School is out!

Finally school is out. It is still cold and we have not had a summer to speak of but at least no more school! Last week we went to Carkeek Park and the beach for a day. I love being down there at a low tide. We have been seeing far less creatures at the beach this year. I guess since it was so cold the algae has grown less which means less cover and protection for the animals and as a result less creatures in the tide pools.

Then we went strawberry picking with Jen and Zoey up in Watcom County. It has been 30 years since I last picked strawberries and this was epic. The berries came with a snap of the bush and were at their absolute prime. I wanted to pick Shuksan since their are a little tarter and high in pectin which makes them ideal for jam. Oh yes, canning season has started.

This week the girls did their first set of camps. In the morning both of them went to "Camp Galaxy" at Wedgwood Presbyterian. Marlene did not want to go this year but by the end of the week she had to admit that she had a lot of fun. Amelia was excited 24/7. In the afternoon Marlene had an additional camp. It was a softball special skill camp. She practiced the catcher position. Off course they worked on hitting and pitching, too.

And then 4th of July came. It was a typical miserable cold and wet Northwestern one. We celebrated with friends in Tacoma. The girls had fun with setting off little fire crackers and running around with the other kids. I was confined to a chair since I had rolled my ankle the day before and was barely able to walk. I hope it will not take too long to heal since I will be doing a lot of walking in Germany.

Happy Summer everyone!

The last part of the school year

For Marlene the end of school has become a well known regular thing. There is Beach Day and Field Day, there is the Kindergarten Musical and the Egg Drop and several other things. I have to say that I took very few pictures this year, because it has become so much part of the routine. The big thing for kids in Marlene's class has been "Super Mario Brothers". Marlene has not only been playing the game on the DS and Wii, but she has been reading books, drawing the characters and even make models out of Lego.

Amelia celebrated the end of her Preschool time. There were several events like the Mother's Day luncheon, the Auction, Fathers Day visits and more. While she is very excited to finally start at Rogers she is sad to not see her preschool friends anymore. I tried not to foster any of these friendships since all these kids are in the Shoreline school district and it would be really hard to maintain these friendships. We hope that her friend Stella might join us next year at German School. Besides preschool Amelia did swimming and ballet. She loves being in the water but she is done with dancing. Here are the few photos I took this spring.

Baseball

The baseball season has come and gone this year and I finally get around to posting some pictures. Both girls played this year. Amelia is doing t-ball at RUG league and her team was the "Sharks". She was disappointed not to be on the Orcas or Piranhas which were Marlene's old teams, but she got over it. Her friend Allie was on the same team which helped with the motivation. I think Amelia wants to play because Marlene is playing. She did pretty good hitting and catching. After watching her sister for years she kind of has an idea what is going on. A lot of the kids on her team don't have that.

Marlene played coach pitched softball this year. This means she was on an all girls team. She got shifted to the Northeast Seattle little league that has a lot of girls teams since RUG has not many girls. She played with girls two years younger than herself which on the one hand did not challenge her, but on the other hand gave her confidence since she was the star of the team. She hit very well and made good plays. The team was called the "Softball Fairies" which definitely did not appeal to her. This summer Marlene participated in a special skills softball camp. She is very interested in the catchers position. I hope we can carry this enthusiasm all the way to next season.

As a parent having both girls play was quite challenging. Some weeks we had four games on four different days. Other weeks we had two games on the same day and time so we had to split up. The weather was not too miserable this year. Only a few rain outs and rain games, some days were actually quite pleasant with sunshine and a mild breeze.

In April we got to go with other families from school to a Mariners game. It was a school appreciation day and schools could purchase tickets cheap. About 150 people from John Rogers came. The kids had a fun time hanging out with their friends and watching the game.

Karin's Garden continued

I have mentioned in a previous blog that I have been working on my garden a lot this spring. In fall I had converted some grass areas into more beds. It has been a while since I have been writing and I have to say the garden has been doing well. After a warm start into the spring it has been relatively cold and wet. My potatoes are ready for harvest. We had a ton of salad. The brussel sprouts did not work at all and I will have to try in the colder season. We did not have many raspberries this year since last summer was so hot and dry that we did not get many new shoots. But the tomatoes are doing great. They are full and green and have a ton of flowers. I hope for an actual crop this year.

We are trying the "three sisters" in a pot. The beans and squash seem to do fine, but the corn is still behind. I ended up with a lot of zucchini plants since we are having a zucchini growing contest at church. With 4 plants I am starting to be scared. We will see. The pear tree is doing great this year, so is the apple tree, but we only seem to have one or two quince this year. The peach tree is producing its first fruit (only one) and we had one cherry that escaped the birds. The beans were difficult since they got eaten by the slugs faster than I could plant them. I finally had to start them inside and later replant. We will see how that goes. It has been fun to see some of this stuff grow. The brussel sprouts were impressive. Then I had for the first time sweet peas with purple flowers and my neighbor gave me onions that set fruit on the top at the flower. This looks amazing.

I will give a full report later in fall.