I apologize for the lack of posts recently. One cannot download digital cameras or get online when they have been transported back to the 1960's. Yes, we spent several days in Twin Firs, but this time we had company! DH's sister and her family came up to visit and spend their precious vacation time working to update the ole homestead.Here are the menfolk and plug girl/flashlight girl AKA Child #2 replacing a door. The old door was 8 ft long. The new door is 6 ft. The subfloor was rotten from decades of leaking. That means lots of extra work. DH made the funny (use your best hick town accent), "We put a hole in the wall with the Sawzall y'all!"
But all work and no play...is no fun. So we (DH) barbecued! Buffalo steaks and salmon and alligator tail! And who could forget the giant crab legs and octopus! No kidding! There was enough food to last us all week.
This little fella flew in the gaping hole in the wall and befriended us. Child #2 with her animal ways rescued the bird and released him outside where he refused to leave. He invaded our dinner! He landed on Child #2's steak with his germy feet! He stole Child #5's dinner roll! He made the kids scream as he hopped menacingly toward their plates! We have never seen a bird act like this. My Pathetic Doberman was beside herself, especially after "Charlie" landed on her behind and went for a ride. Twin Firs is where the wildlife is tame and the children are wild.
These are the kids. These five all forged special relationships with each other. I cannot even begin to describe how much fun these kids had. They climbed trees, built forts in the woods, looked for bugs, played on the tire swing, and pushed the rules and us grownups (and teenagers) to the limits!We spent one day in Seattle at the Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle. At the top of the Space Needle we pointed landmarks out to the kids. Child #4 saw a radio tower and exclaimed at the top of his lungs, "Look! I see the Space Needle!"
One day two little kids were caught too high in a tree wearing unsuitable shoes for climbing after they had been told not to climb too high and to not wear flip flops. Child #3 felt so bad. Pretty soon I noticed that I hadn't seen him for awhile. I looked in all the rooms. His shoes were all inside. His bike was in the driveway. Everyone else was accounted for. Only Child #3 was missing and no one had seen him. We started looking all over the 15 acres.
After 5 minutes (which seems an eternity when you are looking for your baby), I started to panic. DH was searching the pond, Child #2 was searching the 5 acre woods, AC #1 was on the ten acres with the cousins, I was coming back from searching the driveway. No one could find him. I decided to do a thorough search of the house; maybe he was playing hide-and-seek and the rest got found and left him. After poking through some closets and looking under beds, I finally found him under all the blankets on my bed, fast asleep. He felt so bad about disobeying me about the shoes and the tree that he put himself on time out and fell asleep. The next time he went missing (this time he spilled his cousin's bubble juice in the driveway) I knew exactly where to find him. Whew!
The last great adventure was fixing the well. The menfolk originally were replacing a pressure tank and a wall on the well house. After they opened the can of worms, or turned off the water supply with thirteen people under one roof, they realized that they needed to replace the well pump. To make a very long story short, we spent two days without water. Thirteen people under one roof with no water is not pretty. And I thought I was being smart by cloth diapering down there; it is easier to wash and dry a load of diapers in an area with no garbage service than to haul back a load of stinky disposables at the end of the week. When I got down to five clean diapers with no end to the well fiasco (which had my DH running to the hardware store many many times per day at 45 minute minimum drive time one way) I started looking at the linen closet for sheet to rip up. My kids were so grimy that when they cried there were rivers of mud running down their cheeks. The picture is the menfolk reading the owner's manual on the second day to figure out what went wrong.We really enjoyed our visit even though there was a lot of work to do. I can't wait to have them come back!
