The Evergreen State

A few weeks ago we went to visit Jason's family in Washington, where we had a wonderful vacation. Clara loved picking blueberries, strawberries and eventually raspberries from the garden. She even saw a rabbit in Grandma's garden! She loved telling us about that for days.





Thoroughly enjoying Woodland Park Zoo.

Reading with Papa, a.k.a. Patches the Clown. Ever since she found out that Papa used to be a clown, she thinks that every clown is Papa.

Grandma bought a vast quantity of bubbles and sidewalk chalk, which Lily and Clara had lots of fun with. Clara especially likes us to lay down and draw chalk outlines around our bodies. Hmm... (At the bottom of the post is a video of Clara and her bubbles)




Somehow these daisies made it into several pictures. Doesn't Jason look so sweet?

"Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come." -Rabindranath Tagore

"Let us accustom ourselves to regard death as a form of life which we do not yet understand." -Maurice Maeterlinck

The Missionary!

Allison left for her mission last week, to the Indonesia Jakarta Mission. She was super excited and I'm happy to have a missionary to write!

New Hat

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
~ William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude (as quoted in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Summertime

Here are some of the fun things we've done this summer:
Clara, Sarah and Grandpa being silly on the boat.

Clara is finally starting to like playing in the sand (last time we went to the beach she wouldn't even walk on the sand). She loves wearing her sunglasses, too.

She now sleeps with an army of "friends": Pooh, Eeyore, Dumbo, Baby Doll, Monkey and Little Bear, a blanket and at least one pillow. She always looks so cute when she wakes up.

Roadtrip

Clara just took her first roadtrip to West Virginia and did pretty well. She loved seeing all the horses and cows along the way. The countryside up there is just breathtaking and I'm getting really excited to move up there. We stopped at the New River Gorge. Here's a little taste of how beautiful it was in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia.