Eating Corn

We just had a very uneventful week, so the big question of the week is, how many teeth do you need to eat corn-on-the-cob? Well, 1.5 teeth seems perfect. Amelia had fun handling this huge corn on the cob. Now she did not eat everything herself. The big bite marks are from me, but she is putting quite a dent in it. As I said, not much happened this week, because we are all sick again and the weather is cold and wet (did I mention this is the Pacific Northwest?). The weatherforcast calls it "normal for the season". The most exciting event was, my friend Ulrike was for a conference in Seattle and we were able to get together for drinks on Monday. Even thou she lives very close (in Victoria,B.C.) we seem to only be able to meet once a year. Well, we had time to catch up, which was great. The last picture is an update of Marlene's garden. After the heat, it has been very wet and the garden seems to double every time you look. I hope we are having a great harvest this year.

Visit to the Theater

Yesterday, Sunday, Marlene went to her first theater play. It was a highschool production of Disney's Aladdin at Shorcrest Highschool. It was a great experience. They did a very good job. I can not imagine how it could have been better in a Broadway production. Off course it helps to have a well equipped up to date modern auditorium. It was assigned seating; so we did not have to fight for seats. I don't think any of the about 350 seats are actually bad. The play was an adaptation of the Disney Aladdin movie. It had a lot of singing and dancing and off course the costumes and special effects were great. All the kids did a super job. Off course you could see that it was the second to last performance, after about 20 shows before. Everyone was relaxed and very sure of what they were doing. Marlene had a great time and even got scared when evil Jafar turned into a snake in a cloud of smoke. During the intermission we got a snack and afterwards all the actors were in the lobby in full costume. Jasmin was giving autographs to young girls. Marlene did not want to get close; she hid behind my back. "Carpet" had touched her head when I congratulated him on his performance. That was enough to scare her. I don't think we are going to have too many princess pictures in Disneyland. Later in the car she explained to me, she did not want to get close, because she did not know these people.

Our Garden

Today I want to talk a little bit about our garden. Marlene has started to take some interest in it and is helping me plant and water. Usually I raise most of my plants and veggies myself from seeds that I safe from the previous year. But since we were in Germany in feburay/March when this needs to happen I was not able to do it this year. And I paid "dearly" for it. I had no idea how much money I safe. I spent a lot of money on a few tomatoes, squash, herbs and, off course, flowers. So next year back to the old ways. Last year I had saved seeds from heirloom tomatoes from whole Foods, so I guess they have to wait another year. Last year was a very bad year for fruit trees in the Northwest. There was no harvest to speak off; so when my pear tree only had 3 pears I was not surprised. Usually we have literally tons of pears. And since I still had many jars of compote and pear sauce left, I was not too sorry to be spared the canning. Our dwarf apple did not even have flowers and the 2 quince that made it beyond the flower stage fell off soon afterwards. This year is very different, we have many apples, quite some pears and we still wait for the verdict in quince. Last year I planted one of the tomatoes in a planter by the house and it outgrew everything else, so this year most of the tomatoes are by the house and in only 10 days the plants are twice as big as their piers by the fence. So we will see. The raspberries are sprouting all over the place and I think next year I will have to dig up the shoots for the first time. We will have raspberries coming out of our ears this year. The rhubarb is settling in very well in its new bed. I hope by next year to have enough to add to my jams. This year we added two new plants to our family. One is a lime tree, that stays inside and that I already half killed. I hope it survives. The lemon tree is doing good and we might get lemons again this year. The other one is woodruff(Waldmeister). It took me a while to track this herb down. It is indigenous to the Northwest, so it should not be hard to grow. Some even call it a pest. We will see. I love the flavor for yello and lemonade, so I hope by next spring I will be able to harvest some. I missed the time slot for picking the leafs for Maywine; I will have to learn more about it until next year. Marlene expressed her wish to have an own garden. So we moves the big planter from the front of the house (where it is dark and nothing grows) to the back. She got to pick flowers for it and she gets to care for it. So far one impatient fell victim to the squirrels but the rest is doing fine. The last 2 pictures show the progress and we will keep you updated.

Sunny Mother's Day in Seattle

Happy Mother's Day! Today was a beautiful Sunday in Seattle with record breaking temperatures. Yesterday we had gotten the pool out and cleaned it. So today was the first time this year the kids could get into the water. Even thou we started the water in the morning, it was still a little chilly in the afternoon. This did not hold back any of them. Marlene spent the whole afternoon in the pool and Amelia would have if we would have let her. This will be a difficult summer keeping her in check, because she is magically drawn to water. We celebrated as well today her first tooth. While we thought the first one would be the top right incisor, it was the bottom one. When I fed her today, the spoon suddenly made a clunking sound. She had lived of vitamin T(ylenol) the last few days, because all of a sudden the teeth start showing. We just never noticed the bottom one that actually came out.

Picknick at Carkeek Park

With Jason out of town I have been trying to have more on the program everyday to fill the day. Luckily the weather has been great. We had high 60's and 70's. So yesterday we decided to have a Picknick lunch at Carkeek Park. And we were not the only ones who had this glorious idea. Many moms with preschool children and babies were there for the same reason. First we walked down to the beach. this turned out a difficult endeavor, since Amelia is very obsessed with water and constantly tried to reach any body of water. I had hoped she would just sit in the sand and play with shells, but she wanted more action. There is the Sound, very cold and scary, and there is a little (5 feet wide and 2 inches deep) stream that flows into the Sound. So I constantly had to hold on to the protesting Amelia while helping Marlene built a sandcastle. On one of her many trips to get more "building water", Marlene actually fell in. So now I had two wet children, and I decided it was time to leave the beach. I guess it is impossible to go alone with both of them to the beach. Up on the lawn by the playground Marlene got partially undresses and we laid her clothes out to dry (yes, I did not bring any extras). All three of us enjoyed the outdoor lunch very much. Then it was time to play at the playground. Unfortunately it was quite busy and we had to wait for the swings. A situation not improved by the fact that Amelia was overdue for her nap. Marlene went on the big salmon slide and we ended on the big teeter-totter. Here Amelia tried to bite the handle with the result, that she got hit in her gums pretty hard. I hoped this would produce a tooths, but now we have blue swollen gums. We had a lot of fun, it was a beautiful day at the beach and Amelia is learning to wear a sun hat.