The road to our house is under construction for the next few days, which is a pain because we have to park our cars up the street and walk.

Martha flies a kite See Mommy, I can do it too!

Kite Flying The beach gets pretty windy, so it's perfect for kites.

Playing in the ocean. Not too windy, neither too cold nor hot, so the kids spent the day --- the entire day -- on the beach.

Vacation at the beach We're here in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Such a nice place! The tide pools are just amazing, so the kids are having a ball.

Crime and punishment. When Leah and Nathan disobeyed mommy's instructions to never play with water in the bedroom, the resulting spill soiled the carpet and demanded a punishment. We made them write a book about the episode so that other children will not make the same mistake.

Praying Mantis Eats Hummingbird (Bird Watcher's Digest)

Oh boy, Nathan will be interested in these photos of a Praying Mantis eating a hummingbird /a>

Vacationing at Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier is an impressive mountain visible on clear days from Seattle, so we took the grandparents there last week for several days of hiking and exploring. It's the tallest (14,000 feet) volcanic mountain in the U.S. but except for some shaking in the 1960s hasn't had any serious action for hundreds of years. The real volcano around here, of course, is Mount St. Helens, which is not too much further so we spent an afternoon there as well.

Rather than fill your inbox with more of the pictures we took, you can see more of our trip by clicking on our family web site.

By the way, if you're tired of these "HeyStowe" emails in your inbox, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Our always photogenic Leah pauses to smile beside a rapids on a creek near the Ohanapecosh River.

Nathan views Spirit Lake, from the Windy Ridge vantage point near Mount St. Helens

Richard and his dad at the foot of Mt. Rainier.

The kids pose on a rock at Snoqualmie Falls.

Martha enjoys building in the sand at Discovery Beach (Seattle).

Blue Angels, little angels

The Blue Angels are performing this weekend:

Martha plugs her ears as the noisy jets fly over Mercer Island.

Playing for tickets

Leah celebrates her 8th birthday on August 2, with Nathan, Leah, and 12 girlfriends at the noisy arcade/pizza party at Chuck E Cheese

What kind of turtle is this?

This is Nathan's week to care for his school's pet turtle, Ernie. Unfortunately Ernie comes only with the word-of-mouth care instructions received from the previous host family, which by this time I'm afraid has been hopelessly twisted from months of playing a long game of telephone. So I brought the kids to PetCo, where we immediately identified him as a red eared slider, a popular acquatic turtle that spends about half its life swimming. Ernie came with a small water dish, good for drinking but certainly not swimming - a situation the PetCo staff person describes as "borderline animal cruelty."

But the school kept him this way for at least the past year, and if he likes water so much how come he doesn't like it when we make him sit in his waster dish? Anybody know what kind of turtle he really is?