Spanish 101

This school year, Boookie and Ela are taking Spanish 101 with the Hobbit Wife dusting off her high school and college classes in order to instruct them. As Spanish is slowly starting to percolate out of Tuesday/Thursday/Friday afternoons, it has led to some funny exchanges.

Boookie, hollering down the stairs: Dos hermanos pequeños!
Eejee excitedly yells to Seimi: That means it's time for lunch!

Last Friday, as we were heading to dinner at our favorite local Mexican restaurant, the Mayor told Boookie and Ela they should order their food in Spanish.
The Hobbit Wife said, They actually haven't learned any food-related words yet, nor have they started in on conversational phrases. We've been focused on grammar and conjugation so far.
Boookie added, Nosotros no hablamos el Español.

Clásico.

A River Runs Through It

Seimi, Ela and Eejee made a pretend river in the backyard, and here is Seimi contemplatively fishing on Sunday afternoon.

Seimi was after candy gummy sharks, and he managed to catch the last three.

Roasting his catch.

October Post

 Here at Michael Delving, we have been enjoying Fall and we celebrate with an October blog post.

The last of the fall crop of raspberries.

The Hobbit Wife's indoor succulent menangerie.

The Mayor is back to cooking up batches of deliciousness and relishes storing vats of food out-of-doors to cool overnight (only when the temperatures drop lower than the refrigerator, of course).

After school got started, we got caught up on appointments. Here is Seimi in the dentist chair.

Ela has become something of a blanket fort master. This stupendous creation was erected in less than an hour.

 We started back at the gym (Boookie is now working out with the teens class).

Boookie has only the tiniest bit to grow before he becomes the tallest hobbit at Michael Delving! We suspect he has been sneaking sips of Ent draught.

Ela and Boookie have been enjoying participating in youth group events at church, including a very muddy trip to a local corn maze.

There has been much making of creations around Michael Delving, including WW2 LEGO planes.

The Mayor spent some time and put in a new floor in the Bunker and the family room downstairs.

Near-daily LEGO ship battles now occur on the new floor.

From time to time, we'll break out the Play-Do. Here is Seimi with his army of green dough.

Here is Eejee enjoying hacking away with a knife.

The Battle of Harfleur (from Henry V), a few days after the Hobbit Wife and the hobbitlings celebrated St. Crispian's Day by watching excerpts from Henry V.

Eejee enjoying a flop day inside, watching cartoons.

Eejee and the Mayor out grabbing lunch together.

 Eejee giving his Halloween costume a test run.

Hobbitlings prepping their stomachs with the traditional nourishing meal of ragu on Halloween evening, prior to going out to get candy.

Preparing glow sticks for Halloween costumes.

Boookie's costume was "Formal Apology." He got so many belly laughs while out trick-or-treating.

Ela went as Luna Lovegood, complete with radish earrings, Spectrascope glasses, a butter beer necklace, and her own copy of the Quibbler.

 Seimi went as Newt Scamander. Note the Hufflepuff scarf knit for him by the Hobbit Wife and his bowtruckle "Pickett."

Eejee in his Armed Otter costume.

The Sons of Thunder were the first to be all ready to go.

Everyone is geared up and ready to go out!

 First stop was at Grammy's house.

Grammy had a wonderful assortment of custom-made presents.

The older three out trick-or-treating. The Mayor is digging his new iPhone 11 - the camera capabilities are really fun.

Eejee came down with something and after the first two stops, had to call it a night, but he still didn't want to take off his otter costume. He's pictured here next to Otter, Otter B, and he wanted to be called Otter 3.

Without making any special effort, we ended up with 16.8 pounds of candy, good for second-place in our historical records.

The Mayor submitted the creation below for his office pumpkin-decorating contest.

Update: The Mayor's pumpkin WON said contest!

We Mean It!

Our gate sign has been starting to show its age lately.

The Mayor carved a new sign last weekend, and hung it up yesterday with the help of the Sons of Thunder.

Party business only, folks! ;-)

See you soon!

Epic August Summer

Whew! August was an epic month of summer around Michael Delving, so here is an epic post to try to capture some of the fun. July ended with a super low tide adventure at Richmond Beach for everyone except the Mayor, who needed to work.

 

Ice cream afterward!

August began with Grampz and Boookie going on a Lake Washington cruise to watch the Blue Angels perform.

Boookie's birthday began bright and early with a ninja visit from Grammy, who left custom-made flags for three hobbitlings (Seimi already got his in June). Here's Eejee stumbling outside to go get his flag.

Eejee showing his Otterman Empire flag to his otters. He dutifully fed them gummy fish, which are a traditional Grammy treat.

Ela getting her flower flag.

Birthday Boookie checking out his flag.

And here's Boookie opening his birthday presents.

We all love the appreciative Boookie laugh!

A bit later in the month, the Mayor and hobbitlings installed a network of pulleys and ropes, along with flagpole holders. The system was inaugurated with a delightful dinner that was served in pieces to each treehouse, then distributed without anyone ever having to leave their treehouse. "Pass the mustard" triggered delighted laughs, as condiments and courses took an aerial route to hobbitling tummies.

Tall Boookie in his treehouse.

Beautiful Ela in her treehouse.

Seimi with his Doggy Lee and the Dragon flag.

Eejee with his Otterman Empire flag.

Shortly after Boookie's birthday, we headed off for a grand Staycation Adventure a mere 13 minutes from home. We rented adjoining rooms at a waterfront hotel down in Edmonds for two nights and had a grand time of it.

We might have had a little too much fun on our beach walk, but we just had to pose with some weird friends who live down by the waterfront.

Most of our time was spent in the pool, and the weather was perfect for that: bright, sunny and hot.

The Mayor and Hobbit Wife acquired a slew of cheap pool toys for the staycation, which were put to excellent use.

Boookie and Ela had just finished swim lessons and greatly enjoyed exercising their newfound aquatic skills.

Seimi and Eejee playing a fishing game with the pool noodles and dive sharks.

During our downtime, we crashed in our hotel rooms, eating snacks, watching movies, and trying to remember to remain quiet while being silly.

Hooray for Staycations!

After our 13-minute drive home, our vacation continued for the rest of that week. The Mayor took hobbitlings to go fishing for the first time, and all were successful in their fishing endeavors. Eejee struck first with his fish.

Boookie was next.

Followed by Ela.

Seimi rounded out the dinner catch.

 

Delicious dinner of hobbitling-caught, pan-fried trout, with fresh organic veggies and fruit from local farms.

Next morning, the feasting continued with a Mayor breakfast special.

In mid-August, Boookie got to go down to a local range with Apu for an intro session on archery, black powder, skeet, and rifle shooting.

The remainder of August was somewhat of a blur, but in a good way, as all the residents of Michael Delving tried to do summer well. We were largely successful in playing, resting, and doing mostly things that brought joy. The Mayor still worked, but he mostly worked from home, so he got to be in on much of the fun. There was lots of sleeping in. One morning, the Mayor couldn't find Eejee anywhere until he located Eejee at the foot of Seimi's bed. When asked for an explanation, Eejee simply said, "I wanted to play with Seimi in the middle of the night but he was asleep."

Lots of playing for all the hobbitlings.

An epic, weeks-long battle of Axis and Allies was waged in Ela's room, with the game board carefully protected after each day of combat.

Speaking of combat, here are Eejee and Seimi playing their own version of "Assassin's Creek Odyssey."

The Mayor got to do some woodworking projects to help the Hobbit Wife.

Ela's dirt art.

Ela and the Mayor built a spiral staircase for Ela's treehouse.

It was the hardest single project the Mayor has built, but once he threw away his trigonometry and his scale drawings and started sawing lumber and bolting things together, it all came together.

Ela is now all moved in, with a new wall in place and the temporary ladder removed.

Eejee and otters reading an otter book

Just a couple gorgeous Ela floral arrangements.

 Ela working at Seimi's ice cream stand.

This was one of those exclusive, one-day only pop up stores and only lasted for one round of frozen treats.

Seimi and Eejee showing the proper way to enjoy summer watermelon.

We had a traditional annual feast at Anthony's on the Edmonds waterfront.

Seimi "executing" a My Little Pony, to the delight of other boys.

Eejee and Seimi wolfing down dessert. They spent little time at the table, instead choosing to spend most of their time in the sandbox.

After all the other kids left, they piled up the toys and patrolled the sandbox, keeping guard.

Wonderful summer sunset!

The Mayor and Hobbit Wife worked together to get ready for the first day of school the day after Labor Day. The Hobbit Wife focused on school things while the Mayor prepared the Start of Term Feast. He had to be stopped from chugging the delicious au jus.

Everyone's "plus one" for the feast. (L to R: Wall-E (Mayor), Vespers the Tapir (Hobbit Wife), Doggy Lee (Seimi), Hermes the Niffler (Boookie), Unnamed hairy chicken (Ela), Otter and Otter B (Eejee).

Before the feast, it was Howard the Trunk Monkey time. Howard sorted the hobbitlings into their respective grades. Eejee was sorted into Kindergarten.

Seimi was sorted into Third Grade.

Howard may have been a bit silly with Ela, but eventually he sorted her into Sixth Grade.

Boookie was sorted into Eighth Grade. Howard had to catch his breath after climbing all the way up  to the top of Mount Boookie. That mountain has grown a lot of elevation in the last year!

Ready for the feast!

And ready for school!

Happy Summer from the residents of Michael Delving!