Pony!

At the opening of the new Woodstock Farmer's Market, they had free pony rides. Elizabeth was very willing to wait 30 minutes for her brief chance at equine glory. She loved it!

Summer Fun, or Lord of the Flies?

Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between innocent celebration of life and savage joy in the strength and triumphalism of youth.

Here are Lily and Elizabeth dancing to Aaron's uncivilized beat.

I Suppose It Was Inevitable

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures from my phone. This series of photos was taken June 10 at the (inevitable, I suppose) marriage of Joey The Monkey and Elizabeth Rose Larrison.

I'm not sure where Elizabeth got the idea of playing at marriage, but after this day she pretty much dropped the concept.

Hangin' with the Long-Loughrans

Elizabeth had a good time hanging out with her friends Riley and Akaila at Brian and Teresa's pre-Fourth of July barbecue. Riley and Akaila are such good friends that Elizabeth is a bit of a third wheel, but they all managed to have fun anyway. And bonus points for Elizabeth not falling down the stairs!

Mommy and Daddy had fun eating Brian's legendary barbecue.

Suzanne is Sitting Up!

Now this is starting to read like a baby book. But after poo-pooing baby books, I found myself with a sort of instant amnesia about milestones in Elizabeth's life. When did she first roll over? When did she cut her first tooth? When did she say "hat" for the first time? (I did remember that "hat" was her first word.)

I suppose with Suzanne I have been encouraged by this forgetfulness to use the blog as a recorder of milestones.

So: milestone! Suzanne is now sitting up... a little bit. I was at work when this picture was taken, but I'd surmise from my experience that she toppled over shortly after the shutter snapped. Nevertheless, she is sitting up. And that's worth noting.

The Fourth, or Fireworks!!

I think fireworks are dumb. They're loud, wasteful, they scare dogs and cats, scare combat veterans who have contributed to our independence, they come from a communist country, set fires that weary-but-heroic firefighters have to put out, etc. Need I go on?

This year I bought fireworks. First time ever.

Why?

Kids. (Well, "kid," really. Suzanne could not care less about things that spark and go pow! At this stage in her life, if she can't put it in her mouth and suck nutritious juice out of it, it's low on the priority list.)

Anyway, I had a good time going out with Elizabeth and Aaron to spend a few bucks on fireworks with names like Ground Blooming Flower and TNT Mr. Turtle. At the fireworks stand (a plywood affair set up in a parking lot), Aaron asked after even more mysterious sounding products such as The Friendship Pavilion, which the guy behind the counter lamented hadn't been imported in quite some time.

Aaron is a native Oregonian, you should understand. He has an almost innate familiarity with these Oriental infernal devices. To a New Yorker such as myself, a Ground Blooming Flower is unbelievably exotic compared to the sparklers and snappers to which we were limited. To my twelve-year-old mind, a pack of Black Cats was akin to a kilo of heroin.

So we barbecued with Grandma and the neighbors (aka the Swans, and Wendy, Lily, Aaron), then after dinner retired to the street to set off the fireworks. We were joined by our new neighbors Jade, Sabrina, and Lily. Jollity happened. Elizabeth ran around in her underpants. No one got hurt.

A good Fourth.

Amusement

Our initial plans to go to the coast were squelched by weather (at the coast, not here, where it was gorgeous). Then we got a call from Aaron, Wendy, and Lily, wanting to play. So we decided to hit Oaks Park, a (by today's standards very modest) amusement park on the river just south of downtown on the east side.

Unfortunately, Lily, who is a multi-tour veteran of Disneyland, had less than zero interest in going on rides. But Elizabeth took to the rides like a beaver to trees. She went on every ride that she could, starting with the motorcycles and culminating with an actual rollercoaster which, short and small as it was, even Daddy found thrilling.

Elizabeth seemed to know, by some sort of ancestral knowledge, something deep in the gene pool, that no trip to the fair was complete without a treat. So despite Mommy and Daddy's best efforts, we ate soft-serve. Barb and I split a cone, and Elizabeth ate an entire cone herself. Suzanne just lunged uselessly for the ice cream, and brooded over the interesting fact that everyone present but herself got an icy, delicious treat.

I can imagine us going back to Oaks Park our entire lives.


Elizabeth was the only kid on both the motorcycle and the car. She didn't care a whit.



Above: Elizabeth and Lily find common ground in the embodiment of a Titleist. Below: Suzanne soars in her first amusement ride -- the Hot Air Balloon.



Above: That's not a machinegun, it's a water cannon. Below: Suzanne Hovey on the midway.



Above: Lily Joy as fungus; chilling out on a stump outside the Carousel while the Larrison girls ride for what seems like an eternity. Elizabeth's steed? A rooster! Barb and Suzanne, on the other hand, favored a frog. Below: Daddy and Elizabeth on a Ferris wheel! Thank you, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., American. (I always thought Ferris was French.)



Above and Below: The girls on the Oaks Park Train.



Above and Below: Ice cream is awesome!



Above: Barb looks fabulous even in a funhouse mirror.

Sum-Sum-Summertime

Last weekend we went with Wendy and Lily for a hike at Mary S. Young State Park. The trail that runs for a ways along the bank of the Willamette was flooded, so we decided to just sit around and watch the girls play in the water. Disappointment quickly turned into awesomeness. The river water wasn't too cold, and the shade was plentiful, and the partially-submerged bridge was fun.

Suzanne's Eating!

A week or so ago we fed Suzanne some brown rice cereal. She wasn't that interested. But we kept putting her in the high chair at dinner time and giving her a little something to nosh on. On June 29 she went hog wild on some refried beans. Yesterday she sucked the juices out of a mango slice and a green pepper bit. She's also had a go at broccoli and sour cream. It's pretty exciting, for us as well as her.

Thank Goodness it's Temporary

 

Here's Elizabeth proudly showing off her new "ink," like a sailor during Rose Festival. She got the tattoo at Riley's fourth (fourth!) birthday party a couple of weeks ago. Temporary though it may have been, the darn thing lasted a week.

Speaking of temporary tattoos, my colleague at work discovered a stash of VA temporary tattoos. Of course. Because what kid wouldn't want to gain real street cred by decorating her skin with the awesome VA logo?