Aiden likes the flooding, though. It is fun with boats.

We dried out a bit on Tuesday, and so we started our annual epic strawberry project.

Acckkkk! Scary wide-angle face!

Hey there, gorgeous.

I picked roughly 15 pounds yesterday. And I say “I” because someone kept saying, “I am too busy eating them to pick any, Mom! I am starving for strawberries!”

And then we got into the van to go and he complained about a tummy ache.

Serves you right, kid.

These are from earlier this spring.

She didn’t cry at all when they dropped her off, which was highly gratifying.

The cousins had fun playing!

Morning snuggles!

I love her little smile!

An outing.

LOTS of selfies.

I hope we get to have camp again soon! I already miss my little pink buddy!

Enter this year: I am never going to get over it.

A strange fact that is blowing my mind this year:  when my mom was my age, 37, I was 18 years old. WHAT?? I can remember my mom as a 37-year-old woman, and I can’t remember her at all. I was busy being 18 and self-absorbed. What I really want, more than anything, is to talk to my mom about being a 37-year-old woman.

I just miss her, too, plain and simple. I want her to come over and sit in the driveway with me and gloat over my pink climbing rose and my enormous, out-of-control lavender bush that is taking over said driveway. I want to drop in and let Aiden go mess about in the woods while I hang out with her on the deck, or down by the pool. I want to call her number on the phone, and hear HER voice answer.

So, yeah, fifteen years is a long time to wait around to do these things, to miss someone.

There is also somehow a sweetness swirled through all the pain, an overwhelming gratitude.

The sweet thought that the number of years I will miss her is finite.

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? I walk outside and see this rose and usually make some kind of noise and wave my arms around and then bury my face in its blooms and whisper things to it.

Last fall, I gave this bush a severe lopping, donning all kinds of protective gear, because this is a vicious rose, a mean and nasty rose, a rip-your-skin-off-and-flay-you-alive rose. We’re talking bike helmets, people.

It has rewarded my courageous pruning with magnificence.

I love this thing.

I love this thing, too. He has always been a jumper, since we first met him. He throws himself off of everything, no fear whatsoever. But he has never been much of a climber, approaching monkey bars and climbing poles and trees with reluctance. But suddenly, after two rough weeks of challenging behavior and bedtimes, he has emerged on the other side as a CLIMBER.

I am so proud of him for overcoming his fears.

These sillies:

And now, the picnic! Kingwood, aunties, cousins, peacocks, food. It’s a party.

(stole this from Heidi’s facebook, bwahahaha!)

And now, it rains. Thank goodness, and I won’t have to water!

Sweet mom, enjoying her strawberry milkshake at Dan’s Dogs.

And Grandpa Doug, who is keen to spoil Aiden at any given moment. Not that Aiden minds.

The weekend was cool but beautiful. We did a lot of work outside involving tons of gravel and dirt, which is my favorite thing in the whole world. For real.

But then, Sunday afternoon, Aiden fell and smacked his head on the driveway, and we ended up spending our evening at the ER.

Two staples in his head later, we were good to go. Of course, I had to scour the town for children’s acetaminophen without artificial color, but I won’t get into that. Thankfully, he hit his head in all that new gravel instead of the concrete, so instead of a concussion, he had a big gash. But I will take a big gash over a concussion any day. We are considering a helmet for everyday use, though. 

And that is what has been going on around here. Good times!

Yeah, right.

They walked across the lake, back and forth, crawling on their knees when it wasn’t deep enough for their satisfaction.

They had the best, best time, and all three of them begged to go back tomorrow.

We celebrated our camping debacle with dinosaur pancakes on Saturday morning.

And then, the guys headed out back while I headed to the library book sale. Huzzah!

We have been working on this section of our yard for several years. We used to have a huge maple tree here that was slowly dying and dropping branches through the roof and into the yard. Finally, two years ago, we had it taken down and sawn into huge chunks, all of which were left strewn about. I had been using this area for my composting as well. My ten years of composting. That’s a lot of compost. Last fall, we built the three-bin compost system, and we have slowly been transitioning from big random piles to small, not-so-random piles. The plan here is to level out the side by the garage and build raised beds for veggies, as this area faces south and gets a lot of sun. We will eventually have a tidy pathway as well and I won’t cringe and look away every time I sit back here!

First, we burned everything in our “burn pile,” which consisted mostly of the rose canes from my climber in the front bed. I gave it a severe pruning last fall, hoping to prevent that horrible black leaf spot mold stuff that is trying to kill it and break my heart. We then moved the compost tumbler over to the compost side where the burn pile had been. We are going to use the tumbler for kitchen scraps, so the neighborhood raccoons stop making a huge mess out there all the time. Sorry, neighbors, if we smoked you out this weekend. A built-in stone fire pit is also in the works for the summer. We are a family of pyromaniacs.

See that pile that Aiden is working on? Compost. Beautiful, beautiful compost. That is going into the raised beds.

We splurged this time and ordered these amazing corners. When we built our other raised beds, we just used screws to assemble them. Chad likes this system much better! This is the 4×4 bed, and we are also going to do a 4×8 bed.

And then, we grilled pizza.

It was so good, we made the ugly face.

It was really funny when Myles joined us inside. This is, apparently, a three man, one dog tent.

All was going SO well. Until Aiden went to bed.

There is a very busy road behind our house. All the time, cars and trucks, sirens, people walking and talking loudly. People from the next street over running leaf blowers and lawn mowers. We tried to tough it out. Chad went in the tent to sleep while I stayed by the fire, reading on my very rustic and campy Ipad.

Some robins, silly birds, decided to have a big fight in the tree above the tent at dusk. A fire engine came screaming through the intersection. Someone decided to share his awesome bass with the rest of the world. It was, in a word, NOISY. Way, way too noisy. Aiden was still awake two hours past his bedtime, and the neighbor’s security light behind the house shone directly into the tent. We laughingly called it, hauled in our stuff, and went to bed in our quiet house, with fans running for white noise.

We absolutely plan to go camping for real, hopefully sooner rather than later. However, next time, we are going to find a quiet place in the woods, far away from traffic and security lights.

Aiden was still completely satisfied with the experience and plans to hang out in the tent for most of the day.

We will try again.