Thickankles: April 2007

Bad, BAD Wendy for not keeping up again. I am ashamed. Here’s a quickie update of the events in our world over the last month:

Notice anything different about me?

One afternoon last month Zoya declared that she wanted to get her ears pierced. She’d mentioned it before, and after filling her in on how much it was going to hurt she was still determined, so we went off to the mall and got her poked. She LOVES her new look, and the primping has already begun (can’t WAIT till those teen years!). The picture doesn’t capture the earrings very well…she kept wanting to face the camera and I couldn’t get a good angle.

Spring Break in La Push

The Washington coast, with its stormy waters and rocky shores has become a favorite of ours for short getaways. For the second year in a row we headed to the quiet little enclave of La Push to spend a few days during spring break. La Push is a resort on the Quileute Native American Reservation that offers a quiet, gorgeous environment to relax in (and as a matter of principle, I like the fact that the money we spend there goes to the entire community rather than padding some CEO’s already plump pockets [oh brother, not another Wendy soapbox moment! My apologies.]). Our friend Mary joined us, and despite the fact that it rained the ENTIRE TIME (and when I say “entire,” I mean that it didn’t stop, to our knowledge, for even a few seconds!), we had a fabulous time.

These are pictures taken from the front porch of our cabin (used the zoom function – the water really isn’t that close).

This picture gives you an idea of what the rain was like. The turbulence in the puddle is caused by rain alone.

Mary and Zoya braved the elements to get a closer peak at the waves.

As you can see from the pictures, playing outside was not really an option, so we had to keep busy inside. Normally the kids (and Movakel and I, for that matter) would have gone CRAZY being cooped up for that long, but we didn’t seem to have any problem relaxing and finding things to do.

We slept. A LOT.

We played charades: Zoya’s a bear, Dylan’s a banana.

Mary is a street vendor in Mexico City selling tortillas (it was getting pretty brutal toward the end of the game)

The kids danced.

We cut Movakel’s hair (FINALLY! I like it so much better short. His students were calling him “Einstein.”)

And we slept some more…

Zoya did a little jig on the porch for us

We cooked Mexican breakfast under the watchful eye of, and directions from Mary (she is an AMAZING cook – one of those people who just throws stuff in a pan without a recipe and it comes out perfect).

And we slept some more (poor Movakel is recovering from many quarters of teaching 4-6 classes on 2 different campuses).

When it was time to head home, we had to drive through what used to be the driveway of the resort, but due to the rain (did I say it rained A LOT?), was “Lake La Push.”

Birthday Party and Visit with Family

My friend Amanda’s kids both had birthdays this month, so she threw a joint party. We drove down to Centralia for the event and had so much fun! It was great to see ‘Manda and her family – the boys are getting so big and are as cute as ever. Owen turned 4 and Miles is 1.

Here’s Miles with a GREAT giggle!

Owen gettin’ some love from his Gwamma.

So Paula (grandma) lives in Idaho, and to differentiate between his two grandmas, they started referring to Paula as “Gwamma Idaho,” which proved difficult for a very young Owen to say. He (and the rest of us now) calls her “Gwamma ‘Ho.” That just cracks me UP!

Miles with his cake. He doesn’t quite know what to do yet.