Cousins

Our day became interesting when we visited a local coffee shop before leaving town this morning to go see our cousins.

(I always liked buildings that have bars over the doors- gives them a kind of "homey" feel, don't you think?)

This coffee shot purportedly contains some really garish art, houses flies in the pastry case, hires rude people who refuse to have anything to do with Starbucks, and sports an ugly mural on the side of the building. But it also serves some of the best coffee in the area. Not that I drink coffee- but I do believe the rumor. Ugly apples generally taste the best, after all. I've heard wonders about the beans they sell- and if I was a coffee aficionado I'm sure I would appreciate this place.

Our cousins have chickens. The suburban chicken-craze has hit the Northwest, folks.

Gabriel only wishes the chicken-craze would hit our little part of the Northwest. 

This is Bob. No one knows whether it's a boy or a girl. Kind of a moot point though, come to think about it. I can't help but notice the rockin' feather-do.....

My four-year-old cousin likes to chuck chickens up in the air. It startled me at first, but then I came to realize that chickens are essentially like balloons and come peacefully back down to earth.

Most of the time, that is.

And then there was the guinea pig....

....Or "Ghee pig," as Jerome dubbed it. 

It got a bath:

But no hair-bows this time.

I tried to get a picture of the boys. In typical boy fashion, this is how they granted my wish. "What? You don't want a picture of us stuffing plastic dinosaurs in our mouth and blocking our faces with pillows?" 

This is fine portraiture, people. Fine portraiture.

My aunt and cousins are incredibly talented and inventive when it comes to making stuff out of fimo clay, not to mention all the other adorable crafts. So some of use decided to try making animals:

We then played a name game, which soon morphed into a contortionist exhibition.

Or a yoga class. Not sure which.

It got a lot weirder, I assure you.

As you can see from this picture, Gabriella did not like Jerome as much as Jerome liked Gabriella.

I know my posts tend to be on the long side- but all these pictures make me smile. And thus they were posted:)

Natalie-

Christa's Birthday Party

Today at 12:00 this afternoon we all got in the car and drove to Elisabeth's house, to celebrate the sixteenth birthday of her sister Christa, with their family and some friends from church. It takes about an hour to get there, and since our region's annual "hippy fair" was going on near the rout we had to take, we were slowed down considerably. Forty-five minutes were spent crawling down the road pontificating on things like veganism and tie-dye, and staring at the "coexist" bumper sticker that was pasted to a car crawling along ahead of us.

And this is just a section of the "parking lot" of the fair. I shot this picture as we drove by. Nice job reducing emissions, people-who-like-to-attend-an-earth-worshipping-fair. Niiice job. (Not that all of you go to the fair with this worldview- if you love premium unleaded and Buicks I wholeheartedly commend you for driving to get your vegan-burgers.

Finally we reached our destination.....and went down to the highschool field to play softball. It was pretty entertaining to watch Gabriel scrambling around the outfield on all fours, my mom and dad running to home base together, and Ellie miraculously surviving the perils that go along with the job of catcher.

Christa- the sweet and thoughtful hostess.

Ellie- and Gabriel? Posing in the background?

Maggie- so cute.

Autumn! Autumn made a prodigious effort to help her team by catching outfield balls, unlike me, who was too busy making a prodigious effort at scratching my ankles.

We went back up to the road to the house, changed, and jumped in the river.

There were some evil looking alligators in the water, but so far as I know, they bit no one. Except maybe each other. (And no, this photo was NOT taking IN the water.)

Left to right: Autumn, Moi, Margaret, Elisabeth, Ellie, and Autumn. 

Hmm. A ubiquitous feet picture. Except in this case our feet are super dirty. (Yes, it IS time to get that chipped pink stuff off my nails...)

Then it was time to eat.

This is Ellie and Autumn's amputee brother Abe, who really isn't an amputee at all. Sometimes I get the itch to stick my arm inside my shirt, too. (Well actually, that wouldn't be true. But we can all sympathize with faux amputees.)

Christa opening her presents.

Aaaand, one of the delicious chocolate cakes. (Which reminds me, I discovered another wonderful chocolate cake recipe online this week. I'll post it sometime soon with my pictures.)

Well, that's all for now. I'm looking forward to going to Handel's Messiah tomorrow with a few ladies from our church, as well as attending a track meet this Thursday where I will yet again exhibit my nonathletic prowess. (Ellie and I really wanted to do the pole vault- it sounds so much more thrilling than just running around in circles. But then we decided we wanted to be alive on Friday.)

Hope you all have a lovely Sunday,

Natalie

Randomness (A title that should henceforth be banned)

The dog is depressed.

Either that, or just tired. But for an animal that gets 18+ hours of sleep- I highly doubt that's her problem. She's not athletic at all. Last year she could barely walk 7 miles during our local 4th of July walk. (4 mile walking course+ 3 miles back home). Suffice it to say she's not coming this year, in part due to last year's humiliating event. (Post to come). But any of my readers who lives in this area should! My mom and I are doing the walk, and Andre signed up for the run. It's tons of fun- I guarantee if you come with us you'll have a good time! Really! I don't usually guarantee things, but given the fact that free bagels are provided at the end pretty much seals the fun part. (If you walk fast enough you might get some watermelon. But the runners usually beat everyone else to it). So you have no excuse not to come walk with us, if you live around here! (You know you want to...)

On another random note: I was sitting in the car this evening while my mom was buying barbecue fuel from a guy who runs a business from his  home. My mom got in the car, and just when we were about to leave, the barbecue man went past the car window- and seeing that I was typing something on my mom's phone, tapped on the window and asked me if I was texting. We rolled down the window to learn his granddaughter's text messaging record- and I think I shocked him by saying that I've never sent a single text in my life. (And I really have no desire to do so.) I didn't even bother to explain what Twitter was. But I did mention a national texting competition.

You can read the full story here.

I'm inclined to laugh at this sort of contest. I mean really, what kind of achievement is that? I find spelling bees more impressive:)

Oh, and two more pictures to round off this post...

I finally found the perfect photos for my bedroom wall. You've probably already seen them already- I love the way they turned out on photo paper.

And part of my desk...just because. I made my pencil-holders out of bean cans and pasted cardstock labels on them- pleased with those, too.

The b&w pictures were taken in Boston last year.

Oh and thanks to the kind people who have been leaving me comments. As you can see, my blogroll is growing:)

Until later,

Natalie