Sunny Days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m really enjoying having so many sunny days in a row.  The weather is perfect right now, with plenty of sunshine, tempered by cool breezes blowing from the Columbia Gorge.   I filled the bumpers of our new “skimboard surfer” with water yesterday and let the girls play on it, without the board.   Eva loves playing with the sprinklers along the edge.  At first she was afraid of them, so I kept them low, and slowly raised the water pressure as she got more comfortable.  Soon she was running through them confidently, yelling, “Look, Mommy!  Eva take shower!”  She was so proud of herself.  Amanda enjoyed crawling in and out of the water, trying to drink it off her hands, or dunking her forehead into the shallow puddles. 

 

We left it out last night because I was planning to use it for playgroup today, but this morning Dave found that it had been attacked by birds.  I don’t know if they were going after flies or what, but they punctured and tore several large holes all along the length of it with their claws and beaks.  How freaky, and such a bummer!  Who would have thought?  So we can’t fill it with water anymore (no surfing, darn!), but at least we can still use it as a slip-n-slide.  I had all my friends and their kids over as planned, and it was the first time that it was warm enough for the kids to put on their bathing suits and play in the water.  We just turned on the sprinklers and used the mat as a slip-n-slide, and it was a big hit!

 

It’s such a blessing to have such a large back yard, and be able to share it!  So many of our friends live in apartments, like we did not long ago, and it’s wonderful to be able to say, “c’mon over!” have a large space for the kids to run around and play.  Our vegetable garden is exploding, and I’m realizing that we probably put too much in too small of a space.  Everything is planted so close together that soon they’ll be blocking each others’ sun.  I told Dave that next year I want to get rid of the lawn and plant a big garden in the front yard, where it gets more sun.  He thinks it would look messy and jokes that there’s probably a rule against that somewhere.  As if!  We don’t have a homeowners association, and the city wouldn’t care.  One of our neighbors has goats, and we could probably even have chickens if we wanted!  Someone suggested we’d end up with neighbors stealing from it, but I don’t care.  If someone is that hungry, they’re welcome to it, especially with food prices so high!