Play Ball! ... Or, I Love You Too, But Spring Is Here

So much fun with so many sports with Franklin. He's pretty committed to seasons lately, and spring is for soccer and baseball:

He also told me that he wants to go to Wrigley Field and see a Cubs baseball game. So... Grandpa Ray? Aunt Merrica?

Speaking of spring (the title of this post is one of his inexplicable but hilarious recent sayings), some delicious spring dining:


And tulips from last week's outing:


Last week's outing being the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. We went in 2012; fun to return, and to see the fields in the sun!


Still nice and muddy though:














Long, full day:


Back at home, Franklin has really been enjoying watching 20-minute bits of Sweetgrass, one of my very favorite movies:


I mentioned it here back when we first saw it; such a great movie!


Also had some fun playing soccer, baseball, and a little frisbee with Jen at the beach last weekend:






And of course, as you may have heard, we attended our first Sounders game:


Pretty fun time.


And they won! And it was because of a beautiful 360-spin-move goal. Take a look:






All right, that's more or less it. (I really need to post more often and shorten these up, huh?)

Oh, a little fun today on Instagram, which Emily and I recently decided to look into after hearing how much Magen enjoys it:

#marchmadness in April

A video posted by Emily Hughes Dominick (@emily.dominick) on Apr 5, 2015 at 11:49am PDT

No Jayhawk gear in that basketball clip, shockingly, but here's Franklin's current favorite ad:

Over and over lately he's been saying, "Rock Chalk, baby!" :)

All right, a little more Instagram:

Lamb chops

A photo posted by Emily Hughes Dominick (@emily.dominick) on Apr 5, 2015 at 5:48pm PDT

And that's it. Cheers, reader! Hope you're having a wonderful spring!

Happy day all!

A photo posted by Yancy Hughes Dominick (@yancy9) on Apr 5, 2015 at 6:51pm PDT

Franklin Rises

Plenty of fun to keep us busy lately.

Before we dive right into to Nana & Papa's visit, here are a few other items:

Adjunct faculty (like me! woo!) across the nation staged a walk-out last week, and reportedly ours was among the biggest in the country. Not bad!

Lots of pictures online, including one set that featured one of me walking with my friend Michael:


Sorry to hear that Leonard Nimoy died, though 83 is pretty solid. But happy that my mom found this great photo from my favorite old halloween costume:


We took Franklin to a soccer lesson/class/practice at the Hiawatha Community Center:

He seemed pretty into it (other than being super cold running around in shorts), but this week refused to go back, so who knows...

Immediately after, we went to the Seattle Children's Museum to attend a birthday party for one of Franklin's classmates. Didn't get any good pictures of her, but Franklin seemed to enjoy the museum:


One of the big hits with all the kids was the grocery store:


My favorite part was the register feeling overwhelmed by all the attention:


Okay, not sure where to put these, but here are my two favorite quotes from March 2015:

On a weekday morning, upon coming into our room and getting into our bed: "Dad, stay in bed for five more minutes and then take your shower."

And, seemingly out of nowhere one day: "I'm Cliff Alexander; hold on tight."

Finally, as I said, great visit from Nana & Papa:


Fun around town, and also a nice day up near Snoqualmie Pass:


Including a quick hike on the auspiciously named Franklin Falls Trail.

At the falls:


Two miles, a few hundred feet of elevation gained. Not a difficult hike, but I'm proud to report that Franklin walked the whole way!


Well, that's about it. More fun to come. Cheers, reader.

Did You Ever See?

Cooked a pretty tasty stew today, but it was slower than expected... Thankfully Franklin was there to help keep Emily and Grandma in good spirits while we waited:



Been a busy month otherwise. As you probably know we had a big party last week:


















Many many thanks to the excellent folks at the West Seattle YMCA. Such a great job with the party!




What else? Ah, recent trip down to throw some rocks in the water (down by the bay?)...






And of course this awesome present Franklin got from a daycare classmate:


Okay let's read one last story, and then good night!

It covered everything as far as he could see

Thanks to Emily B. and Pete for a great weekend in a snow-covered cabin!

(And a belated thanks to Ezra Jack Keats for the amazing book that I'm quoting in the title of this post.)

I was glad that Franklin's snowsuit (which was pretty roomy last year) fits perfectly this year. He was pretty happy too:


What? A river, with rocks for throwing? Yes, someone had a fun weekend.

In the Teanaway River Valley. Read about it here: friendsoftheteanaway.org.




Pete, Emily, Franklin, and Emily, looking for ice to crunch through.



And just like magic (just like a picture book?), it was snowing when we woke up Saturday morning:




Of course, the only thing he liked wearing more than the snowsuit was the KU jersey he got in his stocking on Christmas morning.

In his stocking Christmas morning, and on him for the next four days straight :)

The only time he wasn't having fun at the cabin was when he remembered that we didn't bring the dinosaur puzzle that he got for Christmas. This is within five minutes of returning home:

Thanks Magen, Dave, Braxton, Amelia, and Evan!

Oh, and if you want to brush up on dinosaur names, here's the online Picture Legend.

Speaking of Christmas presents and whatnot, here's a quick look back at the holiday:


Working on gingerbread cookies, mostly as a gift for Franklin's teachers at daycare:








Mostly:


And then it was Christmas morning:



One of his favorite presents, a forklift from Nana & Papa.



And for dinner, eye round roast, Moroccan Sweet Potatoes, deviled eggs, and more!


Hey, so did anyone happen to read that New York Times piece about Religion Without God? It hit almost exactly how I had been feeling, especially this bit:

... two anthropologists, Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw, go so far as to argue that ritual isn’t about expressing religious commitment at all, but about doing something in a way that marks the moment as different from the everyday and forces you to see it as important. Their point is that performing a ritual focuses your attention on some moment and deems it worthy of respect.

I had in fact been considering asking Emily to bring us to mass on Christmas, but couldn't quite get there. And the logistics were tricky...

Anyway, we settled on singing some carols together, just to make the point a little clearer:


I hope you won't mind one more quote from that article:

Atheists trust in human relations, not supernatural ones, and humans are not so good at delivering the world as it should be. Perhaps that is why we are moved by Christmas carols, which conjure up the world as it can be and not the world we know.

May the spirit of Christmas be with you, however you understand what that means.