Some Sunny Days

We had a bunch of sunny days this week, which meant we could go outside and we didn't have to resort to playing with the trash can.  Which is fun and all, but you know, if there are other options . . .

 I wanted to find a spot to enjoy a good panorama of the entire Olympic range to celebrate the sun.  Panoramic views are definitely one of the top 3 things I miss about Utah.  In my hiking book Drew got me for Christmas, it said the Plummer Trail on Green Mountain had some awesome views since it is a logging area and some of the beautiful, view-blocking trees have recently been put to other uses.  I figured we only needed to go about a mile to get to a place where we could see, which seemed like it could be manageable without Drew (who was on duty) so after Annie woke up from her nap, away we went.

Just because it is sunny does not mean it is warm.  And just because it is sunny when you leave in the afternoon, does not mean it will stay sunny for the duration of your evening hike.  I think we made it to the turnoff for the Plummer Trail before I was too worried about blue lips and cold fingers and getting caught in the dark to continue.  So, we had a nice little drive out to the middle of nowhere to go for a walk in a forest that looks uncannily like the one right behind our neighborhood.  But, there was a cool half-frozen river that had water seeping under the ice that was fun to watch for awhile.  And we did see some unique ice crystals on the trail.

 Vivien demonstrates, sporting her new hiking boots that had to be purchased in the boys section, because the closest thing to hiking boots they had in the girls section were glittery high tops.  I find the selection of girls pants similarly dissatisfying--leggings are cute, but they are not usually very warm or durable.

The next sunny day we decided to play it safe and go to Scenic Beach Park where we knew we would have an accessible view.  And Drew got to come with us, so that was more fun anyway.

Nobody would hold still for pictures except Annie. So I just took videos of them instead.  I love to watch them explore.    

We got a fish this week.  He is a Crown Tail Betta and his name is Sassafras.

We have been enjoying watching him swim around, but he is proving to be a rather picky eater.  I shall have to go back to the pet store and try another kind of food, or I'm afraid he shan't be with us long.

 I had a wonderful surprise this weekend.  Drew was on duty Saturday (AGAIN) and we were trying to figure out what to do with our Daddy-less day when I got a call from my cousin AJ.  He was in Seattle for work and wanted to get together with us and with my cousin Stephen who lives over on that side of the Sound.  We took the ferry over from Bainbridge Island, along with a slew of Seahawks fans decked out in blue and green from head to foot for the game that night.  They went one way, and we went the other to walk along the Seattle waterfront.

  

 We were kind of early for our meeting so we stopped in Ye Olde Curiosity Shop.  It is deserving of the name.  Vivien spent most of her time gawking at the human remains (??) they have displayed in a case at the back, which included a collection of real shrunken heads and three mummies.  Rafe spent a good 10 minutes admiring a spinning model of a TIE fighter and an X wing made out of spare metal parts.  I was sorely tempted to buy it, but it was $50 and then I would have had to carry it.

  

We met AJ and Stephen at Red Robin.  I seriously have the best cousins.  I don't get to see them nearly as often as I'd like, but it was wonderful to catch up and talk.  They are the salt of the earth!  I didn't grab a picture with them--it was a moment that needed to be soaked up to its fullest.  They walked us back to the ferry after dinner and we exchanged hugs all around and said au revoir.

I was in such a good mood after spending the evening with my cousins that our ride home on the ferry was thoroughly enjoyable.  Nobody fought and nobody cried.  We just wandered the ferry and enjoyed the views of the skyline.

We even avoided fighting about the vending machine.  The kids wanted to buy something so I got out their coin purses and told them what they could afford.  Rafe didn't have enough to buy anything, but he didn't throw a big fit.  Vivien shared most of the treat she got with Rafe and Annie (I think it's because she was mislead by the wrapper and thought it was something different, but she similarly didn't throw a fit and decided to feel happy about being able to share with her siblings).  Everyone was SO nice to each other that at the end of our ride a woman came up and told me how much she had enjoyed watching my children and that she was adding me to her list of people who are born to be mothers.  I assured her that it was just a good day, but it was nice to hear all the same.

  

Some things that need to be remembered:

Rafe is proving to be a little boy through and through (despite the dressing up in his sister's clothes that is frequently documented here) with an undeniable preference for body-related humor.  When Annie burps at the table now, she looks up at him with bright expectant eyes because she knows he will laugh.  One of his favorite hobbies is to twist words around so they sound funny, but lately they've been devolving into combinations with words we have deemed inappropriate for the dinner table.  He was playing around at dinner tonight with the word "cilantro."  Here's how it went.  "Cilanpoop.  Cilantoot."  "Buddy, we don't say those words at the table."  "No Mom, I said 'cilan . . . kook."  Riiiiight.

I was teaching my Sunday School class today and one of the 16 year old boys didn't have their scriptures with them so I let him use my phone for one of our in-the-scriptures activities.  When it was time to give it back he started flipping through the home screens and said, "Why don't you have any games on your phone?  Seriously, there's not a single game on the whole thing."  I laughed and said, "Because I have children, and I play games with them."  The whole class looked at me with this look of confusion on their faces, and the boy said, ". . . but you don't have any games on your phone."  And then I realized our misunderstanding.  "Ah.  No, I play games with them so I don't have time to play games on my phone.  You see, there's this thing called interpersonal interaction that actually doesn't require phones at all.  You should try it sometime!"  There was general chuckling, but the boy kind of shook his head, and told the rest of the class how my phone was just like an organizational tool or something.  "There's all this stuff in the calendar and all the apps are organized and useful . . ." at which point I snatched it back, feeling not quite comfortable with him opening and reading my calendar.  Such different challenges for this generation!

Vivien didn't get to sit where she wanted at breakfast the other day and threw an impressively annoying tantrum.  She was wah-wah crying in front of the oven and I told her she either needed to stop crying and come eat her cereal or go up to her room and finish crying there.  She screamed back, "WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"  I was momentarily floored; I feel like she's a little young to start saying that to her dumb mom who doesn't know anything.  But I know she was upset because she would prefer to sit wherever she has experienced her disappointment and punish us for not giving her her way by crying like a 2 year old for 15 minutes until we either give in or she's forgotten what made her mad in the first place instead of having to learn how to control her emotions.  We've been working on this for a long time.  Obviously, I am not teaching her the skills she needs effectively.  So I took a breath and tried to figure out how I could teach it differently, and I had "bridle your passions" pop into my head.  So, while she sat on the floor in front of the oven and blubbered I told her about riding horses and how we use a bridle to tell the horse where we want it to go.  I told her how scary it is to ride a horse when you don't have any way to control it (which I know because once when we were in the Tetons we snuck across the street from the cabins where we stay and tried to ride the horses they use for tours that were standing next to the fence bareback.  It didn't end well), but if the horse is wearing a bridle, you can tell the horse what direction to go or when he needs to slow down.  I told her that when you first learn to ride a horse, or when you ride an unfamiliar horse, it can still be really hard to control where it goes and how fast, even when you have a bridle, and that's why we need to practice.  Then we talked about how our emotions are like wild horses, and yes, it does work to just wait until the emotion goes away, like hanging on for dear life to stay on a horse until it decides to stop running, but it's better if we can learn to "bridle" our emotions.  We still feel them, just like we still get to ride the horse when it's bridled, we just have more control over what happens.  I looked up the scripture later (Alma 38:12), and it's even better because when we bridle our passions we can then be filled with love.  I don't know if this imagery will help Vivien learn to manage her big emotions better, but I sure needed the reminder to bridle my irritation when my kids can't figure something out so I can be filled with the love I need to actually teach them.  I love the scriptures, and I am grateful for the influence of the Holy Ghost in my life that brings things to my remembrance when I need them most.

And to finish, Annie's happy eating dance: