Stehekin Valley Ranch

We live in an amazing state.  

We drove about 3 hours from Seattle to a picturesque Wenatchee valley with its orchards of pears, apples, and cherries and the lovely Lake Chelan.  Chelan is a very deep, long lake that is reachable by car, at least, the lower portion of the lake is.  But we took a 2-hour (express) passenger ferry uplake to reach the opposite end of Lake Chelan where this little village named Stehekin is located.  When we arrived, a shuttle bus met us at the ferry landing and drove us another 8+ miles upriver to the Stehekin Valley Ranch, where we stayed for 3 nights. We learned about the locals, hiked, biked, rode horses, ate amazing food, river rafted, played, swam, and ate some more.  

It couldn't have been better unless it didn't end.

 I can't take a photo. But it was gorgeous, wherever I looked

 Our home-sweet-home. Lovely cabin.

They were mostly great at taking turns on the horse swing.

 Joel tried to catch a butterfly in the meadow, without a net.

 It was a great meadow, but the butterflies weren't going to be caught that easily.

Of course, we were all there because of Nonny's 70th year. This lady knows how to live!

Rainbow falls. This was right before an uncharacteristic thunderstorm swirled into the valley and uprooted trees, rained hail on some of us, and a caused a mudslide.

 There were plenty of walking sticks, but sometimes it was just nice to share.

 The bakery. I know it says it on the sign, but this is _the_ bakery. Nobody was unhappy there. Gabby ate a cinnamon roll that was bigger than her head.

They let us take lots of pictures of them, 'cause they knew this was a big deal.

A seriously happy Jamie.

The kids had their first horseback riding lessons and were all grins the whole time. I'm not sure I've ever seen them so happy as when they each got up on their horses.

 The tire-swing horse that the kids rode when they weren't eating or sleeping or doing some grownup-planned activity.

 Playing in the lake while we waited for the ferry to take us downlake.

Waiting for a ferry was never this fun before.

Little Chairs Project

Thanks to Ana White's Child's Adirondack Chair Plans and Harlan's Saturday afternoon with the leftover deck wood, we now have two cute little adirondack chairs for the kids to paint and enjoy!

Personality, please.

When trying to get the boys to just take one normal, smiling photo, this is what we got:

Do I look smarter, now?

Drumming

A few months ago, the boys expressed an interest in taking drum lessons.  We didn't hesitate to sign them up for lessons and got right down to it.  Well, of course, they loved it, and we're delighted watching them enjoying another aspect of music that we love.  But over the past few weeks, whenever another parent got wind of us allowing them to take drum lessons ("...starting early, aren't you?"  "...all that noise!"), I realized that there's a real stigma against having certain instruments in the home, or rather, certain instrumentalists in the home.  Where does this aversion to drums come from?  Totally unnecessary fears that kids are going to be in a rock band and do bad things with their lives?  Or is the noise really that bad?  (If the noise bothers you, you're not listening closely enough!)

So, I'm looking around now for what other fears, obviously not music-related, that I might have that maybe I let get in the way of helping my sons find their interests and explore the world.  I have so many!  I don't want to be the parent who doesn't let her sons play football because I don't want them to get hurt, but I've already caught myself thinking it and trying to steer them into other sports.  Parenting just keeps catching me off-guard!

Old Deck, New Deck

We're rebuilding our back porch/deck.  We'll gain enough space to put our grill just outside the kitchen, making it much more convenient.  And it will be nicer to have more deck space in general.

Here is before picture:

 Day 1:

Day 3

Much improved!

Minecraft Week

If you've ever watched "Tangled," there's an opening scene where Rapunzel gets up at 8am and whirls around, while singing, cleaning, painting, cooking, brushing, dusting, and on and on, and then she looks at the clock that says it's 8:15am.  Our boys are sortof like Rapunzel during the first week of summer break.  They are happy little chore busters first thing after breakfast, but unlike Rapunzel, as soon as they are done, they run to the living room and play Minecraft all day long.  Of course, the rule is that once they've done 10 chores, mom lets them do whatever they want for the rest of the day.  It's my gift to them for working hard at school and being good kids.  They could use this week to do anything they want.  My job is to transport them and feed them.  But they have chosen Minecraft, every single day.

Granted, they missed out on the two loveliest days of June and they talk about Minecraft incessantly when they are running to the bathroom or enduring a meal at the table.  But it's raining nonstop again and I've read a book and completed a long list of to-dos, so I have no complaints.  Actually, I'm enjoying surprising them with tasty meals and rice crispy treat breaks because they lose track of time and forget to whine about being hungry all day.  If only life were always so carefree.

Don't worry, my next post will be about the struggle of learning real life skills again as we adjust to our real summer schedule.  I know you're on the edge of your seat!