Highlights from our vacation to Kettle Falls and much much more

A baby monarch with a crumpled wing. We put her on a larkspur for the evening in case she was unable to fly due to her defective wing.







Hummingbirds abound at Schott's. The flowers are beautiful again this year.
Mingo Mountain:

And then we headed to Dunn Mountain for the afternoon:
Elinor and Phillip invited us over to pick huckleberries on their property. Big, plump, purple and reddish delicious berries already!




Dotty the fawn:
Dotty the fawn lost her mother when she was a day old. My parents' neighbor Tim is hand raising her. She is so cute and only a few days old here.
Louis says Dotty is trying to suck his finger down her throat. I say that's karma for all the hundreds of hours baby Louis pacified himself by sucking on my finger! Many of you remember that phase of parenting for me.
Dotty's first solid food was fresh strawberries the kids fed her.
Swimming lessons went very well. Chloe learned to swim this year and Louis is so eager to learn, too. He is very comfortable with going underwater, paddles with his arms and does bunny hops off the bottom of the pool all while creating quite a large splash and thrash in the water. With a bit more practice he will be swimming, too. We are very proud of what they accomplished in only a few days of lessons.

The fireworks at Diamond M Ranch:

Peaceful Valley

Peaceful Valley 6/28/09

Poems by Chloe
May, 2009

White
White is the snow.
White is the glow. White
is the clouds that sali
hie and low. White is
the flower blosum that
has the prettyist glow.


Fishy
Fishy you are a wonder
-ful littel friend
to have a round and a
fusy little felowe too.
You like to dash and
thrash around in the
water.


Feather
A fether is a
pen, a soft and furry
pen. You dip it in some
ink, and then you have
a pen. And when it
gets too dim you
dip it in agine.

A leafe
I think there
is a buttrfly
in side of eche
and evry leafe.
and wehn the
wind blous they
fly away
and land on
the ground.






A Shell
A shell is
A mirror for a
mrmaid. a mrmaid is
like a fish only it is
half prsone and half
fish. Your head and
stumice is the
prsone half and your
legs, and feet is the
fish half

A Friend
Friend you are a bag
ful of love. I play with
you evry secount of
my life. Friend you
are a bag ful of
love.


A dandelion
A dandelion is a sun,
a sun with a green
strow on the end. But the
only thing is that a dan
-delion is much much much
MUCH smaller than the sun.
And much much much much
much MUCH
Coulr then the sun.

Lincoln Park

I thought it would be fun to go see tadpoles at Lincoln Park today. Louis had other ideas. Well, he was very excited about the excursion until it was time to walk up the hill to the pond. It took us 45 minutes of screaming, crying, whining, and determined four year old energy to get there. I was the image of patience. I was NOT going to carry him; this was a hot, sweaty, hard journey on foot, dammit! I gave the option to stop and turn back, but if we kept on keeping on, it was on foot. He literally screamed and cried his way up the hill, often sitting in the shade for long periods of time complaining. I find I am in disbelief during parenting moments (or hours) such as this. It's quite surreal. I kept encouraging him to decide to be happy--it's a choice often, after all. He can decide to wallow in misery like no person I have ever known. I am NOT like that. I am an optimist and I decide to have an inner peace many many days. Like today! I decided to enjoy the time with him, be patient, sympathetic, but firm in my decision not to carry him.

So, here are some pictures. I think overall it was a huge success. We saw wildlife and had an adventure, albeit an unpleasant one. He was glad we did it in the end. The sense of accomplishment may be contagious (at least that's my hope and why I endure such pain).