Hi Ho Cherry-O and more

Brother climbers

More parks, ponds, unicycling, baking, kite-flying, drawing, eating, and swinging were in order. A few unicycling mishaps added some chaos, but the splendor of the cherry tree made up for it. Let's explain in pictures:

Exploring the pond

Trying to catch small fish in bottles. The boys in Kyrgyzstan made it look so easy.

The inevitable.

One of the elaborate tents the kids built for their games of House

Pizza! Hamburger and pineapple.

Pizza picnic with all the cousins.

Guess what's for dessert?

Now that's a s'more!

Kites on the river bank.

The fishing poles proved useful on multiple fronts - for fishing as well as kiting and even for retrieving a frisbee-aerobie that had disappeared over the neighbor's fence.

My unicycling shadow

Tanya and Misha

At this point, Tanya fell off her uni in such a way that she broke her 5th metacarpal. Most unfortunate! While she and I were at the doctor getting it x-rayed, Misha barreled head-first into one of the support-beams in their basement while practicing on his uni. Luckily, Aaron managed to bandage it up, saying there was no concussion and most likely no need for stitches. By the time we got home, Misha was asking me if he could unicycle again, but I told him we should wait until the blood stopped oozing out. These incidents were rather ironic, considering that we tell people all the time how safe unicycling is.

Chalk Fest!

The perfect flan.

Weeding and admiring

Ah, zinnias

Hot dog picnic!

Tanya doing well making s'mores despite turning into the Borg.

Expert roaster

Sebby at the fire pit!

Jackrabbit boys

Aaron tests out his Muni, in work clothes no less.

Misha making major progress in riding by himself!

Considering he just got this small new uni in mid July, Misha was thrilled that two weeks later he could do this:

When you get a push from Sebby, this is what happens.

And when you get a push from Aaron, this is what you get.

The cherry tree provided us with the perfect day. We had noticed that Tanya's elderly neighbor had a solitary, beautiful cherry tree in her front yard with vibrant fruit that no one had shown an interest in picking. So we asked her, might we pick them? When, to our delight, she agreed, we gave each kid a bucket, and Tanya and I joined in to pick the high-up cherries. They were perfectly ripe, so shiny and red it left one wondering if they were even real. Since it was just one tree, we had it picked clean fairly quickly. Onto the pitting, which left pools of dark juice on plates, hands, and tables. And then ... onto the baking!

 

These are our creations - a cherry pie, because that's just so homey. It turned out beautiful to the eyes, though the crust was much tougher than it should have been. (Homemade crust is so finnicky.) Also, a cherry-crisp, because it's so easy and actually the best-tasting, which we shared with the pleased neighbor. And, a wonderful cherry smoothie - tart and sweet at the same time. Mmmm. That settles it - someday I want a cherry tree.

Then all too soon it was off to Brookings for a final weekend before flying back to Houston!