April

Oops. I missed an entire month of blogging. It is just a bit crazy here right now... Jonathan will finish off his four year Masters of Divinity adventure in just a few short weeks. Except right now those "few short weeks" feel more like a few looooooooooong weeks. There are still Greek passages to translate (just looking at those pages of translation and grammar diagramming makes me a little ill), papers to write, binders to compile and the list goes on.

Not that the girls and I aren't finding ways to keep busy as well....

In over my head

Gabriella and I were discussing vowels. They are one of the tricker parts of learning the written English language. She knows what the vowels are, but still often mixes and omits them.

Me: Every word has at least one vowel and some words have more.

Gabriella: "Brrr doesn't have a vowel"

Me: (not sure I've heard correctly) "How do you spell brrr?"

Gabriella: "B-r-r. (makes a shivering gesture) See? No vowels."

Me: Yes you are right sweetie, almost every word has a vowel.

Mama needs to stick to teaching art.

Riverfront

Just a few more from the riverfront...

Riding the MAX rail across the river is always a fun time.

Making instruments at the Saturday market and dancing to live music isn't too bad either

Cherry blossoms are the icing on the cake.

***

So why the shortage of Gabriella pictures?

Gabriella simply does not want her picture taken very often these day. She flips into a full blown scowl if she even thinks I might be pointing the camera her direction. So, I don't press her very often and I try to make sure that the camera doesn't dominate our family outings. I do, however, have some fabulous pictures that Gabriella took (on our old point & shoot camera) the same day these were taken. Hmmm.... more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it? I have no idea where she would get that from.

Sunshine

Cherry Blossom

Portland Japanese Gardens

Hmmm... I'm thinking that I'll start passing off last weekend's outings as this weekend's outings. That way you can all think that I am keeping caught up on my blog, no?

Anyhow, last weekend we went to the Portland Japanese Gardens. There were three very good reasons to go.

1.) It was the Hina Matsuri Doll Festival... also known as the celebration of Girls Day (and we just happen to know two little girls that would be impressed by the ornate dolls.)

2.) We were having our own celebration weekend for a very special Daddy that happens to love the Japanese Gardens, and really Japanese culture in general.

3.) It was free admssion day.

It was very crowded because of the free admission day so we made it a relatively short trip. The girls loved finding all of the things on the "treasure map" they were given at the entrance and they enjoyed the doll display. They were also able to try a bit of origami and make their own paper doll. Gabriella was very pleased with herself at the rock garden because the tour guide who was addressing a large group said, "This is the only garden that does not have a water feature. Why do you think that is?" and after a moment of silence from the entire group, Gabriella's little voice piped up, "Because the little rocks are like the water." The tour guide was pretty darn impressed at Gabriella's conceptualization of zen aesthtics ;)

And a happy birthday month to this guy:

I still melt a little bit at those blue eyes.

Weekend Adventures

We enjoy our mini-weekend adventures at the Whisler house. In honor of Jonathan's birthday we visited one of his favorite places last Saturday. It helped that it just so happened to be "free admission day." Any guesses on where we went?