Soft Star Shoes

Okay, so what prompted me to blog tonight was the FABULOUS service we have experienced with Soft Star Shoes. We've been a fan of them for probably three years, since my friend Cassie introduced us, but here's what happened last week:

Caleb and I designed a pair of custom Playtime shoes and submitted our order on Tuesday, June 17. Custom shoes take longer to receive because they have to be constructed to order, and I realized on Wednesday that they probably wouldn't be here before our move. So, I emailed them back (I didn't even have to look up customer service - I just replied to the order confirmation!), explained my predicament, and asked if the order could be expedited or if I could change the address to a grandparent's house. They responded and said that by their estimation the shoes would be sent out June 24, so there would be time for them to arrive before our move. The next day (Thursday, June 19) I received a shipping notification, saying they were scheduled to arrive on Monday, June 23. They arrived today. So, obviously, the Elves over at Soft Star Shoes bumped our order up to the top of their list and sent them out, pronto! I couldn't be happier with their service! Nothing beats working with small US companies!

Now, are you curious to see these shoes that Caleb designed?

Here they are, in all their glory!

Yes, that is CAMO leather on the front. Black leather for the back, blue elastic, blue moons, and silver stars (small and hard to see).

And here are his older pairs. I designed the blue ones, had some input from Caleb on the yellow ones, and he did the new ones all on his own. We might revert to my designs in the future. :)

And, just because I adore them, here are Elinor's much-loved Merry Janes. She's outgrown the pink ones, but she wears the black ones everywhere. They are her go-to play shoe and currently her only church shoe.

Anyhoo, onto other things...

We've been keeping busy lately, trying to squeeze in as much outdoor time as possible. Yesterday the kids and I went hiking and I got some pictures too awesome to not share:

I came up the trail with Jacob to find Caleb and Elinor sitting like this. Just taking turns sipping from the CamelBak, getting some rest in the shade. It looks posed, right? This picture just melts my heart!

I thought this part of the trail was so pretty, with the trees arching overhead. I also love this picture because as they were lining up, Emily fell over, causing the rest of them to topple as well. As they were standing up and brushing themselves off, Caleb said, "We fell like dominoes!" and cracked all of us up. They really and truly looked just like a line of dominoes falling. I have never seen anything (unstaged) quite like it! It was pretty hilarious.

And this picture... well, it was for the poppies, but now it's my new cellphone background. What are we going to do with that Elinor?!

Like Father

This crazy bunch of kids loves a good excuse to party.

The long delay between Mother's day and Father's day had them climbing the walls.

When the big day came, there were decorations, presents, and games. 

I recognized another bit of my dad in myself when I stumbled across a blog that had stretched out a "pillow box" pattern to make it look sort of like a bow-tie.  I thought that it should be possible to make a crafty cardstock container that would be a lot more bow-tie-like.  So I started fiddling with designs and finally came up with this:

 It's two tapered pillow-boxes joined together with two additional pieces of cardstock.  It doesn't need glue or tape; the pieces have tabs and lock together like a puzzle.  I was proud of the design; so I took it to cubscouts to have them make one for their fathers.  The two pouches can be filled with candy.  If you fill them with different kinds of candy, you can ask, "Which candy is better?  It's a tie!". 

I ended up not having any cubscouts come that night, but the primary president was there.  I showed her the design and she thought it would be good to use for primary on Sunday.  So I printed off a stack of templates and asked Amanda to try making one to see how long it took.  It took a while.  We decided it wasn't practical to have the kids make their own.  Saturday night, then, we started cutting, scoring, and folding while we watched Sherlock Holmes together.  Putting one bow-tie together probably takes around twenty minutes from start to finish.  That's not too unreasonable.  But it means that making 30 of them takes around 10 hours.

Amanda and I ended up folding ties until the wee hours, long after our episode of Sherlock had ended.  It was kind of fun though.  I kept on thinking of all the odd crafting projects that my father explored, like the time he put notches in a whole bunch of CDs and then pieced them together into a big, nerdy, "disco" ball.  He especially enjoyed origami and paper-crafting. 

I miss my dad a lot.  He gave me seasonal allergies and may have contributed to my lack of social skills.  But he also gave me creativity and curiosity.  He taught me to think things through.  He stayed up late with me when things were tough and there was work to be done.  He taught me to serve others.  He taught me to love the stars.  He taught me that death isn't the end and that we'll be together again some day.  I'm looking forward to that.

Last week

The Tuesday before we left for California was Emily's last day of school. We met at Chautauqua Park (one of our favorites!) for a little hike, some playtime, lunch, and goodbyes. I stayed with the younger kids and they had a great time blowing bubbles, playing frisbee, and playing with the big parachute. Boulder Explore has been a really good thing for Emily this year. We are glad to have been a part of it.

Caleb especially liked the parachute.

Most of the group - I think a few people were missing.

The Thursday before we left we were thrilled to be able to meet up with some old friends from Austin. They are actually our oldest friends from Austin, since we met them when Emily was just 2 weeks old and we were both in a ward in North Austin before both of our families moved down to Student Housing. We ate outside, got some playtime and chatting in, and then they were on their way again while we frantically packed for our trip. I'm so sad we didn't get pictures with them, but I loved this note I found in the schoolroom after they left.

It says, "Wutheey and Lileey pleez cum bac." Which, translated, means, "Ruthie and Lily please come back." Written by Caleb. Aw, he's such a sweetie, that boy!

A few other random pictures from that same week:

Bel found this empty birds' nest on the ground and I thought it was pretty cool. Joseph was appalled that I allowed her to handle it. And yeah, I am super grossed out by bird feathers and most things city-bird related, but for some reason wasn't so bothered by this. Maybe I should have been.

A couple of days later the maintenance guys were working on the sprinklers so they came on while we were outside. The kids were elated! There was much screaming and running and giggling. Oh, and mud.

He's not afraid of a mess.

In fact, he relishes it. Here he's pointing out to me that he has in fact taken off his shoes and those are mud-covered socks on his feet.

It was definitely straight into the tub for all four of them after this escapade. Sometimes I think I'm growing wiser in all my experience as a parent, and then I look back on days like this and wonder.

It was pretty fun though.

Vacation!

We were able to fly out to California this past weekend to look at neighborhoods and it was so much fun! The airport was a fun experience for the kids.

Em was so cute putting her arm around Caleb. And El was so cute putting her arm around her unicorn.

Jake was not as cute as he was cool.

Fun for the kids; a little stressful for me and Joseph, since we missed our scheduled flight(!) and had to hurry and re-book, this time to San Francisco instead of San Jose.

Aah. Here we are at last, spread out along all six seats at the very back of the plane.

Jake (and all the kids) were fascinated by the view out the window.

We rented a minivan in San Francisco and drove down to Mountain View, and after many hours of traveling, were finally able to relax and have lunch/dinner at Panera Breads.

After eating we checked into our hotel. Lately we have been using Residence Inns and they have been so nice. It makes such a difference to have bedrooms with doors that close when you're traveling with young kids. Having a full kitchen is also a plus.

The kids all got a kick out of having physical scriptures to leaf through (we've been using the Kindle lately at home). Elinor kept announcing that she was going to read the WHOLE Book of Mormon in one day. Here they look a little like they are looking for comforting words at Caleb's funeral.

Jake loves to keep up with the big kids, but so often does his own thing.

We went on an area tour with a realtor hired by Google that took up most of Saturday, but were able to visit a few parks in our spare time.

First stop: Cooper Park.

And... hmm... we visited Cuesta Park the next day, but this is the only picture we have:

Not very descriptive. But, we did run into three other LDS couples with their kids there. One of the guys was a tech nerd like Joseph and I'm pretty sure Joseph was in heaven for the hour or so that they chatted.

We headed out to Half Moon Bay on Sunday afternoon. It was warm and sunny in Mountain View, but overcast and a little chilly at the beach. The kids still had a blast. I envisioned us walking along the shore, maybe dipping our toes in the water... of course, all the kids ended up drenched. Over-the-moon excited, but drenched.

To wrap up our trip, we walked through the townhouse we'll be moving into, and stopped for donuts (which we ate on the sidewalk outside the townhouse).

This might have been the kids' favorite part of the whole trip!

The flight home was uneventful, and I think we are all happy to be sleeping in our own beds again.