A field trip, a haircut, and a kite

Last week the kids had lots of different unrelated activities, so here's one paragraph for each kid, in no particular order.

JAY: I dropped Jay off at the school at 5:45am Friday morning (May 10th) so he could go on his field trip to the zoo in Seattle. He was gone for 12 hours! He had a good time, but he was extra fatigued from the social strain of spending all that time with his classmates. The boy is clearly related to Jeff and me. He dreamily outlined an ideal day, snuggled up in his room alone with the iPad, Nintendo, his Kindle full of books, and some food. I assured him that he would recover and enjoy spending time with friends again soon.


AMBER: It was windy on Thursday so Amber and I flew our kite together. She lost it in a tree once, but thankfully I was able to rescue it and we moved to a more open areal. On Friday I took Amber to story time at the library for the first time (not my favorite activity) and it was exactly like I thought it would be, right down to the moms doing the art project for the kids. This particular art project happened to be a mother's day card, so I got to make a mother's day card for myself. Joy. I traced Amber's hand and cut it out of paper, and told her how to write each letter in MOM, although she did do the gluing and sticker-ing. We went to the park with friends after the library. It was pleasant to chat in the shade while our daughters played.

ROSE: On Friday, I picked Rose up from school half an hour early to get her hair cut. When we arrived at the salon where I thought our appointment was, they didn't have our names down on their calendar. There were three other salons on the same block, though, so I may have been wrong. We were at a beauty school, and a girl volunteered to cut Rose's hair anyways. I explained that she wanted a short A line bob cut, shorter in the back and longer in the front. The girl took 80 minutes to laboriously cut Rose's hair, and in the end it was noticeably longer in the back than in the front. It didn't look good at all, but I simply could not face another hour of wrangling a bored Amber. If the girl couldn't get it right the first time around, I didn't think she'd be able to fix her mistake, so we paid and left. My gamble going to the beauty school did not pay off. As we drove home I got more and more concerned, and ended up trying to fix Rose's hair myself a little back at home, but quickly realized that I lacked the skills for bob haircuts. In desperation, I texted our neighbor and asked if her mom would be willing to fix it (she's a professional). We went over and that sweet sweet hermana trimmed Rose up in next to no time. I practiced my Spanish with her a little, but I am terrible at small talk in any language, so it wasn't a very well developed conversation. We thanked them profusely and went home to watch cartoons and recover from the triple haircut ordeal.

PICTURES: some related, some not, in no particular order.

Rose felt extra beautiful and relished all of the attention her haircut provided. I don't want my daughters to think that beauty is only about hair and clothes, but I love watching little girls feel beautiful. It shines from the inside.

Running past the mint fields in the early morning, with Mt. Adams faintly visible on the horizon. I love being able to run before Jeff goes to work--sunlight and warmth are SUCH GIFTS after the long cold winter.

Reading

We made two batches of strawberry freezer jam one afternoon.

In order to avoid a bath one day, Amber got dressed and did her own hair in a yellow headband.

This girl. That face. Heaven help me.

KITE FLYING!

Painting.

We checked out a nice big stack of library books after story time--something for everyone.

Reading at the kitchen table at sunset: waiting for Jeff to get home from yet another track meet.