were like, We are so sorry we brought this giant meat sandwich to a dog park).

So that's one for the books.

Sunday morning, we drove to Diefenbaker Park for the Mogathon 2K, which you may remember Eleanor and I running last year because Joel was at a conference all weekend and my parents and sister were on their way for a visit and we were dyyyyyying. Anyway. Same deal. Same face painting.

Same bouncy castles.

Bonus balloon man.

And then Joel wrangled Geneva in the rain while Eleanor and I held hands and ran, and ran, and ran.

And then we got to the end, and danced with the Finish Line Gorillas.

And got our medals, of which Eleanor is almost incoherently proud.

And then the girls went for a nap and Joel went to Costco and I chopped a million things, because we were having dinner guests for table-top grilling.

We've never done it with Eleanor before, but she LOVED it, the frying stuff, the putting veggies and cheese into little trays and letting it melt and then sliding it all onto toasts. And then the girls went to bed and we had grown-up chats with grown-up persons and then they left and Joel and I finished off the wine and loaded up the dishwasher and scrubbed down the grills and all in all, it was a good weekend and worth the wait.