July - a quick cousin visit and summer stuff

In July we had a speedy 1-day visit from Julia & Co. en route to Canada. I am the dent in most every crowd nowadays, eh?

More card games, of course.

Will did try to protect the world from my sub-standard photography skills, but he failed, so you are looking at my pictures anyways!

And, the home version of summer passed with summer things happening.

Project time!!!

Munchkin, but with Lar art!!

I completed the re-boot of mine and Iain's computer corner with new shelves to house the server and printer.  It looks nice over there, except for the pile of unshelved books that is hiding very inconspicuously under a rug.

Some pics at the Mountain Winery - the Natalie Merchant concert was lovely, as was the view.

Oh!  And Ria made lots of progress in swim class!!  Splash!

June 2017 - New Hampshire visit

And up to New Hampshire with us!  

More cousins working - Tor was busy at his job at UNH, so we visited him.  His and Eva's hands had a good conversation.  Nah, no family resemblance there.

Yet another group shot ;-)

Look, a moose!  Didn't bite my sister, though.

Here I am, channeling my mom

Andy paused so I could have proof that he was there too

And, beware the kid-eating couch!

June 2017 - visiting RI

In June we visited New England.  First stop, Mom and Henry's house in RI.  

It was a little bittersweet, as this is the last time we will be able to visit the house Mom and Henry built.  Due to the preponderance of stairs, it really isn't a good fit for H any more, so they have sold the house and moved into a new (only 2 steps from the garage to the main floor of the house) place.

Björn realized that he would be working on the days we were visiting NH, so he made a special trip down to RI to visit with his cousins -- many amusing card games were played.

There is always time for a good snuggle break!

Neen and Dani stopped by too

(Ria stood in the "let the camera stretch my face wide" position...*sigh*, need a better camera.)

And then it was time to leave

Finally, here's Henry, hamming for the camera and cracking himself up!

May & June 2017 - home bits

May & June 2017 highlights:

The joy of whisky-o-clock!

Locking up her bike at school - only 1 year left at elementary!

Cat food sculpture

Cuteness

And finally, the last day of school!

For the last 6 school years, William and Iain have biked to school together nearly every day, 3th-8th grade.... and frequently for a year or 2 prior.  This, however, was the last day that William would be biking Iain to school, and it certainly felt like a passing of an era for him.  Last day at Middle School, in the fall Iain would be biking in the opposite direction to the high school.  And, one year to wait before biking with Ria.  Cheers!

Ria's last day of 4th grade, with Ms. Purvi and Mr. Korten

And, Iain's 8th grade graduation!

He folds a mean origami crane out of cloth napkins!

Sweetness ;-)

We had big clean-up project in the living room.  First we cleared out all the old boxes of joy that the kids used to play in, all annotated on nearly every surface.  Yes, there was a transmogrifier spot somewhere ;-).  Huge piles of kid c*ap piled up to donate.

....so that Iain could get his new Ikea desk, and set up his new computer, built 95% from castoffs from William's old computer!  Now Iain and I have side by side computer stations.

Not only do we place stuffed cats on cats, we also place stuffed elephants on girls.  Its a thing.

Cousins!! A visit from England - April 2017

Also in April, we had a visit from Alastair, Bev, and Rowan! Most of the pictures were from our hike on (I think) Windy Hill.

Iain giving me the hairy eyebrow, a classic teenage specialty.

Hmmm, I keep picking group pictures taken by Bev - this was at the point we turned around.

Geocache time!  And, proof that Bev joined us ;-)

A nice one of just William and Alastair

Oranges!

Game time

Bye, see you in a few months ;-)

Feb - Apr 2017 - More retro posts!

...and it continued to rain, and the creek got even fuller!

Ria did a major clean out of little kid books, as *she* had run out of shelf space in her room and was overflowing into piles on the floor.  We cleared a bunch out of the living room kids shelf too.  These are the "give away" piles!  It took us 3-4 sessions over the February break, it was epic!

Bwa ha ha!  I tricked Iain into looking at me while smiling!  (Well, really Lar did that, since he was reading a Looking For Group book.)

Oreo was very helpful while Ria worked on her California Mission poster for school.

Here's Ria just being darn cute ;-).  We were up at UCSF in our re-boot of the quest to figure out Ria's gut and make it work.  We figure that maybe if someone can figure out why she's been constipated from something like 3 months old, maybe they could fix her gut up to work, and then maybe she could tolerate gluten again, someday.  The re-boot quest started in the summer of 2016, 3 month wait for doctor 1, refernce to dr 2, 3 month wait for appt with dr 2 (that was this picture), 2 months to 2nd appt with Dr. 2, then got reference to dr 3, the special gastroenterologist.  She's the one we've been wanting for the last 6 years.  Then there was a 3 month wait to meet with her.  Now (Sept, while I'm typing this) we are actively working with the new GI, 1 year after the start of the rebooted quest.  Hopefully, soon we'll have a plan.

Lovely blossoms on the trail

Lunch out with my kiddos on April break!  Iain had just eaten a few too many jalapenos, hence the funny face, but Ria looks so pleased with her meal that I thought to post this anyways!  Her food preferences are in some ways so different from the other 3 of us - she had brussel sprouts with her burger, tried them, and loved them right away!