Kodiak Crab Festival

Every single year, on every single Memorial Day weekend, the Kodiak Crab Festival takes place. It's a big deal, regardless of your age. The kids talk about it for about 360 days, & then it's here, & then it's gone. We managed to get by only going two days. It's also a money pit, so two days there is pretty darn good. My sister lives almost downtown, so it's an easy walk, as well as an easy tease. The boys tried so hard to patiently wait, staring at the moving rides through my sister's porch railing. We somehow managed to forget about all those years we could barely withstand the waiting, & kept the boys a little longer. But then we journeyed down, passed the zooming cars, along the docks, through the maze of festival-goers, to the ticket line. Almost exactly where the boys had dreamed of being for the past 11.5 months, but not quite. They wanted the rides- the Indiana Jones obstacle course, the spin-the-apples, the flying cars...& the games. The balloons to pop, the bottles to ring, the fish to catch- so much excitement for these guys.

After a couple hours, we headed home. The boys were heavily armed in their new pirate-ninja gear. We were heavily armed with seriously delicious Mexican food (& a sweet buttercup bouquet, courtesy of Covey). It was a very fun Crab Festival; & the weather was gorgeous. How could I forget the weather?! The weekend is usually a rainy, wet one, but somehow we managed to get two nice, sunny days. One big win, all the way around!

The Night Before the Last Day of School

The boys are asleep, Ella's nursing & I'm sitting her, wondering how it can be the night before Ry's last day of kindergarten. After moving his sleeping self from my bed, to his own, I sat there for a few minutes, staring. Then with a kiss goodnight, I took a deep breath, & stared some more. Earlier in the evening, we ran around the yard. The boys wanted to look for fiddleheads; Ella tried to rally right along with them; they all ran, ran & ran; & Covey used his binoculars for some thorough scoping of the landscape. The air was surprisingly warm, filled with sounds of the nearby nesting Eagles, & a lurking summer. Some days feel so long, but somehow the past 9 months got away from us. Not even one whole year, yet full of so many big changes. Ry has transformed, quite literally before our eyes. Tonight I asked him if he was sad or happy about kindergarten ending. He told me mostly happy. I felt selfish, but this wasn't the response I was hoping for. Did I want him to be sad? No. But I think I wanted a little hesitation. Instead, he told me he was excited for first grade. As bittersweet as it is, I'm very excited for him. New adventures await all of us.

The End of the Season

I recently wrapped up Visual Storytelling, taught by Molly Flanagan through the Define School. It was an amazing online workshop. I highly, highly recommend it, for any photographer interested in learning more about the art of storytelling through images. When I took the course, I knew I wanted to document our soccer routine. Ry has been playing the last five weeks, so every Monday & Wednesday evening, we run out the door to his games. This was his first year playing, & he loved it! We really enjoyed it, too; it's pretty cute watching a dozen or so kids run around after the ball. Last night was his final game, so I made a point to have a few extra minutes for photos. p.s. there's no actual game photos posted here, to protect the other players privacy.

 

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day. Yesterday, I told the kids I wanted one photo with them, for Mother's Day. I rarely attempt that with the camera & have been trying to more with the iPhone. So I admittedly took advantage of Mother's Day, & got some pictures. Mike took them for me- I got it all set-up & then hoped for the best, but was pleasantly surprised with his photo skills (or listening skills, as I told him exactly where to stand, bend his knees, what to focus on, etc...haha, it's kind of hard not to).

I hope all of you mom's out there have a wonderful day today, but more than that, I hope you have wonderful days. I know there are some really long ones, some really hard ones, some really fun ones, some really crazy ones...& I'm not really sure how one day a year can encapsulate all this motherhood stuff, but it's nice to get that extra bit of acknowledgement. Motherhood is not easy & it's not always smooth-sailing, but it's really fricken amazing.