Canada Day pics

I realized tonight I'm more behind in some postings than i thought. For instance, I completely forgot to post the pictures from Canada Day, which was July 1st! I'm having some technical difficulties with posting photos to Blogger right now though.
Also, I will also be posting from Aloka's birthday (her actual birthday, and then the party we had for her a week later) once I have all the videos uploaded in the next couple days. I took A LOT of pics and movies!
In the meantime, you can look at Melissa's blog, which she just posted with some fun pics from the party!


Here are a few pics of Josh and Aloka after picking mulberries off a friends tree:

























And then some pics of all of us a Lakeside Park (the beach part) still Canada day:

A bunch of pics

Firstly I wanted to post this beautiful collage that my friend Melissa made for Aloka for her 4th birthday! The map shows Vashon with an arrow pointing to Nelson. So much thought went into it and we love it so much! Thanks Melissa!



Next are just a few photos of the past few weeks. Here's a great one of Melissa,
and then Aloka in a new sundress that Grandaddy and Jammy sent her a year ago. I just found the box full of 4 year old clothes a few days ago, what a fun surprise! Unfortunately, I still can't figure out how to rotate my pictures. Oh well.

Here is some cool sidewalk art Aloka did at Josh's house:


Here's a picture of me, because I'm hearing some complaints that there are hardly any photos of myself. It's not the greatest in the world:
And then lastly, I've been car shopping to try and find a suitable new car for myself. I went to a Toyota dealership a half hour from here to check out the used car inventory. But folks, who would buy a car from a guy with a last name like this one??? So, there's an apostrophe. Big deal. You're selling cars! I would be changing that name buddy.

Happy birthday to our Goosey!

Aloka turned 4 yesterday. My how time flies and goes slow at the same time!
I wanted to have a little party for her. I had plans on it being outdoors, seeing as it's been in the upper 90's for the past few weeks. Josh, Richard and I all built her a beautiful sandbox for her birthday (pictures to come!). I wanted to have a party outside with everyone bringing something for her to use in her new sandbox. I also bought a cool pool during my last excursion to Target that looks like a big whale and has a mini water slide. The hose attaches to the "blow hole".
BUT, alas. On her birthday, the temperatures plummeted to 21C which felt oh-so-very cold!! I guess that would be about 70F? Brrrrrrrr. :) Definitely not pool worthy. Oh, and not to forget the thunder and lightening storms that were the evening before.
I told Aloka we'd have her other birthday party with cake and friends next week when it gets hot again. It will probably be on Thursday or so.
But we had a really nice day. Josh and I got Aloka her first real bike.













She is a total natural!!
Josh took her out on it today for hours, and she took to it immediately. There are training wheels on it, but she's so comfortable on this thing, she was practically doing wheelies I'm told.
Josh had come over in the morning with an armload full of gifts for her from all of her grandparents, aunts, uncles and us.

























She had so much fun opening everything, and I had made some mini cupcakes so I made her a special peanut butter and chocolate icing which she enjoyed. She still wants a "real" cake though!













Here she is wearing a new tutu that Richard's daughter Beth, who is 15 yrs old, made for her. She loves tutu's and she loves Beth!
Check back in a day or so, as I'll be posting some videos too!

Aloka is growing

This is just a quick post to say that Aloka is growing like a weed! Richard had drawn a mark on the door frame with her height in June, and yesterday she was standing next to it and I noticed that she has grown over an inch! In one month! I also weighed her and she's 2 pounds heavier. It's amazing how fast she's growing. Josh and I always used to joke about how we wanted to bonzai her, but I must admit, each new age/phase just keeps getting more and more fun!

A swim in the river

Just a few photos, didn't get too many unfortunately, but that's because we were having so much fun swimming. We went up to Richards and took a short walk down to a great swimming spot just behind his land. It was so beautiful! It's been in the upper 90's and low 100's here the last two weeks. Swimming in a cold river is perfect right about now. Whew!

Aloka is just about to get in the water

Just getting out now, making a silly face

Last photo, we're inside this incredibly cool shower house that Richard built out of cedar. It is a free standing outdoor shower, complete with a sink. The shower heats with an instant hot water heater (propane fueled) so the shower never gets cold, and the heater takes up so little space. We love it so much, and have been using it a lot. Aloka loves it because she can shower herself off because it's got a removable shower head, and there's plenty of room for me to be in there with her!

A birthday party and the worlds worst toy

Aloka was invited to Jakob's 4 year birthday party last Saturday. Jakob is a boy from her preschool. There was face painting, which Aloka loves.
















I was surprised when she chose to be a pirate. And a very cute pirate she was:

























The cake was supposed to be a caterpillar or something, and Aloka didn't eat much of it which was just fine by me. She completely chowed down instead on baby carrots and Antoinette's Dip (a delicious and popular locally made vegan dip).

At the end of the party, Jakob passed out little treasure bags for all the children, with lots of fun little things. Aloka's had stickers, a couple little foam monsters, and: The worst toy in the world.

What on earth??? Who invented this crap?
I know, how about let's make tons of little foam colored balls, and then cover them in massive amounts of sticky glue so they get stuck everywhere and will never ever disappear? Parents shall hate this company forever. Or at least as long as it takes for these balls to go away, eventually biodegrading in some landfill, which is, oh wait... NEVER!

Josh's clone

This came from Josh, who I think found out about this video from his parents. So extremely bizarre! I had just mentioned a couple posts ago about Parkour, and it being Josh's passion. Here the email and video he sent me. Josh says:

He is from Bristol, England. Maybe the internet makes the world a little too small of a place, eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJTcIbTrzGA

Noooooooooooooo.........I am a unique snowflake......I am a unique snowflake......I am a......I am.......I........
*sigh* oh well.

Another momentous trip

Here's my story:
I have decided to sell my car. There are a few reasons, but mainly because it turns out it would've cost me close to $3000 to import it into Canada, because my particular year of Jetta needed a bumper "modification", aka new bumpers.
I really hemmed and hawed over this one, being so attached to my "biodiesel" car that gets insanely good gas mileage. But that being said, it a'int no Toyota and isn't known for longevity per say, so who knows how much i would have ended up sinking in to it over the years.
I advertised on Craigslist in Spokane and Seattle, and last Thursday got an email from a guy in L.A. saying he wanted it, and could he meet me in Spokane on Saturday? It was so sudden, but I got in for a auto detail on Friday, and drove down early Saturday morning.


After a long drive and a $144.00US speeding ticket about 10 minutes after my announcement that belly dance music make me drive too fast, I finally made it to the airport within minutes of my buyer, Joe, walking off the plane. The timing was good. He took it for a test drive, and a half hour later I was at the Uhaul place near the airport, with a check in my pocket.

I rented their "smallest" truck they had, took it over to the storage locker (not without a quick stop at Target!), met my dear friend and midwife Shaheeda (she had some unfinished business to attend to in Spokane, so we planned it for the day I would be there), who helped me load of the last of the old Vashon life info the truck.


I headed home.

I finally got to the border at 8pm knowing I'd get through but also knowing it wouldn't be easy with a huge truck full of what I told he border officer was "the dregs of the storage locker barrel". Just as suspected, he put on a bit of an attitude, starting with when he first walked up to me saying, "ya know, here at the border we look at Uhaul's like they're cancerous tumors". He was an officer I've dealt with in the past, so he was at least familiar with me. He was grouchy with a slight sarcastic sense of humor, so I ran with it. By the end, he was helping rearrange my glass vases so they wouldn't break, all the while criticizing my packing job. All in all, it could've been worse.
When he finally waved me through an hour later, I was so relieved knowing it was almost over. I went to my boyfriend Richard's house, which is 20 minutes outside of Nelson in the mountains, and was right on the way. He had a nice hot dinner waiting, and it was so relaxing to be there after a long and exhausting day.

A post from Josh

My friend Jazmine took Aloka and I out Canoeing at 7:00am yesterday.
We had a blast on the water, Aloka is such a natural with her little paddle even though it was only her first time.

Nelson has it all, water, mountains, beaches, sun, rain, snow, and of course the best community anyone could ask for.

This morning Aloka and I went to Lions park for a few hours early in the morning 7:30-9:15, then out for Egg Bennie's at the Vienna Cafe with our friend Melissa and her boy Nile, and my friends Dallas and Kelly. After breakfast we spent some time at the farmers market listening to music and eating fresh strawberries and samosa's.

I love my little goosey and all our wonderful friends.

-Josh

Father's Day pics

Above and Below: Josh and Aloka doing some "car" Parkour, (one of Josh's extreme passions)

I don't have too much time to write (seeing as it's 12am and I should be sleeping!) but I wanted to get these up. We had a great time on Father's Day, and first went to a celebration at Lakeside Park. There were water balloons, bubble making, bird house making, kite making, face painting, shaker making, trolley rides, a fire engine tour and of course the ever-so-festive samba band.
You can tell it was a somewhat "almost-might-maybe-rain" kinda day (sort of a relief after the heat for me!)All the children took they're newly made shakers and made lots of music with them in a grand parade. We all had tons of fun, and it was nice seeing all the dad's walking around with "#1 Dad" ribbons stuck to their shirts.
Aloka saw lots of friends there of course; here's a photo of Aloka and Elora making music with their shakers:

And one more hilarious video I wanted to post; Aloka just out of the blue started walking like a little old lady and I filmed it. It was so funny!

Here's one more video of Josh pushing Aloka and her friend Estelle while they're chanting "higher, higher, the house is on fire" over and over!

And one last and final picture that has nothing to do with Aloka! I got my first truffle order for a grocery store that just put in a really beautiful deli/cafe in the upstairs. I've been playing with my presentation so i'm including a photo (large of course, for maximum drool factor) of the finished product:

Some videos

Aloka and I went to the Waldorf Mayfest a few weeks ago but I'm finally getting around to putting up the videos. The festival was fun. There was a beautiful story telling with puppets, lots of yummy snacks and crafts. Aloka loves it at the school, it will be great when she is in Kindergarten able to start going. For now, she is in her lovely Waldorf Preschool in town which she loves equally as much. Sadly, her teacher just announced that they are moving to Oregon next year, so we are finding something else for her for next year, and then the year after that she'll be old enough to attend Kindergarten at the big Waldorf school. Luckily, there is a beautiful little Waldorf preschool literally across the street from us I just discovered! We went and had a visit, Aloka loved it, and she'll be able to attend starting next fall. The teacher is named Sheila, and is very into story telling and drama/theatre which will be great for Aloka, right up her alley.

After we did Mayfest, we went to a little dance recital that Aloka's friend Claire was in. Aloka was so excited to go, that we had to go home so she could get dressed in her leotard for the occasion.

So below are a few little video clips, nothing too exciting but you can see our little girl in action!
And a couple funny things she has been heard saying recently...
This is something she said while sitting on the toilet just having recently recovered from a stomach flu:
"Mama, diarrhea is like my butt's throw up!" (lovely, I know, but I was laughing)

And then the other day she was asking Josh if he knows how to build houses. And maybe someday he would teach her how to build houses. And then someday she would teach her children how to build houses. She ended that with "cuz that's just how it goes!"

Sculpting with Dada

Some of you have already seen these photos because I think Josh emailed them out to some family, but I wanted to post them as well. Aloka is really blossoming as an artist, and I love that she gets so much art time with Josh. They both love it and it's so good for both of them.

So the last art day they had was with Sculpey. They made lots of sculptures which I'll post, complete with Josh's commentary once again:

Aloka's Sculptures
Aloka has been playing a lot with clay lately.
Here are some photos from our latest sculpture session.

The first few are completely her own creations, the second set are some where we each made our own of the same thing.

She creates these crazy men with huge hands, she cuts the fingers off of a block one at a time.
I think these men look very modern and cool.

Here is another of her men with a different stye body, but a similar face:

This creature was amazing, it has 4 legs, a tail, eyes, mouth, several nostrils, and a large hole in its side:

Here are our frogmen, the first one is hers, the second one is mine:

Here are our Wedding Cakes, the one on the left is hers, mine is on the right. I include a nickel in the first photo, so you can get an idea of the scale and size. These are very small and detailed, impressive for such young hands. She wanted to do these because she has seen so many cake photos lately, from Anna and Melissa: