The water here is about 3 and a half feet deep. Marie is barely 3 feet herself, so she's doing a good job of hanging on. I guess she's not scared that her feet don't touch the bottom.
Taking a leap of faith.
She spotted me taking pictures!
Even though it's Daddy's present (a new electric beard trimmer), Marie had a big part in helping him open it.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!
I'm a little concerned because even though he's a little bigger that a few days ago, he still can't hold his head up. And I'm wondering if he should have more fuzz/feathers.
Mama bird or daddy bird???
Keeping a watchful eye on the baby.
On the way home, we saw this bear at the side of the road eating. Not the greatest picture, but it was Marie's first time to see a bear.
I planted all the vegetables, mostly starts, the first weekend in May. Right after, there were 2 nights of hard frost. Half my snap peas and three-quarters of my lettuce was ruined, and one broccoli plant was struggling. Then a cat got in it a dug around in the space that I had planted my carrots. I was so discouraged that didn't even go out there for a couple of weeks to look at it, because I thought everything would die just like it did last year. Well, I was wrong. Some stuff did survive and did really well. I replaced the snap peas and lettuce with new starts, and added some strawberries. Then Bill built me this great green house, which I think has made the garden just take off. This picture was taken 10 days ago, and it has grown a lot even since then. You can't see quite everything from the picture, but here's what I'm growing: 1 zuccini, 2 strawberries, 7 or 8 carrots (originally planted 16, but then the cat came along), 4 broccoli, 8 onions, 8 snap peas, 4 lettuce, and 4 spinach.
Here is some lettuce from the garden. I had originally planted 8 lettuce plants, but 6 died in the frost. The remaining 2 from the original starts are doing really well. I expected the lettuce to look like the heads of lettuce in the store. Jody came over last Wednesday after church, and she said to go ahead and pick the lettuce and eat it. It has made for some tasty salads and lettuce for sandwiches. It is much fresher that anything we get at the grocery store, and lasts a lot longer too!
Last year I thought this flower was a weed and almost dug it up. But Jody quickly told me that it was not a weed, but a peony (I think). Last year it bloomed when I was in the Philippines. But this year I'm staying put, so I'm excited to see what it will look like and smell like once it blooms.
This last Sunday, the ladies at church had a baby shower for me and Jacob. It was a lot of fun and the time seemed to go by so fast! I cold kick myself for not taking very many pictures though. A big thanks to Dana for putting it together, and to Lela and Rachel for helping her.
I have to say something about these sinfully delicious cupcakes. Rachel asked me what kind of dessert or sweet stuff I liked and I told her chocolate chip cookie dough. She found a recipe and made these incredible cupcakes! The frosting tasted just like cookie dough - but better!
A couple of weeks ago Liz, Marie and I went to the Shrine for a little picnic. The weather was perfect! We even got to see a whale. It came pretty close to shore. It was the first whale that Marie had seen and she liked it a lot. It was hard to get a good picture of it since it didn't come out of the water very much. But you could hear it blow and make all kinds of sounds really well.
There was family vacationing for the week at one of the cabins at the Shrine. Marie made fast friends with this 4 year old little boy and they enjoyed watching the whale, following a little squirrel and playing hide-and-seek.
A few weeks ago when I was watering my flower baskets, I came across this bird's nest. Since it had no eggs in it, we went ahead and took it out thinking the bird would build somewhere else.
Marie liked seeing what a bird's house looked like.
Well, the next week when I went to water the basket, the bird had returned. She hastily tried to build a nest but must not have had enough time before she had to lay her eggs. So now there are 5 little eggs in a sparce nest in the flower basket. I definitely didn't want to remove the eggs. So I went to the place I bought the basket and asked them what I should do. They said to water around the eggs and they should be fine. It's been almost 2 weeks and I think they should be hatching soon. I've tried not to bother the basket too much. It's only needed watering once, but is due for another watering soon. Hopefully a couple of weeks after they hatch, they will be ready to fly away and I can resume my normal watering and dead-heading. The basket has done fine, but I worry about the eggs since they don't really have much of a nest.
Here is the best picture I could get of the mama bird. She is on the branch near the middle of the picture. Okay bird lovers - tell me what kind of bird it is. A finch maybe?
She is such a big girl - and she knows it! 
A campout isn't a campout without a campfire and stories.
Camp buddies!
I really like teaching piano lessons. With being pregnant, I didn't advertise as much this year as I have in the past. But the little group I had did really well. Nearly everyone played 2 songs - a solo and a duet. Some students prepared 2 solos. There was even one student who had only been taking lessons for 2 months that prepared a song for the recital. And there was one student who had snowbirded until the beginning of April, and still managed to prepare a solo and a duet. I'm very excited for the potential this group has in the future!
Marie's favorite show for the past year or so has been the Little Einstein's. So we used that theme for her birthday party. Liz and I constructed this cake. Actually, this was the second one. It looks like the rocket ship from the show. Marie loved it!!!
We had the kids decorate red poster board into their own 'rocket ship'. Bill decorated blue poster board and was the mean big blue jet. Big jet is a bully on the show. Afterwards, we went into the front yard and Big Jet chased all the little Rockets. The kids had so much fun!
Marie blowing out her Birthday candle.
Present time!
Group photo.