memorial day & graduation

on memorial day, grant talked us into braving the holiday traffic and taking him to some new bike trails. traffic wasn't too bad until we were south of the city:

eventually the cars thinned out and we made it to:

grant re-assembled his bike:

and after checking the air with his valentine's pump: 

he was ready to go:

the girls spent their time playing on the playground:

i sat in the shade reading (rhett butler's people [i don't recommend it. if you're curious, i'll save you from an overlong explanation and tell you that the first and third reviews cover the bulk of my objections.]) and listening to my music.

lucy hammed it up for the camera:

a lot:

and played with sticks:

hazel quickly decided it was too hot and came to sit by me in the shade:

i was feeling kind and shared my tunes with her: 

once she cooled down, she took a couple pictures:

by then grant had finished his ride and we packed up:

check out that beard. hubba-hubba!

at home again, we gave the girls a bath and an impromptu haircut. i trimmed about an inch off of lucy's (she wanted it really short but i didn't have the heart to chop all of that hard earned hair off) hazel again requested to have her hair cut up to her eyes and again we compromised with her chin. i tried to do an a-line and it turned out pretty cute: 

here we're at the park having our preschool co-op graduation. hazel gave me that smile and then did this: 

she was not feeling well.

lucy felt fine and had a good time playing:

we had a little ceremony where each child received a certificate and m&ms. i tried in vain to get hazel to stand by the others but she was not having it so here are three of the four students:

hazel kind of cooperated with this one:

it was incredibly hot so after the girls picked at their lunches:

we headed back to our air conditioned cave to hibernate through the summer.

monday night flashback #30

dating grant was easy. well, it was after i called to ask him out for the first time (two weeks after our second first date [that's a story for another day]). we got along swimmingly, never argued or tortured each other with silly mind games. 

the *second most stressful moment for me in our relationship was when i had to decide on a valentine's gift. i mentioned that date briefly in this post. i knew grant was planning something special and at the last minute i decided i should give him something. i wrestled with thoughts of doing something nice without doing anything too serious. we still hadn't kissed and i'm pretty sure we hadn't even used the terms "boyfriend/girlfriend" with each other yet. this is making me laugh now but i was having serious anxiety over it at the time. i ended up getting him a ten-pack of ice breakers gum (maybe i was expecting a valentine's first kiss and wanted it to be minty...).

grant picked me up in his mom's fancy trooper a few minutes after i got back from the store. i awkwardly handed him the gum and felt silly for worrying so much when he didn't give me anything. he played his cassette tape full of brazilian music and we went to dinner at rodizio grill (which has since been turned into a p.f. changs). grant tried to order guava juice but confused the waiter by asking for "goiaba" (portuguese for guava). after dinner we got back in the car and he handed me an express giftcard. he had me pegged as someone who likes buying clothes for herself, an apt assessment. 

i bring this all up now because we bought some book cases this past week and while i was digging through trinkets to display, i found these:

does this mean i can't claim to be non-sentimental? grant is more sentimental than i am. he actually taped  up a pack of the gum and carried it around in his pocket for a while (something i didn't learn until after we'd been married for a while):

i was very impressed that grant would walk into a women's clothing store solo to get the giftcard for me. and that he paid enough attention to know what my favorite store was. he's such a keeper. 

*the most stressful moment, if you're curious, was when grant said, "is it ok to say 'i love you'?" (this was two days after our first kiss) it was stressful, not because i didn't have feelings for him, but because i wasn't comfortable expressing said feelings. i think i said something like, "i really really really really like you" that night and the three scary words a week later. 

as for the book cases, we've needed some more for a while. grant regularly has piles of library books lying around and i've wanted to show of my souvenirs for ages now. 

grant put them together while the girls colored:

they became crazier and crazier:

and ended up staining their pajama knees:

awesome.

also awesome, but not in a sarcastic way:

we just wanted to emphasize how small our t.v. is.

and now a quick recap of mother's day. grant bought me the most beautiful shoes:

i love them so, so much! hazel drew me this lovely picture:

hazel (on the right) is handing me a sunflower that is thinking "love". check out the eyebrows. 

my picture from lucy:

grant wrote lucy's explanation, "all raindrops are coming because it's raining. and this is the thunder. she likes it..."

grant let me take a nap, before making me dinner and a tasty chocolate cake. and the girls went to bed in time for us to watch the newest episode of sherlock. a very good day.

and look how good lucy is getting at writing her name:

retro-blogging

i fell behind on my posting back in february and instead of going back, i just kept going forward. i've finally gotten around to doing the posts. i published them under the date they happened so here's what you missed:

a trip to the museum of natural history

valentine's 2012

a mish-mash of march & april

another trip to the zoo