family visit

some of my east coast family was here recently for a visit. we had lots of good old fashioned bellingham fun, and we had AMAZING weather! it was really ideal. i'm sure it rained as soon as they drove away.
we spent a lovely leisurely afternoon at boulevard park. here's isla lou with grandma louise.

and here she is with great grandma katie.

aunt tiff and i did some biking with the kids...

and hiked up sehome hill.

and of course we had a chaotic family breakfast at nelson's!


followed by a glare-y family photo shoot outside. here are some cousins (chris, molly, danielle and me) and four generations of meyer women: me, oma, isla and my mom.

spring break

it's spring break for our friends the walshes, and they made the long drive from boise to spend the week with us. unfortunately spring in bellingham means a lot of rain, but we've also had a few nice days.
highlights have included: listening to very cute conversations between jasper and noah ("you bonked your head, jasper?" "yeah, i bonked." "you bonked?" "yeah." etc.); peeing outside (not the grown-ups); going for a few walks/runs/explorations; eating really good food; drinking beer and laughing a lot; reminiscing about the north shore and all the folks we love there; soothing fussy babies and refereeing grabby boys; not sleeping much; and drinking lots and lots of coffee.



we also got to visit briefly with the scott-fishburns, who are on whidbey island this week for the presentation of josh's master's thesis. it was lovely to meet little pascal and see josh and rose again. the last time we saw them rose was very pregnant with pascal and i didn't realize, but i was very newly pregnant with isla. and now these two little ones are not so big!

here are some whidbey island pictures:

hooray for seeing old friends! if only the rest of you long-lost folk would show up on our doorstep...

visitors from the east

nope, not the magi. my sister and our friends andrew and jess were both recently here for visits.

hillary was here for a little under a week, before her spring semester began again at gordon. it was really nice to see her. noah developed a very big crush on aunt hillary, following her around the house and even into the bathroom. (privacy is not a concept he understands.) they read many many books together, sang many songs, played lots with trains and trucks, made vegan cookies, watched a john deere tractor movie, checked out facebook, sent text-messages, primped, etc. noah was very sad to see her go, and also sad that he couldn't ride with her on the cool white bus to the airport. poor boy.

aunt irene was here the day hillary left, and to allay the sadness of hillary's departure, we all took a bus trip of our own to fairhaven and back (about 5 minutes each way). it was a simple but very fun adventure. in fairhaven we hit up the bookstore, the toy store, the bakery and the train station, then took the bus back to downtown and hit up a coffee shop. noah was thrilled. he was especially excited about watching a freight train go by at the station, and playing with the cars, trucks and trains at the toy store. (we were in there for over an hour, and his cheeks were rosy and his forehead sweaty from the intensity with which he was playing. it was very cute!)

here's aunt irene and isla lou at the train station:
then a few days later, we spent some time in vancouver and down here with our dear friends (and noah's godparents) jess and andrew. we went to jess's art show on granville island, (thankfully sans noah in the tiny craft shop).

here's jess with some of her tiny dresses

andrew and noah had tea together and munched puffins

and maryka, jess and i enjoyed some educational reading: entertainment weekly. so much to learn about the world!
now all our visitors are back home in the east, shoveling themselves out of snowstorm after snowstorm. we miss you, hillary, jess and andrew!

alaskan friends

we recently hosted our friends andy, jenny, maia and blaise for almost two weeks. they live in petersburg, the island in southeast alaska where aaron and i spent the summer after our wedding.

they just built this gorgeous house there.

the winters in petersburg are cold and dark, and so our friends came south to spend a few months in ashland, OR with jenny's family. and bellingham is a convenient stop on the way.

(to read more about their housebuilding project, go here to the cool blog of a friend of theirs in portland.)

the cowans were here two and a half years ago as well, during the weeks before, during and after noah's birth. then, as now, they were great guests--cooking, cleaning and generally being helpful. it's been hard to get back in the kitchen since they've gone!

they brought special treats like smoked salmon, black cod, alaskan coffee, and best of all, a ton of yellow cedar and hemlock boards aaron will use for trim and kitchen cabinets in the house.


noah had lots of fun with little blaise (about three months younger than him) and maia (five years old). there was also a good deal of bopping, grabbing toys and general unrest. it's hard to share your home and your things with friends. but we know this about community living--the good parts make the hard parts worthwhile.

we had a fun trip to the pumkin patch at stoney ridge farm.

jenny chillin' in the yard.

maia and isla--two girls in pink.