just one of the reasons I love my mini

I took it in for an oil change yesterday. I visited the women's room. This was on the mirror:

Mini drivers - we're not normal, but at least we embrace it :o)

Mountain goats

Yup, my family is just a big goofy bunch of mountain goats :o) This morning we decided to tackle the closest "mountain" to our house. Turns out it's not nearly as close as it seems when you're looking out the front window, but it is pretty cool that we could walk to it, and then up it. The view from the top was pretty cool too.

Not pictured: m hollering on the way back down because she was hot, Alex taking her once we got down to the stroller and hoofing it down the trail to get her back home, max almost refusing to walk out of the shade and me giving c a piggy back ride while dragging max the last 3/4 of a mile. The good new is Alex had the hose out by the time we get home so the three of us got cooled off real quick :o)

Yay mountain adventures.

h is for....

Today's post is brought to you by the letter h. For hot. Apparently it gets up to 100 degrees in June here - who knew? Not m that's for sure...

This is her second time being up after trying to go to bed and being just too hot. Luckily, dada bought air conditioners today :o)

A land before time

The girls seem to be in a dino unit at school.

The themes seem to be school wide, at least based on the art projects. I'm not sure why else we'd be the lucky recipients of two stegosaurus on the same night :o)

(did I get the name right on that dino saba?)

Fancy hair Friday (delayed)

So last Friday we did another fancy hair Friday

I even got in the spirit

And then there was poor c

no fancy, just cow lick.

Grammy we blame you :o)

Art!

New school = same love of art :o) Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day...

... to a role model

a coach

 and a batter's box? or whatever is going on here :o)

Happy father's day Alex - we love you.

Mornings

I opened m's door this morning and saw this.

Yup. That's m, perfectly content, reading a book.

Peek-a-who - a classic.

It was a little different scene across the hall :o)

Roots

Packing salads for lunch does not make you a crazy person. Packing salads in glass containers does not necessarily make you a crazy person. Packing salads in mason jars and then taking pictures of them for your blog does kinda make you a crazy person, especially if the salads contain wheat berries.

But you guys it's such a good system! Dressing on the bottom of the jar means you don't need to worry about bringing a separate dressing container, and the lettuce doesn't get soggy because it's not actually touching the liquid. Doing 4 jars all at once means that I don't have to think about lunch each morning, I just grab a jar and go.

It may have taken 20 years, but I think I may finally be fully embracing my Ithaca roots :o)

There she goes!

We're done for :o)

For the record, this is the most steps I've seen her take. I'm so please to have had my phone in my hand!

Romeo!

This morning the equestrian center at wolf creek had a "meet and greet" for the new horses. Mostly it was an great excuse for c to reunite with her first love, Romeo.

She got to brush him.

And then lead him out to the riding ring

 And then ride

She loved every second of it.

Something tells me I'll have two in the ring before long.

(and for the record, this is my new favorite picture)

Come sail away

One thing about all the crazy that's been our lives over the last couple of months - c and m have done some serious bonding. It is SO much fun to see them play together. It's moving from parallel play into full out wrestling at times. Or sailing away in box boats...

Figuring it out

Well, both girls are officially in daycare. Some good, some dissolving into tears while putting together a puzzle because. just. so. tired.

This was at 5:15.
Needless to say we had eggs for dinner and got that girl to bed.

Charlotte seems to like having kids to play with again. Reports from her teachers say that she's doing a nice job in the classroom. I think they're feeling the benefits of all the time at WHCC :o)

Alex started work today and found out that eventually he'll be able to work from home occasionally as well. That pretty much sealed the deal that we're going to try to move the girls to a spot up here. Back to the daycare search!

Mountain sky

I've gotten in the habit of snapping pictures with my phone while I'm out walking in the morning.

Some days I get rainbows:

Others just very cool skies:

But today took the cake with a hot air balloon! You can just see it over the tree off our back deck:

C calls them "balloons with people" and wants to go on one some day. I'm totally in. How about you grammy? ;)