Swainson's Thrush Song

This is a summer of hiking, since it is pretty much one of the only activities that we can safely do right now. The kids and I have been going on at least one or two hikes each week, and they usually are willing to go because: 1) they get to leave the house and 2) they earn one minute of screen time for every minute of physical activity.

Earlier this week we hiked on the Shangri-la Trail in Cougar Mountain, and we kept hearing this really unusual ascending bird song. It sounded to me like the sound of a cassette tape was being fast-forwarded. Lucy thought that the bird "sounded like space." It took me quite a while to find the right call, but I finally did. For a good portion of our hike we were listening to the Swainson's Thrush sing:



We want to go back to this network of trails again, because there are a lot of different places to explore and we only visited a few trails in our three-mile loop. And I think we all would like to listen to this unusual bird sing again!

Lucy's Parking-Lot Dance Recitals

This past week was Lucy Week! In addition to her birthday, we also got to see her perform in two socially-distanced, outdoor dance recitals. We drove up in our car and watched the dancers perform outside in the parking lot behind the studio. Everyone tuned in to the same radio station and the families stayed in the car while we watched the dancers perform six feet away from each other. Despite having to re-choreograph the dance routines and needing to take classes via Zoom, the girls did a fine job.

This was taken in the car, right before Lucy's tap dance to "Dear Future Husband." This was taken just two days before she turned six!

This was taken in the car right before Lucy's hip hop dance performance of "Firework." The performance was taken the day after her sixth birthday! You can see that she is missing two bottom teeth. One of her bottom teeth came out while she was eating her birthday dinner, but she didn't realize it and inadvertently swallowed the tooth!

Lucy did a great job in both performances. I think she does especially well with her ballet and tap classes, but she likes doing hip hop and we're going to continue to encourage her in all these areas of dance!

Latest Outdoor Adventures and Hikes

This first photo was taken on the same day as my last day of classes for the quarter. I took the kids to Sammamish State Park. As we walked around I kept mulling over how my last class session went over Zoom, and ways that I could have better taught the topic of Caravaggio's paintings of youths. This field of flowers helped me to focus better on the moment and on my two kids next to me. And I think it helped me to let go of the stress of online teaching from the past quarter, and begin to embrace the summer with my kids. Even though the last class didn't go as well as I had hoped (the students were understandably focused on the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests), I hope I'll have another chance to teach the Gender, Sexuality and Identity course at another time.

And so, my kids and I have slowly been transitioning into summer. They officially finished school last week, but we are still trying to have some kind of academic structure for them during the summer months. And luckily, they are interested in going on hikes and outdoor outings, since there isn't much else to do with museums, summer camps, and the Y closed. Here are some of the things we have been doing, with some things from last month too:

In the middle of May, J set up the tent for the kids to enjoy some backyard camping. That night Lucy only lasted about twenty minutes in her sleeping bag and asked to be taken inside to her own bed (so I slept in the house with her), but the boys slept outside all night.

Seahurst Park in May

Seahurst Park in May

We took a detour on our way to my brother C's wedding and drove past the Salt Flats. This is one of my favorite pictures of these two kids. The trip for the wedding was stressful and frustrating for me, in light of the ongoing pandemic and the need to social distance from my family, but I'm glad we could be at the wedding dinner for two hours to support C and S.

On our first day of true summer vacation, I took the kids to walk along the I-90 bridge into Seattle. We walked from Audrey Davis Park in Mercer Island to the Sam Smith Park in Seattle, and then back to our car. We went about five miles that day! The kids were mostly interested in the I-90 bike tunnel, which had some fun art. I think they felt like the bridge was too noisy with the nearby cars and busy with the bikes, but I think they liked the experience of walking along a bridge that is a familiar landmark.

I-90 Bike Tunnel

This outing to bike/scooter through the Snoqualmie Tunnel was a total bust, but it is worth including it since it took a lot of effort to get here with our bikes. We went here for Father's Day. Lucy got scared about 1/2 mile into the tunnel because it was dark, and plus the ground wasn't paved and completely flat to her liking. She got to a point where she wouldn't push her feet on the pedals, so I had to hold onto her bike handle with one hand and pull her and her bike along while I pedaled on my bike. Sam and J continued on for another mile, but Sam got bored in the tunnel and they didn't make it to the end. I don't think we'll go here again. I was pretty frustrated and I'm giving up on my dream of family bike rides.

These last pictures from today are evidence of a success story, though. I took the kids to hike to Talapus and Olallie Lakes. We hiked about seven miles round trip! Lucy was tired when we got to Talapus Lake and didn't want to continue on, but I got her to soldier on and even carried her for about a mile and a half. But for the most part, she did it on her own. This is a really nice hike because most of it is in the shade and he trail isn't very steep. The only real setback are the potholes in the road that leads to the trailhead; I wouldn't attempt this drive in a smaller car.

The kids pretended that the rocks were giants, like those from The Silver Chair or Frozen 2.

Talapus Lake - this lake is quite blue because it is exposed to the open sky. The lake is surrounded on a few sides by slopes with boulders

Olallie Lake in the background. This lake looks quite green due to all of the surrounding pine trees

Sam was really chatty on the way back when I asked him about The Alchemyst book by Michael Scott that he has been reading. E and T gave the book to him for his birthday. He told me about the plot in great detail. Lucy was listening carefully, and then she chimed in and explained that she and Sam are doing a pretend game that is a variant of the book's plot. In their game, she can create things out of silver and gold (due to her silver and gold "aura") and Sam is a scientist/alchemist who helps her. I'm glad that they have such fun together. It's cute to see them quoting "Bad Lip Reading" videos to each other and getting a kick out of similar types of humor.

Sam's 12th Birthday!

Sam is twelve years old! He had a special - and unique - day, despite some of the restrictions for Covid-19. He has grown a lot this year and always seems to be hungry, so we wanted to make sure that his birthday was filled with his favorite foods. We had crepes for breakfast, Subway sandwiches for lunch, and Panera mac & cheese for dinner. He even surprised us by choosing a birthday dessert that was not brownies this year: he saw a picture of chocolate lava cakes in our recipe book and asked that we try it:

Sam got lots of books from his family members and friends, which is great because I want to make sure he has plenty to read, since we will likely be spending most of our time at home this summer due to the virus. He also got some LEGO sets from us, including a Bantha, Tusken Raider minifigure, and also an AT-ST walker from the Mandalorian series.

At lunchtime, we ate Subway sandwiches and had a birthday celebration in my in-law's garage! It was raining and we couldn't stay strictly outdoors, but we opened the garage doors to have air circulation while we visited at a social distance across the garage. I bet this is the only time Sam will have a birthday party in a garage!

Sam also received a fun candygram and oversize balloon from the Hong family, which was special. We caught the Hongs as they were leaving the gift, and got to say hello to them from a social distance. I feel like the Hongs and the Roses are like our kids' surrogate cousins, aunts, and uncles.

One of the things that I thought was special, is that Sam and Lucy chose to spend their allowance money on Harry Potter wands. On Sam's birthday I let them come into the store to see the toy aisle, if they promised to wear their masks. It was the first time they have been in a physical store since March. They chose some "mystery" Harry Potter wands. Lucy ended up getting James Potter's wand, and Sam ended up getting Snape's wand. They spend much of Sam's birthday afternoon playing some sort of Harry Potter wand game up in Sam's room. Sam also got a little music player for his birthday, so that he could listen to his Spotify playlist offline, while in his room. While they played, the Harry Potter film score music from Sam's playlist appropriately accompanied their game.

I think the most special thing for Sam, though, was that he got to see his two best friends, Lewis and Judah, this weekend. Due to the lockdown restrictions, he hasn't seen his friends in person for about three months. The restrictions have eased slightly so that people can have outdoor gatherings, but you are only permitted to see five people outside your household over the span of a week. The boys sat and chatted for most of the time, but we did serve a pizza picnic lunch and they played a round of bocce.

He sure has grown a lot this year. He is about as tall as me, and he can slip his feet into J's sandals (although they are still a bit big on him). His voice has gotten lower and he looks more like a teenager with each passing day. Still, though, Sam is his constant and cheerful self. He is such a great kid. He's responsible, caring, obedient, smart, and very kind to his sister. I have no doubt he will graciously play with his sister this summer too, even at times when he'd rather do something else. Tonight Lucy wanted to hold his hand on our family walk, and even though I could tell he'd rather not hold hands anymore (he feels too old for that), he sweetly acquiesced and they held hands down the hill. I'm sure proud of him.

Lately he and I have been reading The Ickabog online (J. K. Rowling has released it on her website as a gift to children during the pandemic), and it's been fun to read a fantasy book out loud to him again. I hope we have many chances to read together this summer. Even though he gets older, I hope he doesn't outgrow his love for fantasy and fiction.

Bird Song Video

Our neighborhood doesn't have all of the birds in this video, but I think this will be a helpful resource as the kids and I work to differentiate between different bird calls:

Killdeer Birds in the Neighborhood

For my birthday, my sister E gave me a pair of binoculars to help aid our birdwatching as we go on neighborhood walks. The kids have liked using the binoculars, too, and I think it has made our quarantine experience a little more varied. During our morning walk yesterday morning, we noticed some birds with distinctive peeps that were running around in the housing development that is under construction at the bottom of our hill. It clearly looked like a mother bird was trying to out to her baby.

Then today we saw the same mother bird again, but she started to act really strange. She crept down, puffed out her tail feathers to look larger and revel russet-colored rump feathers underneath. For a moment, we thought she was going to come toward us! We kept walking, and it became apparent that she was trying to keep us away from her babies that were walking further down the road.

We figured out that these birds are called Killdeer, and they actually have a very distinctive sound (see video clip below). Our book describes the call as: kill-dee, kill-dee, kill-deer, but I don't really hear that.

This video of the mother bird defending her nest is a little similar to what we experienced this morning:

Maps of Fantasy Lands

A week or two ago, Sam and Lucy spend their "Creative Time" part of the school day creating different drawings. Sam created an elaborate map that was inspired by Lord of the Rings and Narnia maps, and I'm really tickled by how Sam took the pains to write everything in a fancy script. He usually doesn't take so much time to carefully draw and write! They have been carrying Sam's map around, along with a long wooden staff and a magic spell book, as part of a pretend magic game.

After a few days Lucy decided to make her own map too. You can see that she tried to section of her land to look similar to Sam's map, but the creative names for her lands are very much her own ideas. You can tell she is trying to appeal to Sam by having a "Cello Land" in the upper right corner. I'm really glad that she was so excited to work on this map. It has been difficult to get to her to be motivated to practice her handwriting (we had a standoff about how to write the lower-case letter "g" last week), but she wanted to write her letter forms carefully when she worked on this map.

I am so grateful that these two get along so well and have fun pretending with each other, especially during this lockdown when they don't get to see their friends from school. Lucy thinks Sam is really funny. Today she was thoroughly amused when Sam kept pretending that Lucy said "plants are gross" when she actually said "plant grows." He knows how to make her laugh, puts up her demands, and overall they have a good time together.