Ella Made Us Go Blueberry Picking in a Frickin Rainstorm!

It was really raining way too hard to take pictures





We then spent a very exciting and steamy fifteen minutes in the mini-van with everyone stripped down to their underpants and shivering. Maggie took off her skirt and wrung it out! It was like six gallons of water in there.

Everyone is fine

Yes, I've been really busy and meanwhile many things have been happening. Even Arthur has been helping out while I teach at a writer's conference. And the girls are busy--



Miki's doing crap like this:


Here's a really tough photo of Ida after she tagged up this fence with some spraypaint!

"Mount Saint"

So, over at Tumbleweeds, Aron has really got everyone worked up about volcanoes! Which really isn't hard to do, but still. He brought in noted Chemist "Sarah's Mom Daniel" to do a cool Brady-like volcano experiment. Freaked everyone out.


So, spurred by ERV, we headed to Mount Saint Helens last weekend! It wasn't easy--Elsie threw up on everyone in the car, and then Ida had a meltdown where she alternately wailed that the mountain was too tall or not very tall. Once we got to this vantage point and ate some salami, things started to look up. The girls looked through the telescope and saw steam emitting from the crater! The ranger helped them (though Theo referred to her as a "STranger," which caused everyone to wonder if they should shout and run away whenever the ranger approached).

There's really not much shade up there. Why? Because the sonic winds and dust cloud and sheer force of the explosion destroyed all the trees!

These ladies did not forget their sun hats.
Nor this little foxlet. (Note, by the way, that dress of Maggie's I warned you about, last post. One clue: it has a bra built right into it!)

A little later we went down to this amazing little lake where it was cooler and Theo fell down and scraped her knees and really screamed. Sound carries across water.

This man caught several trout. He is only allowed to keep one each day, and it must be sixteen inches. He caught one that big earlier, or so he said, but let it go since he was sure he'd catch another. He didn't, but he did catch about fifteen fish, all about twelve inches. The girls had a good time questioning him and getting in his way as he tried to get his pontoon personal watercraft thing into his truck.
Miki threw half the beach into the lake.

These girls are so familiar with the volcano that they just call it "Mount Saint." Ida told us yesterday that she would like us to move closer to Mount Saint.

4th of July, part one

Hello Americans, Canadians, and other people! Ella helped the girls decorate their bikes for the Eastmoreland Parade! And then we raced through the neighborhood to the parade.


Yes, Miki is fast.


Lining up for the parade was kind of tight, and there were many large dogs in costume, but this did not scare Miki too much or throw her off her game.


Chaos:

Ida ran into the back of a lot of people's legs because she was watching the fire engine and other assorted distractions ("I got distracted" is one of her favorite phrases) rather than paying attention to where she was going. More about Maggie's dress, glimpsed here, when I catch you all up on our trip to "Mount Saint" on Saturday--right now I got to take care of America's birthday.

Elsie rode it all like a champ, no training wheels. However, somehow Arthur and Maggie lost her in the crowd and I myself had to locate her. She was crying, and being held by a woman with dark frizzy hair who was wearing a Toob top. Let me tell you, Elsie was glad to see me! I was the hero! And then a little later I found Maggie, who was looking for Elsie. And then we all ate hot dogs (Arthur cut in line in front of about 200 people, snagged four dogs, didn't pay, said this was the American way, was upbraided by Ella who continues to silently fume, etc) and some popsicles.

Both of our girls crashed on the way home. They were wearing helmets, though.

There may be another report from 7/4/11. We'll see if anything noteworthy happens.

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