The End of the School Year/ The Beginning of Summer

Both girls had (mostly) a fun time playing tee ball and softball. Here's Miki on first base, after a hit! (All hits in tee ball are singles.)

Things got really out of order, uploading these photos; you'll see what this was about later on.

Miki on the way to her hip hop dance performance at the Historic Newmark Theater!

Lots of make up!  Best coffee grinder move of the whole troupe!

Before that, who graduated?

Here's Ida and Elsie, mid-softball tournament, with a friend they made.

Very strong showing at the tourney, which featured even a triple play which got us so, so close to these trophies!

Ah, the days are getting HOT.

That's why we went underground, emerging hours later from the treacherous upper stretch of Ape Cave, up on Mount St. Helens.  Craziest lava tube of all time.  Ella can never get enough!

Oh yeah, here was one of the highlights of the fancy hip-hop performance:

At long last

Sweet Cousins

The other day we were almost late to school (!) which meant the Bradfords were behind us.  As Elsie and Ida hustled toward the door, I noticed that they'd quickly joined hands...

Sweet.  Just like old times.

Triumphs of Ida

Ida, finishing up second grade!

Unbelievable cougar diorama!

Cougar's hiding, in there; a closer look:

Special feature:  an opening into the DEN!

There are the cubs!  Identifiable by their cute little spots!

and what's that, back there?  A bloodied rabbit.  Prey!

In her spare time, Ida managed to do some mini-Olympics performance.  Many kudos to her teacher, Michelle!

Wait, did Principal Matt Goldstein not know enough about cougars?  He showed up to pay special attention and suggest a special commendation was in order!

Adventures

Unbelievable amount of Memorial Day Weekend ACTION

True, there's plenty of time when it looks like this around here:

But then we headed over to OMSI to check out Ripleys Believe It or Not exhibit.  This one, we believed.  It's like a very large chair.  Made for an actually gigantic man.

Hmm.

This may always be at OMSI.  Still exciting.

Still no one's taller than this bro?  Robert Wadlow, the Alton Giant.  Remember him from my Guinness Book Bicentennial Edition.

Our girls are growing too.  They will not be eight foot eleven, but the computer said Ida would be 5'5" and Miki 5'7" thereby dwarfing their mother who says the science was faulty and needed to take more data into account.  We'll see.

Anyway, it's been a warm spring.  Early strawberry picking on Sauvie I. with our old pal?

Sure!  The berries were delicious, if quite sparse.  Less sparse:  cut out head photo opportunities:

And then on the actual Memorial Day, Ella got strong and the ladies rode their bikes to the MULTNOMAH COUNTY FAIR.  Miki was almost too heavy for this pony--Ida was, but she rode the SCREAMING EAGLE instead.

This is really weird and hard to describe, but legal:

Miki = 6

Wow, whew. So much going on. Despite our strategy to procure a "low yield," about thirty kids came over for Miki's "patio birthday party with fire and roller-skating" a couple weeks back. Wild. No one got hurt.

She's really feeling her oats.  Six!

Kissing beautiful chalk drawings made by her sister...

And celebrating at the Bradford's, a couple weeks late.  Was she patient for this?

No, not at all.

She also got her face infected by a poisonous plant and has been on prednisone, which has made her a 'roid rage risk.