Early Summer Marches On

The weather continues to amaze us longtime Alaskans. The trees are leafing out--two weeks earlier than usual. The basketball hoops came out for the summer. And...unfortunately, hay fever season has hit our home hard. I've been on allergy meds since we came back from D.C., so I'm doing okay, but Viva and Bentley are not doing well at all: itchy eyes (Viva is worse than Bentley) and a hacking cough (Bentley is worse than Viva), both victims are woolly-headed during school time. Lincoln and Evan are coughing now, too. Kara finally called the doctor's office to ask when allergy meds are okay for children and she's starting them on some.

Regardless of the awful symptoms of hay fever, the kids are enjoying being outside more.

The Crew Is Back!

Kara arrived home in the early hours of Saturday. B, J, and V arrived home Saturday evening. Matt brought L and E home early this morning on a red eye flight. We are now all home together!

I was up when the little ones came home and I talked to them. Later this morning I was woken up by lots of kid noise, but I didn't get up until Evan came in to the bedroom to ask for my help getting his dolly changed into her daytime outfit. He can't do the snaps.

When we went downstairs, we found the older children were doing their math:

Lincoln's outfit made me laugh. He was dressed in a thick sweatshirt, shorts, socks, and doggy slippers.  (Was he hot or was he cold?)

Evan showed me the new books that his dad bought on their trip to Idaho:

I didn't know The Little Golden Books series covered the Star Wars saga! Bentley read the books and told me that they did a good job of condensing the story line.

I took L and E out with me to run some errands. We ended up at the playground before coming.

B came home from California with an outer ear infection. He went to the doctor's on Sunday and got some ear drops to cure it. Now J has the same problem. B says he's going to karate no matter what! J says his ear hurts too much to go. The medication worked pretty fast for B, so hopefully J will be feeling good tomorrow.

It is good to have everyone back home…even if it is rather noisy.

To two toddlers, two miles is too far to trek.

Tonight, Bentley and Jake were reintroduced to "Daddy walks" when we went out to Westchester Lagoon for our first WALK of the Season.  It seemed like a great starting point - three different directions available... walk to Valley of the Moon park, go south on the Coastal trail toward the airport, or north on the trail toward the port.  Bentley chose to go north. 

When it comes to walking, I figure, no pain, no gain.  Since Jake and I started out limping (him from his shoes cramping his feet, me from breaking a toe the other day), I figured we wouldn't go too far, but we'd have fun anyway.  Bentley and Jake both got interested in the walk though, and kept prodding me (us) to go further.  By the time we got about 3/4 of a mile down the trail, we spotted the train through the trees and were at a great resting point... which worked out well since I'd already been carrying Jake for 5-10 minutes.  So we hung out for a minute waiting for the train to come to us.  Just as it got to where we were, it stopped, and started backing up.  

What's a dad to do who doesn't wish to disappoint his dudes?

Grab them and start jogging after the train - that's what!

By the time I gave up on that idea and sent Bentley out ahead as scout, it was too late.  The train was gone.  I tried to encourage Bentley to keep going a little bit further to a good turnaround spot, but he started saying something about his feet hurting, and needing a ride back to the Tahoe, now just short of a mile back.

Needless to say, the boys and I had a great opportunity to bond while I hustled back to the Tahoe carrying all 53 lbs of them watching the storm clouds approach quickly, with a very "brisk" wind to encourage us ever more so. 

[And then nothing bad happened for the next 20 minutes except when I wasn't watching Bentley for a moment and he wasn't watching me and there was no blood nor bruises as a result so we're all ok.]

Jake's shivers stopped a few minutes after we got back to the car and had the heater on full blast, and we topped off our adventure by driving down to the train station and watching the big passenger train switch tracks in one of the hardest rains I've seen all year.

It sure beat our original plan of going for a hike up the mountains tonight, which are now blanketed white in fresh snow!  

Our Reward?  Fresh Strawberry Shortcake cookies from Mommy when we got home!