A few cute shots

Spring is quickly becoming summer here in the Pacific Northwest. Ela loves the change of seasons because it almost always means staying up a little bit later to play outside with our neighborhood friends and visiting with our neighbors. Meanwhile, the general busy-ness of summer means Mama does a poor job of keeping the blog updated. We finally downloaded pictures of our latest adventures. Enjoy!

Weekend getaway

After our exciting weekend seeing the tulips, Mama and Daddy and Miss Carmela went on a short weekend vacation to Lopez Island! One of Mama's law school professors retired there, and he invited the family to stay at the guest cabin. Miss Ela June was so excited about going on vacation to Lopez Island, and told her friends at preschool for that she was going!

On Friday, Daddy picked Ela up from preschool early. When Mama got home early from work, we all piled into the car and drove north. It was a really long drive, so Ela decided to go ahead and have her nap in the car. Miss Ela was awake by the time we got in the ferry line, and it was a good thing Daddy brought road trip snacks. We three had some snack and watched the ferry boats come and go until it was time to drive our car onto the ferry. After a really fun ferry ride, we drove off the boat onto the island and to the cabin. For the next two days, we ate, hiked, and visited with each other. It was cold, rainy, and windy, windy, windy, but we saw some really neat things and enjoyed our island visit. Ela was disappointed to leave, but we've started planning our trip back. After our second (or third) visit to the bakery (cinnamon rolls, Parmesan pesto croissants, almond butterhorns, coffee) and a swing through the bookstore (Dead Man's Clothes: The Bum Camp of Tolt, Washington), we headed out to one more park and then got into the ferry line for the ferry ride home. We had a road trip snack on the long road trip home and then a tuckered Miss Ela June fell fast asleep for the whole trip home. (That seems to happen a lot.)

On our first afternoon on Lopez Island, we walked down the road from the cabin to Agate Beach. It was very picturesque because of the incredible amount of wind coming off the ocean. We got to see a bald eagle soaring overhead, with a rainbow in the background. No kidding. It was pretty amazing. We also saw a few deer on our visit, and lots of sheep, cows, pigs, horses, and dogs.

Miss Ela June quietly looks at a story book at the cabin.

The lookout at Shark Reef. They're impossible to see in the picture, but there are sea lions sunning themselves on the fore-rocks. They barked and snorted at us, which Ela thought was hilarious. 

Ela and Daddy see a decommissioned cannon at Odlin State Park before getting in the ferry line home.

Playing in the sand at Odlin State Park.

Deer tracks in the sand at Odlin State Park.

Seaweed at Watmough Bight, a wonderfully secluded cove with smooth agate-y rocks and gentle lapping waves. We saw a weasel run across the beach!

More of Agate Beach. 

Tulip Festival 2013

We are very lucky to live in such a farm-y state. With strawberries in early summer (pretty soon!), all sorts of vegetables and farmers markets all summer, apples in late summer, and pumpkins in the fall, we are surrounded by good examples of where our food comes from and what farmers and farm equipment look like. For some reason, we just hadn't made it up to see the tulip festival, though. Mama's not sure why -- maybe because it can be very muddy, and fields and fields of flowers that you can't pick just seemed like a recipe for a meltdown. 

In any case, we finally went, and it was such fun! Oh sure, Carmela got muddy, muddy, muddy, but it was great fun, and she was an age that she understood not to pick the flowers in the fields. Even better, after the muddy fields, we got to go to the gardens, and they were beautiful! They were bursting with with colors and shapes, and there was even a windmill! Ela got to take a few pictures, and then we had a hot dog and some fudge. And, of course, we bought some cut tulips. It was so much fun that Miss Ela snoozed all the way home!

Beautiful gardens:

Muddy fields:

Muddy fields of tulips. Red, purple, red, and yellow.

Carmela shows how crazy the mud was!

So much mud.

Miss Carmela June. What a great kid!

Mama loves the way the light played on this row of tulips. Ela loved how there was one orange tulip in a row of purple.

Multi-colored orange and yellow.

The windmill on the garden side of the farm. Mama read somewhere that the family who owns and operates the farm is of Dutch origin, and used to grow and sell tulips in Holland in the 1700s. Today, the farm is owned and operated by the five Roozen brothers. They sell a bajillion tulips a year, and also have a bulb catalog a bajillion varieties of tulips, plus irises, daffodils, and hyacinths.

Fields of red tulips, with yellow in the background.

A beautiful mix of pinks and purple tulips and white daffodils, with some grape hyacinths in the back.

A gorgeous combination of parrot-colored apricot, lavender, and gray tulips with rock hyacinths.

Irish Festival

This was back in March -- St. Patrick's Day, of course -- so Mama has obviously fallen a bit behind on the blog. Ela and Mom had a great time visiting the Irish Festival! We saw some Irish dancing, listened to some Irish music, and colored some Irish-themed pictures. Then we went outside and saw the cool fountain. After nap, Mama made corned beef and cabbage. Ela decided she thought it was pretty delicious.

Mama and Ela watching the dancers. Ela is wearing her very cool four-leaf clover necklace (which Mama cut out of the picture). Mama is wearing her very cool blue and green plaid scarf.

The fountain!

Bowling

When Daddy had lots of time this time last year, he and Miss Carmela would go bowling together. Carmela loved going bowling with her Daddy, but now that Dad works weird shifts, and Ela has business to take care of at preschool every day, and she hasn't been able to go in awhile. So it was pretty exciting to get to go today. And Miss Carmela did great! Mama only beat her by one point!

Plus: Pizza. And soda. Boy does Carmela love soda!

Carmela goes into her eating pizza at the bowling alley stance.

Staying alive!

Getting the ball to the ramp. (Now might be a good time to point out that Mama forgot to bring the camera, so had to use the cell phone camera again. Sigh.)

Lifting the very heavy ball. So strong!

Carmela demonstrates her hit some pins dance.

Waiting by the ramp to see what she hit.

Artfulness

Mama remembers doing art projects all the time before Miss Carmela June started preschool. Now that she's in preschool and does art projects all the time (and with neater and more interesting supplies), Mama has a bit of a harder time getting Ela interested in painting at home. Every now and then, though, Ela will decide she wants to paint. Then we have new pictures to send to our friends in other countries! Yay!

A few more cute shots

Hanging out at home in our jammies. This has been the season of one cold after the other, so Miss Carmela June was probably under orders to sit on the couch and BE STILL, and get some rest.

Cute outfit day. As much as she loves her pink sparkly pom-pom headband, though, Miss Ela sure doesn't wear it for very long.

Silliness at the dinner table. Naturally.

Lots of activity!

Did we mention that Miss Carmela is a very physically active, energetic girl? If not, let us reiterate. Miss Carmela LOVES to be physically active. She hops, skips, and jumps to preschool in the morning and home in the afternoon. She races around the living and dining rooms, screaming, "You can't catch me!", and she loves to pull the couch cushions off the couch and leap from the couch to the cushions on the floor. She loves to jump over the "lava" wherever it may be found. Miss Carmela often will jump and jump and jump in place, and she likes to hop like a frog, donkey kick on the ground, and jump on her knees. Even as Mama writes this, she can hear Ela in the bathroom with Daddy hopping on one foot and playing hopscotch on the bathroom tiles.

Carmela loves gymnastics, but Mama and Daddy thought we might indulge her interest in another physical activity one night a week, especially during the long, dreary, dark, rainy winter. Mama and Daddy were able to find a ballet class one night a week, and there just happened to be one spot left.

Which brings us to an important point: Mama and Daddy got a new camera!! Hooray! We'll still figuring out all the bells and whistles, but hopefully this little blog will have much better photo quality very soon!

Meet the newest little ballerina:

Miss Carmela June, ballerina. Note the tutu and gold shoes.

Working on some floor exercises. Ela is not entirely sure what this has to do with ballet, but she's game to play along. (Mama and Daddy will be removing the time stamps as soon as they can figure out how.)

Flapping like a butterfly ...

... and more flapping like a butterfly.

Oooh! Ribbon dancing!!

We loved ribbon dancing the best (until we slipped on someone's spilled water and fell, SPLAT, on the floor). 

Trying somersaults with Daddy. We're already accustomed to somersaults from gymnastics, but we were a good sport about participating.

Plus a few more shots of gymnastics:

The ongoing problem of our hiney eating our leotard. (You can see the blurry effects of Mama and Daddy learning how to use the new camera.)

Carmela listens carefully to Coach Kirsti (especially after Mama and Daddy made her leave early a few lessons ago for not listening).

Carmela brings up the rear in a bear crawl race.

This one's a bit hard to see, but Ela and her classmates jumping on the runway trampoline.