Our House in the Middle of Our Street

A few weeks ago I decided to play along with Ali Edwards  on instagram ( here I am!) with her own version of a Day in the Life...here's my captured scenes from about 6AM-8PM including original post captions. 6AM and there's a (reading) party in my bed. Mornings are for quiet, reading, bible study, and scrolling through my favourite online haunts for an hour before an hour of exercise (T/Th: spinning, M/F hiit video) and showering. Kids are up and at em at 8! (Playing along with  @aliedwards #adayinthelife  today, let's see if I can remember after this one.) what are you up to today? 8:08AM like clockwork, everyone's waiting for their breakfast, even the teddies, while I'm stuck on NPR tiny desk artists and stretching (drying out) before a late shower. Tuesday's = oatmeal. #adayinthelife 10:12AM and we're out running errands before hitting the beach on this glorious morning! Favorite errand: library. Obvs.  #adayinthelife 10:...

 a sunny view of the wraparound cove at Buntzen Lake Last weekend we went on a hike that we learned about from my kids' babysitter. She belongs to an active family and so I knew anything she recommended we could do as well. She said Buntzen Lake was a great hike, and she was right, I loved this hike!   almost halfway view This hike is a wraparound lake hike, and for at least half of it, you're very close to the water. There are times when the trail meanders into the forested area and you can't even see the large lake. There is a small suspension bridge, outhouses at the half-way mark (along with a rest area with benches and picnic tables), and the views were great. We went for a morning hike and were done by 2. I believe it took it 3 1/2 hours, plus a thirty minute stop for lunch at the half-way mark.   Lukka looking at the lake from early on  It's a 5 mile hike (8km) and we were all tired afterward. There is an overall ascent of 100 m but it took...

An annual activity our family enjoys is strawberry picking. Nebraska strawberries can be a finicky thing, and the last couple of years we were living there a late frost or crazy storms destroyed the crop. We got a few, but not as many as years past. Last year, we came home with so many strawberries from Barbie's Berries out in Lynden, that they lasted until last month in the freezer! For every corn or cattle farm in Nebraska, is a berry farm in Washington. They're everywhere. Strawberries, raspberries, then blueberries, in that order, over the span of about 6 weeks or so.  We took our opportunity to pick a 10-lb bucket full of strawberries yesterday morning with some friends. They are so ripe, the juice stains the fingers within minutes. Ani, who loves strawberries more than any other fruit, had juice on her hands, shirt, pants, and backside! Every year she manages to get a stomach-ache from her indulgence! The strawberries were at their peak and probably had ...

This week is Blaine Public School's Spring Break, and although we have continued to homeschool (best time to continue is when there are no outside activities going on!), we have finished up early every morning to enjoy some solid time with friends playing outside and exploring together. This was Tuesday, when we drove to Bellingham with some friends, and took a 1.3 mile hike to Teddy Bear Cove , and the kids played for hours while the moms basked in the sunshine and beauty of the area. What an awesome spot!  There was even a large boulder area that the kids loved exploring, and we barely saw them except for water every 30 minutes or so, and a few bites of their picnic lunch in between running and climbing. The only unfortunate thing about these pictures is I don't have a panoramic lens, because you just simply can't capture the beauty of a surrounding area with little snapshots. Water, beach, rocks, and trees. It's just breathtaking. The ...

Here are a few of our recent goings on from the last few weeks in pictures: park time, strawberry picking at  Martin's Hillside Orchard , among others. 

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Source: moxee.ws via Whitney on Pinterest Happy Birthday to Me! I love my birthday and I'm taking the day off from blogging to fully enjoy the gluten free cupcake waiting for me on the counter, read a frivolous magazine, and spend more time with my family. Picnic dinner tonight! See y'all tomorrow! PS-Art from Eva Vermeiren ...in the words of my son, "Isn't art just lovely?" I kid you not. I think he may have gotten that from Kipper. Those Brits.

The other day it was the perfect temperature for a late winter play at the park. My kids love this quiet little gravelly park down the road from my old school, tucked away near the bike path. We bring the shovels and buckets, and they climb often on this old jungle gym that has the fastest slide in the city (made faster with rolling dirt, don't ya' know?). Some of these are favorites, that last one especially.