Bastian Learns to Play Chess

Bastian coaxed Papa Logan into teaching him to play chess. Papa Logan took off his shirt after awhile when he got hot, so Bastian followed suit. Topless Chess seems to have the same rules as regular chess though.

Ninja Blackberry Lemonade

My little ninja made blackberry lemonade from scratch with his mad ninja skills. Lots of muscles being built with all that squeezing. I imagine that ninja mothers put a little vodka in it for themselves (to help quell the worry of having a ninja child).

City Fresh: Still at it

This year, I'm the one and only manager of our CSA stop, which means whatever goes wrong is all my fault. The kids come with me while Jon teaches writing to prisoners at the county jail. Bastian counted a lot of cabbage. He was very proud of himself.

Gonna Start a Farm

Bastian has decided to save watermelon seeds so he can have a watermelon farm. It will go along quite nicely with our apple farm which Aleks began with seeds from his apple and which are now the tiniest treeling in a big red pot on our porch. Once it's a nice sapling, we'll get a graft from a Honey Crisp tree somehow, I reckon.

July 4th Weekend

Aunt Natty visited from Pittsburgh where she is studying Serbian for six weeks before heading to Montenegro before coming home and moving to Kansas for grad school. Crazy traveler, that one. We got to spend time and do summery things in the heat wave. Like eat ice cream.

And sit in the conditioned air of ladies' undergarments whilst Natty tried things on.
We also went to the beach.



Aleks wanted to be buried.
I helped with the digging.
Then Bastian wanted to be buried. I like this series of Aleks in the background.



And Natalie buried herself, so Bastian sat on her.
Didn't the founding fathers invent s'mores? I think so.
We don't like going to fireworks displays because we hate crowds and mosquitoes. I'm sure the kids would love them, but we're mean parents who don't wanna go there. So. We play with small explosives at home with the neighbors.

Mah Boys

Eatin' cookies. Talkin' 'bout things.

Splash Park

Oh the things that Summer brings! It brings us wet! It brings us late!