Anya’s Mind to Her a Kingdom Is

Anya takes a rather veering approach to conversational topics at times.
Mom and Dad: “What’s black and white and red all over?”
Anya: “When they show old Dracula movies on TV?”

Dig Those Shins!

From July 7th through the 9th was the Sultan Summer Shindig, our town‘s annual estival. This year, Anya was invited to ride her unicycle with the Sultan Elementary School team in the Shindig parade!


Anya finally mastered the art of mounting her unicycle unassisted and without support during the practice sessions for the Shindig parade. Passing this test would qualify Anya for promotion from Beginner to Class 1 on the team, but it will have to wait for school to reconvene in the fall. She managed the trick five minutes after drills were over, and the coaches ruled that she was too late to try and qualify that day. (Did I mention that these people were public school teachers? Did I have to?)


Possibly because the winters in Western Washington are so dreary, we get a lot of estivals in the summer. Kla Ha Ya Days in Snohomish is a favorite of ours ... better double-check the calendar, because it‘s coming up.

(I once happened across the definition of estival in the dictionary: “of or pertaining to summer.” After that, the term “summer festival” seemed redundant.)

A Woman's Place Is At Home, But Only After She Rounds Third

Today is Independence Day, of course, and we’re about to head off to see the fireworks. Over the last three days, we’ve had the pleasure of a visit from Brian’s sister Shannon, amid sunshine enough to drive a Seattle native completely insane.
First stop was the beach at Edmonds, on the shore of Puget Sound. Anya loves it here because of all of the sea creatures: starfish (big ones!), jellyfish, little tiny crabs that crawl around like bugs on the rocks, and others. We found a large colony of buried clams because they began to spout while we were standing on the ground over them, and for some perverse reason, most of them hit Shannon’s legs (although none of us escaped completely unscathed.)


On Sunday, we attended the Mariners-Rockies baseball game in Seattle. Great seats, perfect weather, and good play on both sides; we couldn’t ask for much more. (My wife is so going to kill me for the following shot — Brian)

In the following shot, I don’t know who's batting for Colorado, but Todd Helton is on deck.

And here’s the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki, doing the little Tai Chi thing he does before settling in to bat.

After the game, as a special promotion, kids under age 14 were allowed to run the bases. Here’s Anya, heading for third.

It was a great game, a great time, and for Shannon and Brian at least, a great outcome, with the Rockies winning and taking what may be their first series win against the Mariners. (I'm not a statistician. So sue me.) We all loved seeing Shannon — especially Anya, who threatened to keep her here by not letting go of her — and we miss her already. As we miss everybody in Colorado and Oklahoma, in general.