Out of Office

I am not with my children this week, because I am in Seattle doing an AP institute, and they are with my parents in Port Angeles.  This should mean that there is a cessation of blog posts, but that seems needlessly cruel to my international audience.

And also needlessly cruel to my mother, who might enjoy these cute stories about my children in amongst the trial and tribulation of keeping them alive and intact while I am gone.

I tried to do this post during a break at my conference, but apparently there is some sort of policy on the school wifi that you can't do anything fun.

Anyway, I thought I would share with you some pictures of last weekend's trip to Olympia.  We went to visit my brother Eric on his mostly vertical property, and he suggested a fun post-prandial stroll.

We should have been immediately suspicious.

We soon found out.

After clawing our way up a perpendicular slope through dense underbrush for a while, Ellie decided that she had had enough, and thought that it would be a good idea for me to carry her.

In a somewhat flatter place, Margaret demanded her picture be taken, on pain of her extreme displeasure.

So we did that.

And we climbed back down the hill, I laid down my burden, and was tired.

But not Eric.  No, Eric wanted our children to help his children plant trees or some such new-age folderol.

They've planted arnica and elderberry, so that's something.

Anyway, much fun was had by all.  There's something fun about a cheerful mob of cousins rolling around in the dirt together.  It's even more enchanting when they don't want you to roll in the dirt as well.