Thursday, August 28, 2008

Kindergarten Preview

A couple of weeks ago, Mina enjoyed a week of mornings at swim camp. She had a blast. For Miles and i, this time was a preview of our upcoming life- bike trailer included! :)

Dinner Date at Idylwood Beach Park


Local Bounty

... Homemade pesto (made from garden-fresh basil), first-of-the-season tomatoes, cheese fresh from the Farmer's Market and olives on top of Rich's sourdough whole wheat baquette (made with grains from Bluebird Farm). Want to come for dinner?

Oh, we enjoyed it with a bottle from a new favourite winery, Whidbey Island Winery.

Grow Your Inner Tomato at Seattle Tilth

I LOVE Seattle Tilth! Flip through these MSN Healthy Living videos to find a profile of Seattle Tilth. Stll waiting for your tomatoes? Check out this bummer Tilth announcement. It has been a very weird growing season here!

Lisa Taylor, who is seen in the above video, has been leading the kid's classes in Issaquah. She's awesome, and she plays the ukulele! Here is Lisa showing us how to make sun tea!


Miles waiting for the "Tea for Me and the Bees "class to start. Mina was at swim camp when the two of us went to this gardening class. It was pretty sweet 1:1 time. We even had a lunch date at PCC before picking up Miss Mina.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Happy Friday!


Busy bakers Mina and Miles making tonight's pizza dough!

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Miles' First Summer Camp! Seattle Tilth!

It is raining on-and-off outside -restarting every time i try to head back outside. The weeds will just have to wait. The house is still quiet, so i'll blog about gardening instead.

The kids and i have been taking some great "summer camp" classes through the Seattle Tilth at the Pickering Barn. Similiar to the other classes that i have taken through the Tilth, these classes have been AWESOME! They have classes, for parent-tot as well as adults, going into fall. I've signed up for the bulk of them!
The FREE two hour classes are for children (and a parent) from ages 2-5. Our first class was all about "Fantastic Flowers" - this class included making/decorating seed packages, a sensory garden tour, stories with a snack, making art with the "rainbow" in the garden as well as a very helpful song on "two hand picking". The second class was "Getting Dirty!", where we helped turn over a bed, checked out the worm compost (aka worm poop), planted peas, planted spinach in a take-home pot, came home with a bunch of late summer seeds to plant, read more great books and sang some more fun gardening-related songs.

The gardens there are inspiring.


M&M with their pea plants and flower art.

Getting ready to check out the worm poop. Mina was quick to tell that we had a worm bin at home too, and she had no fear of searching through the worms and other friends. Miles was not so sure of all the critters and prefered Mamma to hold them for him.


This is the most elaborate rainbarrel hook-up that i've ever seen!

At the classes, they've read the following fun books:

Tops and Bottoms

Ten Seeds

Jamberry

Wonderful Worms

The Apple Tree

Friday, August 8, 2008

Camping Journal

I just finished blogging about the camping that we did back in June. I'm hoping to catch up on blogging before i get lost in the Olympics. If you want the last few entries to make a little more sense, go back to the earlier post or just keep scrolling down till you see the overalls again.

Good night!

Canoeing on Baker Lake

On our final day at Baker Lake, we rented a canoe for an hour. This was the first time that all four of us had been out on a canoe together. To keep Miles happy **and sitting**, we had to sing "Old MacDonald had a Farm" for about forty minutes of the hour long rental. It was pretty inspiring in terms of canoe trips down the road!


The boys who swam out to this driftwood were also a good distraction for Miles.

Of the whole trip, the best views of Mount Baker were from the canoe.

Popsicles for little people who did not flip the canoe, or fall out of it.

Shadow of the Sentinels

While in Mount Baker National Recreation Area, we took the nature walk along the Shadow of the Sentinels trail. Some of these trees are five hundred plus years old.




A dip to cool down after the walk...

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Panamora Point, Baker Lake

Our campsite at Panorama Point, Mount Baker National Recreational Area.





The nightly entertainment, Ms. Piggy Dance and her dedicated sidekick, Copycat.



Naptime