We are cyclist...

Our friends Dave and Karmin just returned from two weeks in Japan. They brought back all sorts of interesting treasures...including the following shirt for Bret:


[In case it's not legible, the tiny words on the bottom say "we can run without gasoline"]

Karmin also got to dress up like a Maiko (an apprentice Geisha) and they brought back darling cotton kimonos, socks and shoes for both girls (Vivian had a melt down and thus is not pictured here...) but I think Sabine looks pretty darn cute!



Karmin said she was told to not show her teeth while posing...



Not the best photo, but sabine's "toe socks" have a picture of a dragon on them, with the word DORAON. Might be a special Japanese lizard???

This is a test...

...to see if my posts are updating to Facebook. This is only a test. If this were an actual blog post you would have seen or read something of interest by this point. We will now return to our regularly scheduled blogging. Thank you.

Great (old) book

This is a book we had growing up (click on image to go to Amazon description):


(Thanks, Granny Jean and Boopy for hauling it all over the world until I wanted it. :) )

Yesterday the girls and I went on a walk (they were in the Burley, with some library books and snacks...so I guess technically I went on a push...but I digress). Sabine was reading A Chocolate Mousse for Dinner -- or it might have been The King who Rained -- to Vivian. (Also favorites from my childhood.) She came across the phrase "a family coat of arms" and asked what that meant. We talked about what they were, and I had a vague recollection of coats of arms being a section in Steven Caney's book.

Sure enough, there were a couple of pages on coats of arms, and ideas for making your family's own. Sabine made ours with a monkey for humor, a lightbulb for ingenuity, and a fox for cleverness. Not bad.

I love Steven Caney's writing style and this book is jam packed with fun things to do/read about -- from making a quill pen to fortune telling to grave stone art to how different kinds of nails are made. You can even buy a used copy on Amazon for $.39 (plus $4 shipping, of course...) but you might see one at a yard or library sale sometime...keep your eye out for one!

More on the GMA piece...

...and thanks, Ronnie, for pulling these all together.

Just in case anyone watched...

...the (IMHO) awful piece Good Morning America did on unschooling, (I'm reluctant to even link to it as the interviewer was so obviously biased against unschooling but hey, maybe she's just going for controversy to get ratings...) here's a great response from the Huffington Post.

Birthday!

I suppose I should say BirthdayS! but it's really not all about me any more, is it? Oh well, we had a fun party for Sabine's 8th...fruit on a stick, pizza, cake, water balloon fights, face painting, and of course, general kinder-mayhem.

(Oh, and we finally found a living room couch -- look how many kids fit on it! and they could have added more!!!)

Easter

Many an egg were dyed and hid...


Happy girls post-hunt...


Vivian hunting...