Another trip to Ferdinand's Creamery

I forgot to post this yesterday: since I didn't have Spanish class for 3 days due to the secondary Knight's Fest at Logos, I took a bunch of boys out for a little field trip. We saw the bear cubs frolic at WSU, played at the Palouse Science Discovery Center, and ended with $1 ice cream scoop at the locally famous creamery on the WSU campus before returning to Logos for the afternoon pickup. Zane and Karsten were joined by cousin Jerome and Caspian Jacobs, a classmate of Zane's whose mom was working as a nurse at Gritman that afternoon.

Emails were not sending...

Emails were not going out from the blog to notify everyone of posts, so if you'd like to catch up, visit http://hollowayfam.blogspot.com.

I posted pictures of the old Reitan place being taken down by Pops Holloway. I am happy to hear he has not killed himself yet in doing so.

Schola Cantorum

Next Wednesday will be the last day of "singing school" for everyone but Gunnar. The teachers use simple songs, games and rhymes to teach my little guys how to sing on pitch and with correct timing. Signe is in the youth choir, and I am astounded at how beautifully she has learned to sing... I'm not sure she can be related to Nick and I, with our less-than-stellar singing skills.

April 27th

This week begins a season of what I can call the "crazies"; with all four kids doing sports and other activities we are going many different directions.
But I also pause amidst the busyness to remember my brother, who would have turned 39 today. I don't think we will have time to stop by the cemetery today, but Bonnie hopes to drop off some flowers. We look forward to my parents coming out next weekend for Grandparent's Day at Logos, and to have another opportunity to spend time with my family that I cherish more than ever.

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The old Reitan place just doesn't look the same.

Panorama of the Reitan's house.

Tearing down the Reitan's old house.

Practicing eye rolls for the teen years

Pretty Easter picture.

Medusa

Signe had to make a puppet based on mythology or a fable in her 5th grade class. This is her version of a young Medusa (including braces and pigtails).

Easter celebration yesterday

In the midst of a blustery day, there were enough sunbreaks to enjoy an Easter egg hunt outside at Bonnie and Rob's house. Also in attendance were Adam and Cat and their girls Ellie and Saoirse, and Cat's parents who recently moved from back east to live north of us near Coeur d'Alene. Dan's ex-wife Sarah, her husband Ryan, and their three girls were also able to join us for the feast.

She's all legs

Lucy loves to take snuggly naps, although she doesn't fit in laps very well anymore.

A day in Portland

Today we are driving back to Moscow to join in the celebration of Uncle Rob's St. Patrick's Day birthday (although turns out he isn't feeling well so we will postpone), but before we left HR we drove into Portland yesterday. We spent most of the day enjoying the zoo, then used our museum pass to visit OMSI for free the rest of the afternoon. A busy but fun day.

Conditioner please!

Fun at the Hood River pool.

Starvation Creek falls.

Karsten (4) insisted I take a picture of him posed like this.

Starvation Creek falls.

All done!

Now it looks so nice and bright downstairs! We would have gone out this afternoon to hunt down carpeting as well, but the local places are mostly closed on the weekends. We intend to head to HR tomorrow for the first part of our long 2-week spring break, so the exciting step of finally-getting-new-carpeting-after-3-years-of-nasty-carpet-and-concrete will have to wait another week.
Nick correctly pointed out that the white will get dirty quickly. But then I can always paint again right over the dirt, right?
The other step that was holding us back from getting carpet was the installation of a wood-burning insert Nick picked up at a garage sale last summer. But he needed to pull some brick out to enlarge the opening, and he realized today that the internal fireplace structure wouldn't make that very workable. So the bummer is we won't have a wood-burning insert, and we need to try to sell the one taking up space in our little garage.
On the positive side, we can look for carpeting ASAP!

First fireplace try

I initially tried a white-washing method with watered-down white paint, because I had seen some cool possibilities online. I kind of liked it, but the soot and pinkiness still showed through. I realized that I just had to go all the way, using the slightly off-white trim color we already had in the garage. On the positive side it was easier to whitewash first because it dripped more readily into every grout line and crack, so I ended up whitewashing the whole thing first anyway.

Good-bye pink fireplace!

I FINALLY tackled the rosy pink fireplace bricks in the downstairs family room. There were also soot, texturing, and other stains I couldn't scrub off, so I finally decided the pink just had to go bye-bye. The craggy and uneven bricks that soaked up the paint made this a long and tedious project.