The day before the day before....

Well, it's the day before the day before departure for Jolly Old England. Ella's stuff is all but packed and so is mine. I finished the skirt for the wedding, and, Ellas 'wedding dress' and another cute play dress arrived from Boise. She put them on to dance around and try them out right away. I was wishing, for the second time this week, that I could capture her look of delight on film and send it right off to the gift giver. Of course, I wanted to make at least one more skirt, but I can always do that later, when I am not trying to get ready to go somewhere. Gus and Lucy both played over at friends' houses this afternoon, so that made the getting ready easier. And Ella, well, she stayed home with dad and, "mostly made egg flower soup," her new specialty. She got a Mollie Katzen's cookbook called Honest Pretzels for her birthday, and it just so happened to have the recipe in it. Tonight's soup wasn't as good as the birthday meal soup, but it was still very tasty. I will try to put some photos in before I go, but there are still the last minute things to do before we leave. I had a recurring bad thought that Ella's passport had actually expired, even though I knew it hadn't. I was relieved when I got it out tonight to see that it truly does not expire until 2009. There are in a safe place, waiting to get on the plane. Now all of us and Mr. Christopher (er, unSaint Christopher?) will just have to visualize them staying safe as I venture out into travel mode.

A cowboy's life....

The other day, Gus went to his dear friend Julia's birthday party. One of the party favors was a small plastic horse. Upon returning home, Gus realized that he needed a rider for the horse, and asked Dad whether or not he had any 'clay'. Upon hearing the reason why, a search commenced for the supply of Fimo that used to live in our house. I encouraged Gus to make a mock-up sculpture with Plasticine before making the real one out of Fimo. He did this, and I wish I had a photo to show but, I didn't take one. Within an hour of the first wishing for a cowboy, Gus had constructed this little guy:
Pretty groovy, huh? He was very enthused about the holster and guns. The little cowboy fit on his little horse perfectly and we baked him right up. (along with a Fimo 'lassoo') Meanwhile, Gus made a place for him to live out of Lincoln Logs and other ranch accessories he found around the house. There was a nice large corral for all of the horses (2) and many cattle as well.
I wish I could say this story had a happy ending, but, alas, we buried Mr. Fimo Cowboy in the garbage can yesterday. He was held together in about 5 places by crazy glue, and then got dropped on the floor and broke into little bits. Sniff sniff. Rest in peace little buckaroo.

Hello (hello) is there anybody out there....

I have no idea if anyone will ever read my blog. But, just in case they do, I might like to get into the habit of writing more often. There seem to be a lot of bloggy thoughts in my mind lately, and especially when I read SouleMama's blog. Summer is zooming by, and many times a day I think, how can I slow down and just enjoy this life? Today we went to violin lessons and then came home for a bit and played with our pinkeyed neighbor friends, helped her big sis sew part of a quilt, I made a sling, complete with the new packaging option proposed by my sister, then we turned around and went back into town to a swimming/gelato party. It was kind of cold but much fun

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Last weekend was the Oregon Country Fair, always a fun time. The kids keep rehashing in the car. We got to see our friend Katy's daughter, Laura, perform in the 'Ricochet Circus' doing ariels on the trapeze and a long cloth suspended from high. It was even more amazing than her show last year.
Gus had a nice time today finishing up his knight's helmet. We seem to be in the middle of an interest shift. Knights are becoming very interesting to Gus, possibly because we listened to the wonderful recording of Sir Percival and the Hidden Grail by Odds Bodkin. It might be nice to have a bit of chivalry in our lives after 3 years of living with a pirate.