snippets from the week

On top of the Irish Football game last weekend, the kids and I also took ourselves off to Governor's Island for the day on Saturday while Will worked. Once upon a time it was a military base and it reminded me very much of parts of San Antonio with it's rows of identical grand duplex homes. Now a days it's a place to run and play and ride bikes. A free ferry takes you over and other than service vehicles, there are no cars on the island. The day we were there there was also a yoga retreat and a grungy folk band playing which was a strange combination with all that military precision. I love, though, that my kids didn't bat an eye at coming upon a hundred people in various states of undress standing on their heads. Good Oregon kids my children!

On top of the yoga and the military buildings there is also a trapeze school (Evelyn was very upset that I didn't let her try) a bug themed mini golf course and this very odd, and slightly obscene balloon play thingy.
Later in the week, while on a walk, we found this guy.
It's hard to tell from the picture but he is massive. And just standing there, looking out at Riverside Park. The kids think he is the Ninjago Lego Master. Always the Lego's. I tell ya. They can think of nothing else these days.
We wandered through a flea market looking for a hallway bench. No bench, lots of interesting vintage jewelry and this very fun looking spice and tea stand. I had to resist rubbing my hands through all of those lovely colors. I think the stern looking stand owner would not have approved.
Fort building has been the name of the game hereabouts this week. I'm not sure why. It's not really even hot out. But this is what they do every day. And every day it gets bigger. By last night you couldn't even walk into the living room at all. it's a good thing there are two ways into our bedroom or I would have been sleeping in the hallway.
I did coax them out to a new playground. The Hippo Playground. Bet you can't guess why it's call that! The morning we were there they were hosting an art in the park day so Evie got to paint and color her little heart out with a bunch of other little girls before heading out to the playground to explore the hippos with her brother.

The Hippo playground turns out to be right next to that spot where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meet at the end of You've Got Mail. It took me a few minutes of standing there staring at the flowers trying to figure out why it looked familiar before I figured it out. It also brought my You've Got Mail moments of the week up to two (ok, my You've Got Mail moments of ever to two, they just both happened to occur this week.) I also got yelled at for trying to use a debit card in the Cash Only Line Lady! Sadly, Tom Hanks did no appear in either instance to save the day. Oh well.
Ummm, new yarn. I let Briton pick out the colors for his Christmas/Solstice sweater.Navy and light blue stripes are the request. I've never knit anything in stripes. So this should be interesting. And I only have, what, four months to go. Eek! I better get cracking on it!

What were you up to this week?