Outside of the grocery store was a monster pumpkin with three heads carved into it. Here are two of them.

Time for us to go. We’re heading over to the first gymnastics meet of the season. Simone is uncertain about it. She says she can’t remember her routine and doesn’t want to go. I pack everyone into the van and say we might as well drive over there and root for the rest of her team.
Turned out just fine. In fact, as we were walking out, Simone said, “I want to do that again. It was awesome.”
Just read on Truth-out that in both Utrecht and Copenhagen Driver’s Education has been replaced with Biker’s Education. In the 3rd and 9th grade, kids learn cyclist traffic laws, bike etiquette, agility on two wheels and safe ways to commute.
In the picture above Simone might be doing a bit more singing then pedaling? This is the new riding equipment we picked up on the search for an interesting reptile. Somehow the reptile search did not result in a reptile pet but we did stumble upon horses and acquire this handy trail along at a garage sale. Inside the yellow sidecar, Naomi is out cold. The nap is warranted as we are at the Magnolia Seafair parade and took full advantage of the pony rides, little train and inflatables.
If you like to ride with your kids as much as David and I do, then jump onto the kidical mass website created by Dr. Julian Davies. Julian is dad to Drew and Luc, wife to Kimberly Hartley, pediatrician to Naomi. AND he has a sideline. He orchestrates wildly fun family rides throughout the year and delivers a comprehensive overview on family biking on his totycle website. Often these kidical mass rides start at Ballard Commons and head South along the canal to Gas Works park where a gelato bike, pizza bike and other goodies await. Below are images from some of those rides.
Banshee Bungee
BedRock Hotels
BuiltBurger
Cloudpak
Daddy-O Productions, Inc.
Emergent Detection
Enroute Systems Corporation
FiatLux Imaging, Inc.
Flux Drive, Inc.
Harbor Wing Technologies
Hydrovolts
IMOS
Indie Vinos, Inc.
Mobile On Services
Moprise, Inc.
NanoICE, Inc.
Open Mobile Solutions, Inc.
Orbiter LLC
Vioguard LLC
Wine Valet, Inc.
And the winners were… Banshee Bungee and NanoIce. Exciting!
Naomi is sitting on teacher Judith Hart’s left in a red shirt and ponytails. Next to her is Annabel in fuscia. This is the Pre-School class at Evergreen with Judith Hart and assistant teacher Melissa Norby. Simone had Judith back in 2008. Here is an older post where Simone’s PS class went fishing at Twin Ponds on crazy hair day. Judith often takes the class into the woods and on this first day of school they went to search for a fairy house in the woods and found one at the base of an old growth tree. They each left a present there. They’ll return in a few days and find pencils that the fairies left for them.
Simone and Naomi have been pals for a couple years. In 2009, they went to Global Gardens PreSchool every Thursday and Friday morning. Above is a picture of their last day there. It was June 17th, 2010.
Claudette and Susan arrived in Seattle with a purpose.They wanted to visit the Sea Otters.
The divers talk via speakers to the kids and answer questions. We learned that the glass is about 12 inches thick.
One of the fun things you can do at EMP is create a rock band and karaoke style, tape a song in front of a faux screen of an eager audience. Claudette on the keys, Simone on drums, Susan on guitar, David as lead singer and Naomi with me on back-up. It is set up so that you can’t actually hit the wrong notes.
After the ducky tour, Susan, Naomi and I went to see the Freemont Troll. He lives under the Aurora Bridge and holds a real Volkswagen bug in his hand.
At one point during our visit, we started talking about gardens and growing pumpkins. I shared that we had tried for three years to grow pumpkins on our office decks with no luck. Lots of flowers but no fruit. It dawned on her that our decks are 7 and 22 stories up and perhaps not frequented by pollinators. She suggested that Naomi and Simone try using a paint brush to pollenate.
Success. We have pumpkins and squash aplenty!
We’re in Santa Cruz visiting our good friends Kristin, Eric and Zoe.
Simone deep into the work of creating a sand castle city. Each day we dressed the tops of our castles with sand crabs and then added seaweed to protect them from the hot sun.
Even after twelve years, I experience a tummy flip when I look down the dizzy slope of the pyramid. Are we spinning?
As we share our ambitions for Mad Cap, we enjoy the Puget Sound.
Mad Cap is the name we’ve given the new house Monica has rented and sublet to Debbie, Catherine and I. We are all Evergreen moms working on Internet projects and the house is a block from the school enabling us to work nearby, walk over at pick-up and then let the kids hang-out at the house while we cram in another hour or so of computer time. The name Mad Cap came from our initials.
The salad was particularly good. It was a mix of argula, mash and baby greens. Threw in some raspberries, spicy-sweet pecans, goat cheese and a splash of raspberry wasabi dressing. Even the kids liked it.
On a hot day, this fountain is our favorite. We yell our hearts out at first trying not to get wet and then once drenched, we squeal with delight as we up the ante and try to tag the dome. Afterwards we enjoy the hot stone benches and summer sun.
More water to play with at the Science Museum.
Every now and then we have waited outside for the Science Museum to open and then found ourselves some of the last folks to be ushered out at the end of the day. We actually find that much to do there. (Of course we also clock hours at the Children’s Museum, EMP and the two fountains.)
There is a proposal for a Chihuly Museum at Seattle Center and we would LOVE that!
Naomi, “Mom, I’m a bad guy with a shooter thing charging through the forest on my super big horse.”
Where does she get this stuff? This is at the Bamboo forest near EMP.
If you look closely you will see Naomi and her new friend on the far right hanging out talking and to the left of them is Simone directing an ad hoc performance on the great whale outside of Key Arena.
Lorraine Monick invited Naomi and I over to her house for a fun blue angels party.
Defense spending for the year of 2010 is between $880 billion and $1.03 trillion and as I enjoy the powerful planes cavorting skillfully over head, I make a mental list of the achievements we would accomplish if we diverted those dollars. ALL of them! Cancer and every other major disease would be cured, education would be reining (and raining) down in every conceivable form as surely it would be free. PhDs would be commonplace. Energy would not be an issue and the abundance of inexpensive power would surely make a massive dent in global poverty and health. Climate change would be faced properly. The arts would florish. We’d switch the recession for a boom overnight. I’m not nervous about America being vulnerable. The thing I am nervous about is the massive waste of this capital. Look at the size of these numbers. In 2011 the budget will be between $1.003 and $1.223 trillion. Our defense spending is almost as much as the rest of the world combined and more than nine times greater than the military budget of China. Of course I know that this isn’t going to happen, but the war sounds varoom-ing above me took me down this dreamy hopeful path with such an intensity.
Then the stunt plane arrived and delivered heart stopping death defying downward spirals. Each time I was sure the pilot was going to crash. I imagined a poof of smoke and big flame of fire.
The stunt plane somehow made it. I am less sure that our nation will.
Naomi and I logged serious hours at Seattle Center this week as Simone was in rock n roll camp at the Pacific Science Center and Experience Music Project.
Naomi running through the spears of bamboo. (I like how this picture makes me lean right just a bit.)
The museum is visually bombarding. Massive multi-media screens floating high and low,
tucked unexpectedly in a cornice or filling a massive wall. It is exciting. The Rec
Room (above) had a band practicing in it. Naomi and I watched for a bit and then
stepped outside into the hot blazing sun which suddenly felt very still.
Simone is here! She looks so grown up to me. Do anything new today?
“Yes! My group made a you tube video! Wait till you see it!”
The fountain delivering its exhilarating deluge on a sweltering day. Look how empty the dome park is today. Right now Naomi nearly has the place to herself!
We’ve been coming here nearly every day this week. It starts like this. We pretend we just need to quickly clean the peanut butter off our fingers and then we get caught up in the game of running back and forth to touch the cold wet metal of the giant dome and this ramps up into a game of backing away from the spray. Utterly innate. This is the one place where I get to join my girls and scream my head off. Really fun! One never knows when the giant fountain will amp up. Getting soaked is the real thing. What else delivers such a thrill!
Naomi was up quite late and so this morning Simone, Naomi and I (family meeting) decided to take a road trip. Naomi could get some zz’s, Simone could put some time into her workbooks and we could all check out the reptile zoo about an hour north of Seattle. On our way though Monroe, we stopped for gas and noticed this sign.
The turtle on the right gave birth to the turtles below. They hatched about two weeks ago.
When we got home David and the girls tried out the new trail-along! Awesome! Naomi is in the yellow side-car…and Simone is singing “Hey Sister Wister.” Her own made up song to the tune of Hey Sister.
On Saturdays there is a market in Occidental Square so we biked over with our paints and a few toys and set up camp. I had a delicious bowl of posole from Gran Central. The girls are painting letters. In the background there is a hoola hoop performer, a rock band on the stage and a unicycle rider.
A treasure hunt team stops by. Seafair has a citywide treasure hunt today. I had a great time talking with these two about their adventure through the city. What a rush. Definitely want to do this next year!
Simone wants to have a stand here next week. We’ll have to figure out what she could sell. Lemonade and cookies just would not work as the Parfait and Dessert food vans already have those covered! Simone decides that she could sell plants or colorful kids t-shirt prayer flags.
Just in from David Stephenson:
A snap from the Mama Mia Broadway Bound camp that Simone (pink flowers), Claire (blue flowers), Sophie and Evelyn were in this week. It was a TON of fun.