We enjoyed a private ride on a 35-foot boat in Elliott Bay, courtesy of some fellow Mercer Island hosts we met through a church auction. The kids played at home with a sitter while we relaxed from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and back.

Richard and Stowe enjoyed a great afternoon on Elliott Bay with new friends/hosts on their boat. Stowe had purchased the afternoon ride at a church auction. We boated from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and back.

Martha goes to a Spanish-speaking day care during the Summer. She refuses to speak Spanish herself, but she clearly understands everything. And when they annouce la hora de la merienda (snack time), she's the first in line.

Light sabers!

Father teaches son important lessons in self-defense. Father is exhausted. Son continues to request more lessons. (Repeat)

Unlimited blackberries in the field next to our house. The kids love to pick them, so we end up with so many that we throw away as many as we eat.

We walked in a parade at the Mercer Island Summer Celebration this weekend. One of us had a hard time concentrating on the moment at hand, instead of the new rugose stag beetle we found in our front yard a few days ago.

Leah's reading fluency

Watch short video clips of

Leah reading in Fall 04
Leah reading in Jun 05

See if you think she's improved.

Just like her mother Martha requires a peaceful few moments of newspaper reading over breakfast.

Nathan is proud of his bugs. After finding and pinning a new one, he'll stare at his collection for hours.

Leah-Daddy Morning

[This entry is from Leah Sprague]
This morning I went on a special outing just with Daddy. We went to a new coffee shop that Daddy likes and we talked about things we have been doing so far and what we have been thinking about. It was a really good cafe and we hope to do it again. It was quiet and peaceful at the time, 7:00 in the morning.



then we went shopping at the Uwajimaya Japanese market. The fish there are very fresh.

The Milkman Cometh

One of the best things we found on Mercer Island is access to this wonderful milk delivery service. Smith Brothers Farms brings us fresh dairy products every Thursday morning, for roughly the price we pay in the grocery store. The milk comes directly from the farm, (presumably that means happier-than-average cows ?) and in a blind taste test our kids preferred it to the store-bought stuff.


(here's the milkman bringing his delivery down our driveway)

Nathan cross-examined by the World Martial Arts Grand Master, as part of his yellow belt test. We were proud of how loudly and clearly he responded to the teacher's questions. The boy on his left is Nicholas, his best buddy.

Martha's guardian angel works overtime

Nathan surveys the damage to his room after Martha pulled out the drawers from his dresser, causing this collapse. Fortunately everyone escaped just in time and nobody was hurt.

Martha happily climbs Daddy's shoulders but not the mountain.

Fathers Day Hiking on Mt. Si. It's a four mile climb, and we were pleased after 90 minutes to hike almost one mile, and nearly a 1000-ft ascent, before turning back. Leah would have easily made it the whole way, but Martha's little legs were wearing out. Meanwhile, Nathan captured two clown milipedes in his bug catcher.

The bus to downtown Seattle takes only 10 minutes from Mercer Island, and it's free on weekends. That's big excitement for our minivan-spoiled family.

Glassblowing video

I uploaded a short 2-minute video of our glassblowing class.

The final results!

Our Glassblowing Afternoon

For a real change of pace, Richard and I signed up for an afternoon (4 hour) class of glowblowing at a Seattle glass studio. For me -- a person who has always loved glass -- it was a great experience to handle glass, learn about which techniques are difficult and how results are achieved. I think Richard got a lot out of it as well -- he certainly was more proficient than I. The real key is constantly spinning the rod EVENLY at different tempos and at slightly different angles. One's constantly working with and against gravity and centrifigal forces to "dance" with the liquid glass. It's also neat to know that many times, it can take much longer to add colors and spin/shape the colors into patterns, than it is to form the actual piece.

Richard and I both made paperweights. I then made a bowl, and Richard made an espresso glass. We did "blow" the glass, and during the making of my bowl, one did have to inhale -- believe it or not -- to invert a bubble. However, the instructor did the inhaling as it takes lots of practice to do it safely.

The pieces need to cool overnight; when they are molten, they are over 2000 degrees, and our small pieces take 14 hours to cool. The lens on the Hubble telescope took a year to cool.

Can't wait to see the pieces!


blowing a bubble to form my bowl.

Richard "heats" his glass blob

Richard forming his glass

This is actually our first time handling glass...we tried out the different tools to pull, snip, and squeeze molten glass.

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The whole family watched Lemoney Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, which is based on a book series that Leah enjoyed about three young children (older sister, middle brother, baby sister) who find themselves suddenly orphaned and in the guardianship of an awful Count Olaf. They survive through cleverness and by sticking together, which is a nice theme for the kids but the movie was too dark for Nathan especially, who covered his eyes regularly through the frequent scary parts.