Another Volunteering Weekend

This week it was the Gentle Birth Conference, which had a free Baby Expo. Wow, did we go through alot of brochures and stuff! I worked at the table both days for a bit and also got to take some classes thanks to the lovely Emily. I need to work on writing up my notes. I also got to see the new Ricki Lake movie, The Business of Being Born. All I can say is, WOW! And, thank you Ricki! Hopefully I can take the time to write up my thoughts on that as well.

Here is the table we had set up. That is Lennon, who is Pam's assistant (the midwife Jess is using), and Hattie, who found she is pregnant recently. It is an epidemic for everybody but me.

The Day I Almost Broke My Camera

Yeah, there is a story behind that, of course. I had the great privilege of going to the Children's Museum with Arwyn and Brisen. I kept trying to catch the ultimate B picture. I got some that were OK, but as I said to Arwyn later, none of them are as cute as he really is, and she said that is good because it would probably have broken the camera! Hahaha, you can decide for yourself below.

Orion hard at work.
And here he is, the famous, too cute for his good, Brisen!
Orion trespassing in the forbidden zone. This is the under 2 area, but it was such a nice, quiet day, and B was the only other baby in there, so I let Orion check it out.
Cool windows in the wall. Orion called the one on the right a spiderweb.
Orion working the waterwheel.
Yes, I am weird for taking pictures of kids I don't know, but I thought this was cool looking.
The wonderful world of water.
Face painting.
Interesting job he did. He got some strange looks from people after we left the museum!
Just one little dot for the cuteness. Arwyn later declared this a "strategic error" after her chest was covered in little brown spots!

I am very sad to report the CM has totally changed it's food area, kindof "modernized" it. That used to be Orion's favorite place, and now he won't even go in there. :(

Cookies!

I think Fall ups the baking urge in me. I decided to try some gluten free cookies and had to pick a recipe. All the best ones had chocolate chips in them, which I didn't have on hand. Then there were a bunch of peanut butter ones, which I wasn't in the mood for. I found one for pumpkin cookies and had some sweet potato puree on hand, so I decided to give those a try. The batter seemed more like mousse, so I wasn't sure what the cookies would be like! But they weren't bad - kindof more like muffins in texture.

Orion had fun helping. Here he is using the spatula!
Look at all our cookies! That was when we were all done. Only I think we ate the whole first pan before we finished hehe. I didn't care how many he ate because I made them with xylitol instead of sugar!
A request from Orion.

And Another Walk in the Woods

Time seems to be flying these days. On Saturday, I volunteered at the La Leche League table at the Green Sprouts Festival, which is a big yearly gathering of all kinds of eco friendly family oriented businesses. It felt wonderful to be part of an organization that so many people sought out. We game out tons of area brochures, so it will be really interesting to see if attendance goes up.

Today, I was an RE helper at church. What a fun week I got to be part of! We are talking about all different types of families right now, so we had a couple come in that are Canadian and Indian. We couldn't get our video working, so we spent almost the whole time talking about India! Of course I had to ask him what he thought the best restaurant around here was haha.

Then later on, we decided to go for walk. This place is pretty close to us, but we have never really checked it out. Glad we finally went!

A Boy and His Stick
Snowberry!
Can't resist a nice reflection.
Orion threw his stick in, so we got to talk about what happened to the surface of the water and the current.
Leaning over the bridge.
Bad shot, but that is a woodpecker on the log. He was cool! And notice Orion's stick. We waited to watch and see if it would get stuck in that area to the left or make it over the little dip on the right.
I thought it was pretty the way this leaf had fallen and gotten caught on the side of the tree.
Orion declared he had found a lake! hahahaha
Mandatory rock jumping.

Getting Somewhat Recovered

Phew, what a last few days. For some crazy reason, I decided to keep the covenant group on the same day we got back. I knew we would get off the ship in the morning and the group isn't until 5pm. But still... poor Orion was sooo overtired and I was hoping he would sleep in the car on the way home. Not a chance. So I layed down with him right when we got home and basically had time to get up, print out the topic and leave. I felt bad because Ron ended up staying home with Orion, but he was probably more than happy to haha.

Then I was going to skip church on Sunday, but I realized they were having the teacher and helper dedication. I had already missed the orientation and meet and greet, so I figured I should probably go. And then Monday I was scheduled to work at Zenana! So it wasn't until Tuesday that I finally had my flake out day. Sheesh.

Just the right amount of rest for having my friend's daughter over. I am doing a bit of swapping with her as she has to volunteer at her older daughter's coop, so we get to hang out with little Nora. And then I will get some free time when she takes Orion a bit. Apparently my dear boy is still reeling from accumulated lack of sleep. Either that or there are some behavior issues going on from the gluten in his system. (We were so careful to ask about all the food, but by the end of the cruise we could see his digestion moving into a gluteny phase.) Whatever the case, he has just been so unpredictable and easily upset since getting home, to the point of not wanting other kids in his room and even randomly hitting when I can't see any trigger.

Luckily, it seems to be limited to kids around his age and not babies or small toddlers. So even though he was having tiffs with Ruby, who he usually loves, he did great with just Nora. Here he was playing with her, putting a hat on and off their heads.


Later that day, I dragged Ron out for a walk. We have this great little "park" that runs behind our house, but we rarely go there because it is so overgrown. It is basically a protected strip of land on either side of Willow Creek. This is the perfect time of year, though, because the waters have gone down and the older neighborhood kids have done a great job trampling down paths! Right around the corner from us is an "official" access point with stairs.
Orion is ready! Whenever we go to the creek, he picks a rock on the way to throw in. You can just barely see it at the bottom of the picture.
And really well here.
Father and son tromping through the grass.
Kona contemplating the water.
The creek!
Kona loves bounding through the long grass!
But she also loves the water! We never would have thought it as a puppy. We always thought her sled dog half won out because of her fear of water, but the retriever half kicked in.
The day ended on a sad note. Orion came running up to me crying, and his foot was bleeding. :( I have no idea how it happened. Maybe a twig? It really was nowhere near as bad as it looked. The skin around it looks all swollen, but it was just smeared blood. It all washed off except for a little scratch. I was surprised at how much it had bled when I saw how small it was!

Alaskan Cruise, Day 7 - Pizza and Farewells

The last day was all at sea. Too bad it was COLD! I was bummed because I really wanted to take Orion back in the pool and maybe get some waterslide pictures. Here we have had some of the most perfect weather of the entire summer we were told, and when we head South it gets freezing! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention yesterday just how lucky we were with the weather. At the excursion gathering they told us the past week had been so stormy that they had to take an alternate route to Prince Rupert, got in two hours late and every single excursion had to be cancelled!

The Kid's Club had a pizza making party I figured we wouldn't go to, but then Orion said he wanted to make one for Ron. Awww.

I am so bummed this picture came out blurry, but I had to include it anyway, because it is the cutest hug ever! We didn't think Olivia was coming to the pizza party. She showed up a little late, and Orion was clearly overjoyed!
The assembly line! Notice one of the staff showing Olivia how to make cup hands to get her cheese. So cute.
Orion cheesing it up.
Dad says, "Make me one with everything." You can also (kindof) see his official Kid's Club shirt he got today, and his coloring job on it. It cracked me up when I saw the picture, because all he got on it was an orange scribble, and it looks like spilled pizza sauce in this shot.
Patiently waiting for the pizzas to cook. That is Orion's other good buddy, Reef. His dad was super cool - a total surfer as you might figure.
An impromptu game of crayon train. Pushing a line of crayons along the crack between the tables proved to be totally engrossing.
The finished product and Ron's assessment.
Group shot of pizza chowers.
And the evolution of the game - how to catch things on the other side.
Later that day, we checked out the shuffleboard. We didn't actually play a game, but we had fun pushing the pucks around. Notice we are the only people outside. Yeah, it was cold!

And that about wraps up our trip since we will be getting off first thing tomorrow morning. Oh, excuse me, I mean disembarking. The rest of the day was spent packing, deciding on pictures, and we did do the Benihana type restaurant for dinner with Jess, Dane and Baby Olivia. That was a pretty good time!

Back to reality tomorrow. Ugh!