July turns into August

As July has turned into August we have kept busy.  Most of our time is spent out in the yard working on various projects and the everyday upkeep. We also make sure to set aside plenty of time to relax, play, and visit with friends.

Erik's best friend Alvin was nice enough to lend us his hammock.  I haven't been able to spend as much time relaxing in it as I would have liked to, but I managed to kick my feet up here and there.  There is no better way to spend a sunny day than swinging in a hammock eating a cupcake.  Yum!

The kids have also spent a lot of time helping and playing out in the yard.  Cairo has one gnome adventure after another, plays king and princess in her castle (swing set), and tries some very daring moves on her steep, fast slide... like going down in the sitting position back first.  Boy did she fly!  One of the kids' favorite pastimes, though, is digging in the pea gravel.  Plastic buckets and shovels are permanent fixtures outside our greenhouse, always ready to be filled with gravel.   The pea gravel is nice because it keeps them from getting too dirty and it is fairly easy to clean up.

Jonah occasionally gets bored with the gravel and moves over to the planter beds.  He quickly manages to layer himself with dirt, throws handfuls of the gravel into the dirt (just where we don't want it), and then picks the leaves and flowers off of the plants.  He also tries to taste test EVERYTHING.  There is no leaving that boy alone.  He decided to taste test the nasturtiums yesterday and we jut decided to let him go for it, they're edible.  He beelines for the blueberry bushes when left unmanned and starts picking and eating all the berries he can, ripe or not.  Maybe next summer he will be advanced and experienced enough that he doesn't need to put his tongue on everything... and that includes the dogs!
 
When the kids aren't out in the yard, they are in the house causing a ruckus.  Jonah loves to get into all of Cairo's stuff... especially her kitchen and paper money.  Cairo on the other hand is doing everything she can to earn a treat, her new favorite word.  "I've been good mommy, can I have a treat?" or "I stayed in bed, can I have a treat?" or "I shared with Jonah, can I have a treat?"  It seems that anything Cairo does these days deserves a treat... at least that is how Cairo sees it.  It was Cairo's lucky day one afternoon when Daddy let her lick the bowl of whipping cream he made to put on a plum cake. 

To avoid things getting to monotonous, we've adventured out to the park and nearby nature trails a few times.  Jonah, Cairo, and I hung out at Redwood Park... well, at least Cairo and Jonah hung out.  Mei came over to play with us one day and we went out on a nice long walk to find thimble berries.  Unfortunately, the only thimble berries we found were too far back in lush vegetation to get.  Katie and I took Jonah and Lili out to the same trail a few days prior to that.

We've also had some good use of our halfway finished fire pit (I was going to finish it this summer, but I just never got around to it... next summer....).  We've roasted hot hogs over the fire and lots of marshmallows for 'Smores.  Yum! My favorite summertime dessert!  Katie and Alvin had some fun throwing marshmallows back and forth at each other.  Such kids.

One of the projects we (as in Erik, only) undertook this summer was fencing in a portion of our backyard.  The deer LOVE to eat all of our tasty flowers and we were tired of putting netting around all of our planters.  It made it hard to get to the flowers to weed and the flowers get constantly caught up in the netting.  Our yard stretches up a steep hill.  The hill goes up steeply (mostly grassy), flattens out into a nice grassy plateau, and then steeply rises again (this part is covered in trees).  We fenced in all the way to the back of the plateau and left the tree covered part of the hill alone.  The hill is loaded with deer trails and we didn't want to completely cut off their trails.  An eight foot high or so fence was needed to keep the deer out... and that meant lots of poles were needed to hold the fence up.  Erik and his dad quickly dug 24 holes using an auger (kind of like a big dirt drill).  It was much easier on the back and it took only a fraction of the time.