The Ones I Love: July 2008

The Marin County Fair

So Rose had a blast working at the Marin County Fair this week. All together she will have worked 4 out of the 5 county fair days and kept busy in the barn feeding rabbits & poultry, collecting eggs, icing down the rabbits when it got to hot, cleaning cages, and talking to kids and adults about her rabbit and letting them pet Silverbell at the demo table. She also had fun running around with other 4-H kids in the barn and talking about which animals were the best - and she enjoyed watching the senior 4-H'rs (teenagers) do showmanship.

Silverbell also did well at the fair and actually enjoyed all of the attention she got. She came in 5th place for best mini rex breed - which was pretty good since place 1-4 went to one senior 4-H'r that breeds mini rexes and brought her very best to the show (they were spectacular - looked just like the velveteen rabbit when he was brand new). She also placed 4th in best rex fur (again places 1-3 went to the same senior 4-H'r). She might have done better, but she was molting so her fur was pitted. Needless to say Rose is extremely excited about the wins and Silverbell is very happy to be back home in her hutch.

Silverbell getting judged.

Checking out the view in the barn from another angle.

Silverbell laying by her ice bowl when it got hot!

Rose answering a question about rabbits

Rose talking about her bunny and letting children pet her.

Answering more questions :) Rose loved being at the table with her bunny.

Max trying to stay cool on the last and hottest day.

At the award ceremony. Rose is sitting next to her 4-H friend, Kaya, who also has a bunny.

Displaying the ribbons!

One last ride for the week. Rose went on the ferris wheel with Kedrick's girlfriend, Ruhi

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSE! July 1

Today Rose is 8! We went over to Berkeley to celebrate with the bay area family. As you can see from the photos Rose was very excited with her gifts :)

radKIDS

Rose did a weeklong program this summer called radKids, a personal empowerment safety class. It was free and conducted by our local police department. She learned all sorts of home and personal safety info, as well as stranger safety and self defense. They even covered issues of sexual abuse. On the final day they were put in several "abduction" situations and had to use their self-defense techniques to get away. Another cool note - a third of police department is female, so most of the instructors were female officers.

Enjoying the hot weather

Full Belly Farm

So Curtis and I won a stay-over at Full Belly Farm, an organic farm in Capay Valley at an auction. We got to spend the night on the farm with Andrew, the farmer and his wonderful family. He took us all over the farm on the tractor and told us about his crops and farming. It was a wonderful day! Then we picked produce and used it in the dinner that his wife made - she even made a strawberry pie at Rose's request. The next morning we had a yummy breakfast with them and explored the farm a bit more before we headed home.

Picking lettuce for our salad

Max a bit perturbed that he has dirt on his hands

Rose and Curtis

Tanya and Max

Rose driving the tractor.

Yes - there is a wedding happening

For those of you who don't know or who were wondering why I had wedding flowers posted, Tara is getting married this fall to her good friend, John Chase. They have been dating on and off for the past few years and have decided to take that next big step. John just finished seminary and will be looking for a church in the near future, but in the meantime is a fabulous interior painter and Tara is working at SPU. They are both involved in the Prebyterian Church on Queen Anne. John will be joining us for the first time at Sea Ranch and will hopefully survive the few days that he is there with the 15 of us! Their wedding is October 11, 2008.

The little gymnist

Max has been doing a gymnastics class, mainly with Curtis and when Curtis is unavailable I go. He loves going through the tunnels, running, jumping and climbing the rock wall and sliding down. He has completely resisted doing somersalts with the instructor's help, however in June he ran across the floor and did a somersalt flip and has continued doing them non-stop wherever we go. We will definitely be signing him up for some more classes in the fall.

Going through the tunnel.

The catepillar tunnel

The rock wall

For the first part of the year he would only run down the trampoline,
now he is jumping all the way down.

Getting ready for bubbles and the parachute

Potty Time

Potty training has commenced! Max is happy most of the time to go potty in the morning and is successful! Our next step now that we are approaching summer is to put him in his "chonies" (that's underpants to you gringos) for most of the day, except when he is at school in the a.m.

Rock and Roll!

I did it!!!

Easter 2008

So here are some photos of the kids decorating their Easter Eggs and also some from Easter morning. For those of you who are familiar with Rosemary Well's book, "Max's Chocolate Chicken", our Easter morning was a re-enactment of that story. For Max, all that mattered was finding and eating chocolate. Rose on the other hand really wanted om to find Easter eggs with her and put them in his basket. However, with the few eggs he was "forced" by his sister to find, he creatively arranged them in a line in our sandbox and went back to eating chocolate. Guess which Easter basket is his? Afterwards we went over to Gramma and Grampa's house in Berkeley to find more eggs...or for Rose to find more eggs while Max pushed around a wheel barrel and fed the chickens.