San Juan Islands Adventure

Every Spring for the past three years, our ward has journeyed to Shaw Island in the San Juans to work with the Benedictine Nuns at Our Lady of the Rock Monastery. The seven Mothers run a 300 acre farm with sheep, llamas, alpacas, cattle, pigs, and chickens. They grow food, flowers and herbs, and sell the products of the animals to support themselves.

Friday afternoon we set out with the Wise family for Orcas Island so we wouldn't have to leave Bainbridge on the 5:20 AM ferry Saturday morning. We drove up to Anacortes and took the ferry to Orcas. It was nice to get up there in the evening and still have time to play games and visit.

Saturday morning we caught the ferry from Oracs to Shaw, meeting up with the rest of our group.

It was a perfect day for working on the farm; it definitely felt like Spring was finally here. Jillian, Ben and I were assigned to work in the herb garden with Mother Felicitas.

Brad and Jimmy Wise repaired windows in the barn. Nathan and his friend Casey stacked firewood. Other groups started bonfires, repaired the compost shed, drove the tractor, cut up firewood, cleared brush, and worked on other odd jobs that needed to be done.

After our work was done, we watched the sheep being sheared. I'd never seen it done before and was amazed at how by holding the ewe a certain way, she is unable to move and submits patiently to being shaved.

Mother Hildegard is in charge of the sheep and she names every one. Brad enjoyed talking with her about taking care of them.

Ben and Jillian loved the lambs. There were so many! The trick to getting the ewes to the sheering area was to lead their lambs into the holding pen. The ewes would follow their lambs and then didn't put up a fuss.

We cooked lunch in dutch ovens and enjoyed a feast after our hard labor.

Then we caught the 2:20 ferry from Shaw back to Anacortes, drove to Edmonds, ferried to Kingston and were home by 7:00.
Except I left my key for our dog-sitters and accidently locked us out! Fortunately Nate sleeps with his window open a crack and was able to climb up on the roof and pry his window open.

Excuse Me, Your Roots are Showing

As a result of yesterday's snow/wind/rain storm, one of our trees uprooted. It was close enough to the road that we were scared it would hurt someone or take out the power lines if it fell. We called a tree service and had someone come out yesterday evening. He reassured us that it wouldn't fall on its own, but it still made us uncomfortable, so we had him take it down today.

I had to stand out in the road and stop traffic. A few neighbors came out to watch and stopped the cars coming the other way. Then they helped clean the branches off the road so the cars could get by.

This is looking towards the road after the tree is down, obviously. You can see the power lines in the background, still in tact, thank goodness. We had a 12 hour power-outage yesterday and I really didn't want to be the cause of another one. And no one got hurt, double thank goodness!

"But I thought it was almost Spring!"

"So did I, Ben, so did I!"

That's the conversation Ben and I had when we woke up to ANOTHER snowy day Sunday morning. We've had so many snowfalls this winter, I've lost count.

Ben enjoyed playing in the snow, although from his snowman's face, it doesn't look like the snowman was having much fun!

And I don't think my poor flowers were either!

Tyler's a Daddy!

Hudson Michael Swolgaard was born today at 1:30 PM, weighing in at 8 lbs. 3 oz. and measuring 20 1/2" long!

It freaks me out just a bit that my little brother who used to race dirt bikes in the woods and crash into trees on purpose is now a DAD!

My kids have affectionately nick-named their new cousin
"Little Hud".
Way to go, Tyler and Rachael! We love you guys and can't wait to meet our newest cousin.

Midnight Doctor Visit

I love my family doctor. What other doctor would meet me at 11:30 PM in his office because my six year old son was having symptoms of a bladder infection?

Last night after we put all the kids to bed, Ben came running down the hallway to our bedroom at breakneck speeds to use our bathroom (never mind there's one 5 feet from his bedroom door, ours is his toilet of choice!) He was in there for a while and came out crying, saying he couldn't go. We calmed him down and sent him back to bed. Two minutes later he's tearing down the hall again, same thing happens. This goes on for about an hour and half, to the point he's worked himself into a fit and can't calm down. Brad suggested we call Dr. Keyes, which I was reluctant to do; it was 11:00 PM after all, but I couldn't think of a better idea.

After talking over Ben's symptoms, Dr. Keyes said he would meet us in his office in 20 minutes. Wow. I was expecting him to suggest going to the ER if I thought it was necessary. So off we go to the doctor's office. At this point, I'm practically praying that there is something wrong since I would feel like a fool to have it all be nothing! Of course Ben falls asleep in the car on the way there and when I wake him up once we arrive, he's acting pretty normal. Dr. Keyes checked him over and had him pee in a cup and gave him some antibiotics. He didn't see anything in the rapid test, but is sending it off to the lab. Ben did use the bathroom four times while we were there, so at least Dr. Keyes got to see that symptom for himself.

Dr. Keyes has been our family doctor for 16 years, and Brad's doctor for 10 years before that. He has always been willing to go out of his way to provide care for our family. He's such a gentle, kind man and a wonderful doctor.

Color Test

OK, maybe I'm not as brain dead as I think I am! My mom just sent me this Color Test, a brain game kind of thing, and it only took me two tries to get 100%. Give it a try, it will give your brain cells a work out.

Read Across America Day

Yesterday, March 2, was Read Across America Day. Jack Prelutsky, Children's Poet Laureate, came to Wilkes for an assembly. Jillian is one of the "junior librarians" at Wilkes, and she and her friend Mara were chosen to be the MCs of the event. They explained the origins of Read Across America Day, then led the junior librarians in this poem:

I love to read. Brad enjoys reading. So do Nathan, Kylie and Jillian (all three have been junior librarians at Wilkes) and Ben is so excited that he's learning. I think Read Across America Day is wonderful!

Jack Prelutsky was clever, engaging, and has a great singing voice. He told the kids how most of his poems are inspired by real life experiences. "Rat for Lunch" was born after a dining experience gone wrong at a restaurant on Lake Union. "I Wonder Why Dad is So Terribly Mad" tells about the mischievous things he did as a child. Jillian came home singing, "Rat for lunch! Rat for lunch! Yum! Delicious! Munch munch munch! One by one or by the bunch—Rat, oh rat, oh rat for lunch! " And Ben was full of tales of painting dad's underwear with finger paints, then pinning them to the wall, and glueing the toilet seat shut.

Here's a snippet of Jack singing "I'm Building a Bridge of Bananas":

I love to hear writers talk about how they write. Jack told the kids that he always carries around in the pocket of his cargo pants a little notebook and "two pens, just in case one runs out of ink." He said he has so many little notebooks that if he stacked them all up they would reach from the floor up to the ceiling and he still hasn't used all the ideas in them. He also said "sometimes I tell the poem what to do, but most of the time it tells me what it wants to do." That's one of the things I love about writing. Often I have no idea what is going to happen in the story I'm writing. It develops as I write and shows me where to go.

At the end of the assembly, Jillian and Mara shared a poem with Jack (although not one of their own, which would have been really great).