Salmon Run

The salmon are ready for the Charter School's spring production Salmon Run. Different age groups represent various stages of the salmon life cycle, so I have a smolt and a spawning salmon. We didn't have patterns to sew by, so I made mine up. Lindsey hates it. She says her costume isn't fishy enough and reminded me that fish don't walk on their tail fins. I told her to imagine she was a fish trying to swim up a waterfall. I also gave her the option of making her own costume and, miraculously, the one I made for her is suddenly okay.

Especially with the collapse of the pacific salmon harvest this year, many folks in the northwest are really concerned about the health of the species. I like how the charter school is very environmentally aware, but my kids just really want to catch a real fish and eat it.

Yesterday we went to the Renaissance Festival. It was wonderful to get out and enjoy spring which had finally arrived. The festival itself wasn't quite what I expected. There were a musical groups, llamas to pet, and live hawks and owls to see for free. But the coolest attraction was the bungee jump and climbing wall that was fairly expensive. The kids were disappointed that I didn't shell out the money, but they got over it.

Other than those few things, the whole event seemed like a glorified craft fair with booth after booth of things to buy and overpriced carnival style food. After recovering from sticker shock, we came home and made funnel cakes ourselves which were absolutely fantastic.

I did get a few fun ideas though. Lindsey wants to make a windchime out of odd utensils and metal trivets like some we saw that sold for a mere $40. I told her we could probably make it for less than $5 so that's what we're going to do. But I did see a coat rack out of old utensils that I thought was really cute. When we get settled into our new living quarters, I'll probably copy it.