Spokane and Vancouver

Today Noah and I talked about some of the highlights of our trip:

• Going through the hedge maze at the botanic garden in Vancouver
• Spending time with Grandpa and Loree
• Ate yummy Spruce Bud flavor ice cream and other flavors with Aaron, Ezra, and big Aviva
• Playing with Aaron and Sara's kids including a snap circuit kit
• Picking buckets of strawberries from the farm near Aaron and Sara's house
• Playing at the children's garden that's part of UBC, with Ezra, Asher, and big Aviva
• Working on the marble run project with Grandpa
• Seeing the laughing sculptures around Stanley Park in Vancouver
• Learning to skip rocks with Grandpa
• Play on a few beaches in Vancouver and finding purple shells, clams, crabs, crab legs, driftwood, and cool rocks
• Playing on the treadmills at the gym 
• Going to something like 10 new playgrounds
• Eating lunch in the Priority Lounge at the Vancouver airport
• Driving in a brand new car with only 13 kilometers that was so bright blue and still had stickers all over the windows and door handles
• Seeing the beautiful views from the 17th floor of the bay and fjord and the sunsets (which were unfortunately at 9:30 pm)
• Playing foosball with Anya and Mika and Bubbe
• Getting dimsum with August, Tanner, aunts/uncles/cousins, and then going to the splash pad fountain thing with a carousel
• Spending time with lots of cousins and lots of family, like Joanna, Steve, Anya, Mika, Daniel, Sherra, Dizzy, Ozzie, Nana, Papa, Bubbe, Grandma, August, Tanner, Sue, Stan (11 of whom were in our house, with the 4 of us)
• Canoeing from our house on Liberty Lake and Noah was helping steer and row
• Going fishing from the dock of our house and also from the beach nearby
• Taking a bubbly bath in the huge bathtub upstairs - 3 kids together
• Eating the sticky toffee pudding cake for Uncle Steve's birthday, and eating it outside on the porch
• Science museum with cousins
• Seeing the waterfall in Spokane and watching it with Cousins Anya and Mika
• Sleeping in the 4 story bunk bed
• Throwing petals at the wedding
• Eating a lot of good food at the wedding
• Playing with Aunt August's cool dice including a 20-sided one
• Learning and playing Prodigy, a math game

Strawberry picking w/Aaron, Sara, and family

Grandpa and Loree working on constructing some
weird animal w/Aviva

    

  

Grandpa taught Noah how to skip rocks

Arrow is pointing to their building

Van Dusen Botanic Garden had a hedge maze

Grandpa and Noah working on marble run

exiting the hedge maze

Asher, Noah, big Aviva eating Spruce Bud ice cream

Spokane: 

At rehearsal

At wedding

At the dock at our house

Tady visits the time of the dinosaurs

Written recently, by Noah, in school:

One day, Tady was sitting with her mom on the front porch. Just then, the magic eagle flew by. Boom. She went up and up and into something that looked like space. It was twirling around and around Tady. Then the spinning slowed down. It was the time of the dinosaurs! Tady was frightened. She saw the king of the dinosaurs, the T-Rex. It was heading her way. Tady did not know what to do. Then Tady had an idea. She knew that T-Rex's were big but slow and humans are small but fast. Tady just thought she could do it, but she was quite sure. She ran through a forest of brown legs. She managed to get through. But now, a whole herd of dinosaurs! They were so pretty. But how would she get past something as big as this? Then she had an idea. She saw a Troodon, a friendly dinosaur. Tady crept behind the Troodon and if she was in an enchanted forest. When she got through she saw a beautiful lake. She tasted it and it tasted like rich caramel and melted marshmallows.

Dictated to Josh on Thursday:

She jumped in and it felt so nice! She wanted to stay there forever. Then she saw her mother down in the lake too. Then since they got together it was a magic moment and the magic eagle flew by. She went flying up and this time went whirling down into her house again.

The End

Weather report about Aviva

6/1/19  As of late, Aviva has been waking up on her own around 6:00 and getting dressed on her own. Then she gets back into her bed and hides under her blanket and calls for me to come look for her. I'm groggy and still half-asleep when I look for her and find her dressed. We've been going downstairs to weed the front yard, me in my pajamas and she's wide awake and very talkative. At 7 or 7:15 we go inside and help get Noah up and have breakfast. This has been happening for the last week or so.

This morning we saw some people jogging and walking dogs. Aviva pointed out that they probably had to go right that moment because they had energy they had to get out. We also heard some hooting owls, and she thought they might be someone's pets.

Aviva likes to pretend she's a kitty, and she tells us this throughout the day. This has been for months. "Pretend I'm a little kitty. I'm just one year old." "No, now pretend I haven't hatched yet and I'm almost ready to hatch." Yes, we've told Aviva that cats are born alive and not in eggs. But I guess she likes this idea because she keeps repeating this part. "Now pretend I'm a baby kitty and you're the kitty mama and you say, 'baby kitty, are you hungry?' "   And on it goes.