the opposite of gangbanger pants and then the actual lowslung

Miki sometimes likes to pull up her shorts real high.


Any pants at all. Real, real high.


Ida's pants are often falling off her; even while riding her bike.


What? Did Miki get a new training wheel bike at the yard sale? Yes...


And you're wondering how Ichi has been, lately?

Crabby.

Strawberry picking

We hit Sauvie Island this morning with Talu/Talou and Catherine, as well as Brenda S. and CJ and Dooley; there's not a single strawberry left on the island. Miki ate so many she had her first poop accident, later in the day, in many months.



At the U-Pick, they had a whole train of these cow cars. Very cool, even if not attached to a tractor. We had a devil of a time getting the girls out of them.

Skydiving

The Oregon Coast is kind of cold no matter what

Still, who would pass on a chance to hit the sands with these ladies?

Ida threw herself right down in the first cold puddle she could find! And then got really cold fifteen minutes later...

...not before Marshall got in there, too. With a truck.

That's right, we were partying with Max Landers!

Not to mention LeRoy and Mimi. Why we have no picture of Maeran is because she moves so fast.

Ida had to wear a sweatshirt as pants because she threw a tantrum because we only brought shorts!

Yup.

Biking to school

Ah, these mornings when it is kind of a little bit warm and the Bradford girls are doing something else rather than go to school, we can take out the "big bike" and ride, ride, ride.



Usually we have to stop at the hardware store, or a coffee shop, and definitely a playground en route.



This makes everyone happy.



There's a lot of singing and shouting as we ride along. Today we saw an old lady trip on the sidewalk; she fell down and cut her chin and maybe broke her glasses. We circled back to make sure she was all right. She said, "I'm just a clumsy old lady, and I fall down; I tried to at least fall onto that lawn, and missed." Ida told her that her sister Miki fell down a lot, too, and that she also fell down sometimes. I said that I did, too.

Is it summer?

The Goose Lake Expedition

That's right, I went to Goose Lake with six females. I know some people think this will be the occasion for many jokes about getting "goosed"; that's gross, and I never really understood what it meant.
Anyways, it was a treacherous hike. Often the grass was taller than these baby wolves, who prowled after coyotes and ate them up.

Everyone got thirsty.

Who packed everything up and planned things and didn't tear anyone a new one even when he took a wrong turn?

As if you were there (of course, Arthur, if you were there, you could have told an offensive story about Maggie, here):


The hike out got so hot that everyone had to take off their pants!


Right before that we had a stinging nettles incident. By the way (this is a segue I learned from Mr. Vining; it covers any number of digressions), initially our plan was to go visit a ferry that Ella and Ida and DKV and Hawkins once visited, a year ago. But the water was too high this year so everything was closed down; we didn't know that, which is why we went to Goose Lake.
Earlier that day I was treated to the experience of Ella trying on all her summer pants. Then I was educated during a conversation with both Vining sisters about pants and "seat wideness" and the size of pockets and the placement of pockets, and how that might cause you or not cause you to have a "Mom butt." Ella thinks this pair is a little tight. She says it makes the pockets kind of worthless.
Maggie says she has the same pants, exactly, except she can use the pockets. Ella says this is because their bodies are different shapes. Or something. Maggie says, "unless you have hands as small as a young boy's, clever little hands like Arthur has."

Okay, the hike out was so arduous that I ran ahead and got the moving van. Here are the girls running to meet me!

Miki's getting very fast, especially in her underwear.

Vining Sisters put their pants on for the final sprint!

Strong!
The end!
Except then we went and had some super soft soft serve ice cream.

Ida has a fever and allegedly Arthur's home