Contra Dancing with Oma and Opa

When the girls visit my parents in north Georgia they get to go contra dancing with them.  Back in May a friend of my parents took a video of them at a practice dance.  Nora is with my mom and Elsa is with my father - they are both wearing the beautiful twirly dresses my mom made them for dancing and for Oktoberfest in their town.  Watch carefully for the special move that Elsa and Opa made up - instead of doing a simple "swing", they have a "flying fairy swing"!

Alabama Farmers Market

There are several high-end farmers markets around us, but I finally got out to the "real" (and much cheaper!) farmers market that's just north of Birmingham.  It is mostly a wholesale market for grocery stores, but they have some retail booths set up as well.  The girls now love okra and beg for it whenever we see it.  

They are impressed with the bunches of collards I pick out, but it ranks high on their "foods that make me want to cry" list.  I'm gonna keep working on my recipe.  They especially loved watching the pea shelling machines at the market, and we bought some beautiful pink-eyed peas to shell at home.

Beatrice thought that her toes were the tastiest thing at the market.

 

The girls thought they were really pretty, and I had visions of us sitting together, chatting on the back porch happily shelling peas.  Well, after the first 20 pods the novelty had worn off, but we still managed to get through the whole basket!

 Pink eyed peas!

My new skill

I would cost us twice a much to have Gideon shaved here in Birmingham compared to Medford, so we weren't going to do it.  But by the time August rolled around both he and we were miserable with all his fur.  So I bought a pet shaver for a fraction of the price it would cost at a groomer, watched a video and said a prayer.  

It worked!  And both he and I survived!  It was a bit uneven, but in a week it had grown enough you couldn't tell.  Gideon doesn't like getting shaved, but he behaved well enough, and I think he feels so much better when it is done.  He's so much more affectionate when he's shaven!

I was rather proud of Gideon's haircut, but the girls were way more amused with the pile of fur than with the shaved cat.

Marthai family photo

We tried to get a good family photo since we were all at my parents for a few days.  

This was while we were getting set up...

Now trying to get the baby and girls to smile...

We were finally successful!  Here was the good one!

And here Beatrice is wondering what's wrong with her family...

Two birthdays for Beatrice

Beatrice got to celebrate her birthday first with the Dunhams at the beach house,

and then again with the Marthais on the way home from the beach house.

 

 

Wow, what a year.  Beatrice has lived up to her name, "bringer of delight."  She continues to be a very easy baby.  She is incredibly cheerful, and continues to make us smile with her.  Happy Birthday sweet one.

Outer Banks

Mom and Dad Dunham gathered us all together for a week at the Outer Banks (NC) for their anniversary.  We had a great week and no one got bitten by a shark!

Here we all are in the wind...

There were many games of Settlers played,

And many babies cuddled...

and cousins played with,

and patriotic snacks made (it was 4th of July week),

and, of course,

lots of fun on the beach!

Wave-jumpin' and Shell-huntin'

I think the girls' favorite things on the beach were wave jumping and shell hunting.

We found all sorts of treasures (I even found two shark teeth!).  Most of the shells on our beach were large broken pieces, but the girls didn't care.  They had a blast filling their buckets with whatever caught their eye.