they're stripey

and golden. You've met Nate before from a previous post and you'll be seeing more of him. The tiger is one of Maku's loveys - Sparkley Firegrill.

This excites me. Sparkley is one of my favorite guys. Maku spotted him at a store shelf about three summers ago, we all fell in love with him, and just had to take him home. One of Maku's favorite things to do back then was watch sparks fly from our charcoal grill - and that's how he came up with the name.

Sparkley and Maku used to wear the same size shirts and socks, now it's Nate's turn and he is loving it!!!

mr. merkur is hurt

i wonder what happened. he probably slipped on that little yellow car on the floor. he must be thirsty, i don't see a glass of water on his bedside.

hand painting shirts

"Battle of the Sea Monsters"

Untitled

"Alien"
then waiting many, many hours to try them on and show them off!

for the love of rice

Stopped by the store to get brown rice and fell in love with this bag. Looking forward to making bowls and bowls of yummy biryani. And just because I like the bag so much Maku wants to give it some love too.

We just had the driveway powerwashed, here it is dirty. ;)

just ants

thirsty ant

strong ant

ants

i got wood :)

Dave got back a day later than planned due to unfavorable flying weather. He brought me home a piece of really old barn wood.

There is my wood - tucked in the back of Steve's plane.

The highlight of his trip was getting lost in this cave. Four hours of walking around in circles and crawling in and out of tight spaces. It was cold and dark, muddy and slippery - and there were bats. He didn't have drinking water but he was proud he had the camera and extra flashlight batteries. At least this way, he could take a picture of himself in a flashlight-lit path - dying from thirst ;)

spilt beer

Just what do you do with a broken bottle of imperial stout?

Why, enjoy it of course ;)
Dave is going to go up some mountains with his buddies on Friday. He wont be back 'til late Monday night. Three full nights away...same number of nights we ever spent apart in the thirteen years we've been together.
I am so excited to miss him. I get the giggles thinking about our hug when he gets back -- although he'll probably be smelling like dead bunnies and spilt beer.

anthony

birds on anthony

maku's best friend anthony - he calls him brother.

oops

I messed up. We won't have internet service until Friday. Bummer.

A short introduction

During a visit to Granddad's office, Montana fell in love with a wooden family of four (Dr. Granddad is a psychologist and has assorted toys that he uses for play therapy). She spotted a similar looking family at a toy shop the next day, and here they are: The Merkurs.

The Merkurs enjoy their after-lunch stroll over by the rocks where the little boy Giant plays.

It was a challenge to interrupt play on a bright and beautiful day but I managed to grab this shot. (^o^)
Reminds me of our family portrait of chaos taken last year:

This was the best we could do. Really.