Verses from the Elephants Child

This picture represents the first time I have successfully downloaded a picture from the camera to my blog without Ar's help. I broke out into a cold sweat, but I think it was worth it.

This is the boys at the Pacific Science Center on Sunday - we had a big day going there visiting my sister (my niece is about to have a baby any day), going to the Pacific Science Center and then visiting our friends Eric and Laura and their daughters Emma and Kira. I have known Eric since I was three or so - and we don't get to see them enough. I don't think we will go back to the Science Center on a weekend again - we were all on sensory overload.

Ar and I still don't know what we will do for the girls name's (we should know more info about them and if we can 100% adopt them soon), but if we do rename them Ariel is partial to Cathryn (shortened to Cate) and I happen to like India, Isabel, or Sarah.

Yesterday I got a big suprise - work called and said they were slow so I could show up two hours late! As luck would have it , it was sunny, so I took the boys to the park and then rode my bike in. It was a little mini Mountain Day.

I also realized this morning that I had not posted a poem since I announced it would be poetry tuesdays on my blog... today the poem is devoted to Rene, winner of two Edward R. Murrow awards.

Verses from the Elephants Child

I keep six honest serving men

(They taught me all I knew)

Their names are What and Why and When

and How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea

I send them east and west;

But after all tey have worked for me,

I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,

For I am busy then,

As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,

For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views.

I know a person small-

She keeps ten million serving-men,

Who get no rest at all!

She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,

For the second she opens her eyes-

One million Hows, two million Wheres,

And seven million Whys!

-Rudyard Kipling

homestudy

Our homestudy is completed. This is were a social worker came to our house and reviewed our history to write a report to the Ethiopian government proving we are worthy parents. I thought it was going to be painful and long. I thought I would have to answer questions about why my sister and I don't get a long too well. How sometimes we do spank our kids. But no, he didn't ask any scary questions at all.
So now we have one big hurdle out of the way...which leads me to a question I need some feedback about. We are hoping to adopt five year old twin girls, whose names are Megre and Megritu. Ariel and I would like to rename them..but are quite hesitant. What do you think? Is it completely innappropriate to rename five year olds with American names? We would definitely keep their original names as middle names. What do you think?

To paraphrase Tolstoy

All Good days are alike - but all bad days are bad in their own unique way.

Your Love is better than Ice Cream

This is Elias in the middle of our little day...We started out by taking Isaac to Orca Books to buy a reward book. He bought a Disney Fairy book.

Then Ariel sold his trusty floor nailer to some people from Craig's list - they traveled two hours to buy it.

After that we all piled into the car with Grandpa Mike and walked the Mclane Nature Trail - where Isaac found a salamander (who was not harmed in this photo), and Elias fell and hit his head.





Then Grandpa Mike took this nice picture of us all. The boys were very muddy, so we bought them ice cream, and they got even messier.

After baths we watched the Dark Crystal. I was out voted and the lights stayed off -and I was very bummed that I couldn't read anything, but it was still a good day.

HTML

Look what I can do now! Now I can use HTML to put the book I am currently reading on my blog. Awesome.

MIT Love

Since I have decided that this blog is really about sharing whatever thing I happen to be excited about at any given moment (rather than dedicated to every cute action of my children) I want to share a website that I am thrilled about finding, http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html - MIT has made their entire course catalog downloadable - not just the name of the course - but the course itself.
If you are enough of a geek as I am and love nothing as much as book lists and studying thrills you, I hope you find this is exciting. My friend the Progressive Pragmatist tells me it is Pi day, so what better day to announce something like this? I hope to spend several wasted hours in the near future purusing the class lists, planning on all the books I just have to read.

sprouts

I was definitely planning on getting up some nice pictures of our garden and fruit trees...Ariel has pruned everything and I have gotten started planting. I planted cold winter seeds; spinach, carrots, salad mixes, kale, and snap peas. We had two really beautiful spring like days and now I can't wait for my sprouts. The boys love to help me garden and nothing is cooler than digger for worms with them and seeing how excited they get.
I finished up my first term of classes and recieved an A on my evil assessment paper - and I forgot how physically painful it can be to have somebody rip apart something you worked on for weeks - even if you know it is for the best. I suppose this is a good way to say welcome to graduate school.
Do any of my faithful (all four of you) blog readers know how to put the "currently reading" little tag with the pictures of books on the end of their web pages?? I think it is from Amazon, but I really want one.

Noise Level

I have had a banner week for finishing things up - I got our taxes done, Ariel and I completed the second round of adoption paperwork - and tonight I sent in my mind numbingly dull community assessment paper. I am happy to report I have the unique talent of revising a paper while my dogs are fighting/playing very loudly, and three boys are playing lego Stars Wars (again, very loudly) in the same room.....I wanted to record the sound but didn't get around to it.

The same roar drives Ariel and My Mother in Law from our house...but I can concentrate on APA formatting. I will probably be deaf very young though.

I started my new job on Wednesday - I didn't do much but follow the other nurse around, but I am still quite jazzed about it. This evening I was reading the review for the last installment of The Coast Of Utopia - Tom Stoppard's 8 hour play about the Russian intellectuals that set the stage for the Revolution. I am so, so sad that I have not been able to see it. I hope that maybe some day they might do a revival of it in Seattle, but I won't hold my breath. It is not very often that I covet cultural happenings elsewhere, but this is definitely one of those times. I am also really looking forward to seeing The Lives of Others - I am sure it will make it to the Olympia Film Society sooner or later.