School Starts

Wren had his first day of school this week. 5th Grade. Getting older, more mature, and taking awesome responsibility. We are so proud of him. Here he is with his walking buddies from the neighborhood headed down the street to school on Day 2. (Forgot the camera on Day 1, silly me.)

He walks to school with 3 girls, lucky Wren. They are Rachel (5th grade and lives just around the corner), Lulu (4th grade and next door neighbor) and Melody (4th grade and part of the family who will be leaving this fall on the sailing trip). Lulu's brother, Henry, is in 6th grade and has to leave a little be earlier so he can make it over to the middle school on time.


Wren has a great teacher, Mr. Crouter. We met him during the Open house/Watermelon feed. We are very happy with his school.

As Wren starts school, Dakota is going to Kid's Place. A wonderful pre-school right next to Stuart's office. He goes 3 mornings a week giving him a chance to make friends and giving me a chance to breathe. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and every afternoon, he and I get to hang out, play, go to the library and enjoy some beautiful time together. I will have to take some pictures of our time. I am guessing we will do some great art, bake, garden, make shadow boxes, storytelling and play. I am really enjoying Dakota's stories. Yesterday he told me one that he had heard from Wren with his own sweet twist. Here it is dictated word for word.

"Rain is dinosaur pee. When dinosaurs are alive, they pee on the ground. And when they go extincto, the pea washes all up to the clouds and spits up into the clouds. And when people are alive, the clouds spit it down on to the people. That's why it's yellow pee when it rains."

I think that when a science teacher, either myself or my friend Laura Federico, taught Wren about the water cycle we were explaining that the water that is around today is the same water that was around when the dinosaurs were around. So...water today is dinosaur pee from millions of years ago....

Harris Park, Blueberries and a Salmon

We headed south this weekend to a Milton-Freewater, a little town in Oregon about 10 miles south of Walla Walla. Just out of town along the Walla Walla River about a mile is an amazing Pick-Your-Own Blueberry Farm. They average about 70,000 pounds of blueberries picked each season...Yes really 70,000 pounds. On Saturday when we picked, they had 750 pounds leave the property between 6AM and noon. We landed about 21 pounds or about 5 gallons.


Here is Dakota picking blueberries. He is a very decisive picker, picking only the biggest, ripest ones. So his bucket was full of big juicy sweet berries. Wren was also an amazing picker being decisive on quality as well. Stuart and I were a bit more for quantity but ended up with a few more less-ripe berries in our buckets.



After blueberries, we headed up river to Harris Park. This park is a linear park along the Walla Walla River. We parked, grabbed lunch and swimsuits and hiked up river at a nice pace. We did manage to cross the very cold river twice before realizing that a side trail avoided the crossings. Though I have to say Wren did a fabulous job crossing the swift stream. The hardest part to deal with was the temperature. By the time we were across our feet were definitely cold enough to be a bit painful. Though all was well after a few moments in the hot sun.

We found a lovely picnic spot by the river. After sitting a while, Wren shouts with pure excitement, "Look at that fish." We all look out at the river where he is pointing and see a golden fish about a foot long. Big, but not huge. We look and say that is a big fish. "No, that's not the one I am talking about. The one I saw was WAY bigger." We nod and watch the fish that we can see. But then all of a sudden a REALLY BIG fish comes into view. It was 2 1/2 -3 feet long. The two fish were surfing a wave right in front of us, maybe 5 feet out into the river. And they surfed that wave for at least 10 minutes while we sat and watched. They finally left after we had taken a ton of photos and we tried to get Stuart out there for scale. We wanted the scale because of course fish grow in stories. We are pretty sure it was a salmon but will have that verified by a local at some point soon. See below....

In this first photo you can just see the golden fish behind the salmon.
In this photo you can see the whole salmon, head to tail. AMAZING.

This photo is here to offer some perspective on the size of fish. The wave that the fish is surfing is just above my head in this picture. Should have had Stuart walk out and just put his hands in where the fish was at least. Oh well, y'all will just have to believe us on the size.

This is the photo that shows the beauty of the setting we were sitting in. So lovely.

Dakota and Stuart looking upstream. (Confession: I told them to look upstream at the bear because Dakota was hiding from the camera...now we had been playing make believe about seeing bears in the woods during our hike, a game initiated by Dakota so I was just playing along but it was definitely to get a good photo)
Wren the perpetual naturalist/investigator found this interesting vegetation, so I asked him to show it to me. He happily obliged.

Farmer's Market Day

Our Farmer's Market is wonderful. I think we live in a local food mecca. Here are some shots from our adventure today. We headed out on bikes. On our way we stopped at the local bakery which uses local (Walla Walla) when possible and if not regional (Eastern Oregon and Washington) wheat for all it's bread. And then headed down to the market.


This is the boys out side the Walla Walla Bread Company (Dakota in the green trailer behind Stuart).
Wren and Stuart picking out veggies!


Some of the wonderful flowers!


Dakota helped me pick out the thyme plant from this plant farmer.


Wren enjoying the flowers!

Around Town Adventures

Stuart headed off for the Salmon River again to teach the "Scrambles" Training. A wonderful trip that was full of teaching and wonderful sandy beaches.


While Stuart was away, we continued to explore Walla Walla finding many wonderful places. Here is our public library. An 8 minute bike ride with the boys from our house. They have a wonderful children's section.

You can just see the boys behind the sign, in the shade, on the grass.


Here is Wren holding his favorite find, original Superman comics, in front of the wonderful sculpture. Walla Wall has an amazing amount of public art and this piece is quite fabulous. It sits just in front of the library.
Whitman Soccer Camp for "Little Strikers" started on Monday for Dakota who was excited to go. He took a while warming up to all the new folks but by the end of the week had made friends with the coaches and a good buddy who also goes to his school, Kid's Place. Wren's Soccer Camp started on Wednesday. He had a blast!!!!

Dakota going after the ball.

Dakota just after a big score: it might be hard to see but he is throwing a fist in the air to celebrate.

Dakota's new Buddy: GUS. Giving each other a high five! Gus invited Dakota over for a play date later in the week and they had a good time playing. Wren going for a big kick!


One day after soccer, while Wren was over playing with the neighbors, Dakota got out the finger paints and decided to have some fun! This fabulous Tummy Painting was the end result. We headed from here directly to a warm bath which turned purple from all the paint!



On Thursday Stuart surprised us, telling us to be prepared after soccer camp with a packed lunch, bathing suits and ready for fun. He took us down to Milton-Freewater, the next town south of here and in Oregon where they have a water park. FUN, FUN, FUN for all!





On Friday Night we got a babysitter and headed out to join a wonderful tradition: The Great Oak Film Festival. An amazing couple in town takes the time to put together a compilation of great short films. Another family hosts the event which is potluck. Everyone brings chairs, food, drink and no kids. We eat together and then as soon as it gets dark the movies begin. What a great time! This festival happens 2 or 3 times throughout the summer and it is AWESOME! You can see the leftovers from the feasting in the foreground of this first photo.




This second photo is an amazing shot with the big dipper in the sky!

Exploring Walla Walla

To simplify: easy to think about...more difficult to accomplish. One must be intentional and deliberate. Find the important things and give them your attention. Wash away the clutter and leave only those simple pieces of goodness. Today was a day of finding simple pieces of goodness. Playing with my boys. Giving them attention, finding joy in their play and value in their ideas. Slowing down and intentionally not rushing through life no matter what the task.



I vowed today to take pictures of all our adventures and with the the help of our landlord's iphone we were able to do so... We started our day in the garden. We have lucked out on the garden and inherited some great veggies plus we have planted some things from the farmers market.

Great squash plants. 1 zuccini and 1 yellow crookneck.


Baby Watermelon: about the size of a lime. (I will continue to post as it grows.)



Next we headed to the Children's Museum of Walla Walla. A great adventure for us newbies in town. It is built in a big house with each room having a different theme. Small but well done.

Dakota in the imaginative play area being a fierce alligator.

Wren and Dakota exploring water dynamics, locks and dams, and fishing with magnets.

Outside there are a number of great play structures including a teepee, a real fire truck and a boat.

Wren being peaceful in the teepee.

Dakota on the firetruck holding this great metal dog sculpture.


Boys in boat! Love this picture.


Then we ended our day with a trip to the Walla Walla Sweets Game. We have a summer team here of college players who are hosted by families and play in a regional league. I am still exploring it's origin but the game is good. And tonight was a beautiful night for being out and watching the game. We joined up with our neighbor/landlords who are great folks and had a great evening of fun. They have lived here 15 years and had never been to a game. Funny the way things go. I had forgot our camera...arg but to my great delight, we were able to use their iphone to capture a few choice images.

Me and D enjoying ourselves.


Wren and Ray enjoying themselves. Clearly making friends is going well for Wren. Yeah!



As the game got started the full moon rose in the east. A beautiful sight over the outfield. And to our delight the Sweets won in a game full of runs: 9 to 4. The game was active. The kind of game I like to watch. Lots of hits, scores, and plenty of base stealing. ACTION! I kind of feel that in major league baseball there is not as much action as here in the summer league. Maybe it's because everyone is so good they don't take as many chances to mess up, I am not sure. But for me, the unseasoned baseball watcher, the lesser leagues have more ACTION and therefore more times for me to get excited and therefore more FUN for me to watch. But as I say I am the unseasoned baseball watcher....


Simple Pleasure. Simple Living. Simply Life.

Settling in to Walla Walla

When we arrived in Walla Walla, we were given the living room, dining room and garage to store all our stuff. So out of the U-haul and into the house and garage. Here are all the boxes stacked in the house neatly waiting our return from the beach. Notice the beds are the most accessible so that when we arrived back in town we could go right to bed after our long day of flying from Jacksonville.



Unpacking, unpacking, unpacking....as we settle in to our new home things beginning to find their place. The garage has become the catch all for empty boxes and those boxes quickly became a glorious fort as you can see in this photo. The boxes straight ahead are the fort.


Our dryer is not working right now but lucky for us the clothes dry on the line faster than they dry in the dryer so here I am setting up the clothes line. Plus the energy savings are fantastic! This is also a picture off our back porch down into the yard and the wonderful play structure.

The boys room is nearly set up. I need something to go either between their beds or 2 bedside tables for reading lights, water bottles and books. Still looking for what will work best there.


This is their play room with all their toys and their tables/desks. We clearly still have some putting away and unpacking in this room but it is coming along nicely and very user friendly for the boys. They are really enjoying listening to their audio books and reading as well as legos and blocks.




The living room has been emptied of all the boxes and is coming along. It needs art which has not been unpacked yet.



To add a little regularity to our lives and meet some folks, we signed Dakota up for swim lessons for two weeks. We have finished the first week and start the second tomorrow. We will do some soccer camp the following week for both the boys.



While we all work on settling into the house, Stuart has also started his new job at Whitman College as the assistant director of the outdoor program called the "OP". Already he has run the Lower Salmon River with two other OP staff members, getting ready for a big training trip coming up this week. This is the busiest time of year for the OP as they are getting ready to send 19 Scrambles into the field next week. A Scramble is a 8-day orientation offered to freshman in a wilderness setting. So the preparation work which falls on the OP staff is quite intense to say the least. The great benefit for Stuart is that he is getting to run the Lower Salmon River twice in the first month of work. Here are a couple of photos of the run he did last weekend. They did a super fast run, 64 miles in 2 1/2 days.