Laternenfest

Sleepytime Adventures Ch 2

Sleepytime Adventures, Chapter 2

The adventurers woke up the next morning, and looked around them.  Below them, the forests of Vancouver Island stretched out in all directions.  Suddenly, Wolfy heard the flapping of wings and shouted "look out!"  A giant eagle, whose wings spread over ten feet in both directions, swooped down and came to rest on their platform.

"Hello."  said the eagle.  "My name is Eagle, and I live in this forest.  Why have you landed so close to my nest?"

"Oh!" said the Canadian Ninja.  "We did not realize we were close to an eagle nest!  We arrived last night, and it was dark.  We are adventurers and we wanted to visit Vancouver Island.  Would you like to join us for breakfast?"

"Sure!" said Eagle.  "Let me just call my eaglets!"  He called out with three loud squawks, and moments later four little fluffy eaglets came swoop-tumble-bumbling onto the platform with them.  "These are my eaglets."  said Eagle.   "Kids, how about we go catch some salmon for breakfast to share with our new friends?"  "Yay!" yelled the eaglets, and they tumble-rumble-swooped off the edge of the platform and toward a lake not far away.

"I'll go find some huckleberries and blackberries!" the Canadian Ninja said.  "Who's with me?"  Wolfy and the Red Ninja Kai said "we are!" and they all climbed down the tree to go search for berries.

They searched and found huckleberry bushes under the trees, and blackberry bushes in the clearings.  Suddenly, Wolfy yelped "Hey!"  She pulled her face out of a berry bush, and had a little frog sitting on her nose! 

"This is my bush!" said the frog.

"What?" said Wolfy, "I've never even heard of a talking frog before!"

"I'm not just a frog, I'm a frog fairy!" said the frog.  And sure enough, magically there was suddenly a tiny little person with wings standing there, with a green wand.  There was a squeak in the bushes next to her.  "Hey, you woke me up!" said a very sleepy little furry thing with wings.  "Oh, sorry!" said the Frog Fairy.  "This is my friend, Vampire Bat."

"Hello, Frog Fairy and Vampire Bat." said the ninjas.  "Would you like to come have breakfast with us?  We are gathering berries and our friends the eagles are bringing some salmon." 

"Sure!" said the fairy, and with a flick of her wand she had a basket in her hand, and with another flick it filled itself with berries!  "Let's go."

They all headed back to the tree platform, and had a wonderful breakfast with Eagle and his eaglets.  After breakfast, the Canadian Ninja said "I'd like to turn our platform into a treehouse.  Do you know anyone that could help us?"

"Sure!" said Frog Fairy, "You should talk to Beaver!  I'll show you where his dam is, over where the river meets the lake."

Our friends all traveled to the beaver dam, and a furry brown creature came waddle-scurrying toward them.  He had a big paddle-shaped tail, and giant teeth sticking down over his chin!  "Hewwo, how can I hewp you?"  he asked.

"We want to build a treehouse.  Will you help us?" said the Canadian Ninja.

"But of couwse!" said the beaver.

For the rest of the day, the beaver and the Canadian Ninja showed the others how to chop down trees and turn them into logs, to stack the logs one atop the other , with notches in the ends and mud in between to hold them in place.  The Red Ninja Kai used his flame swords to burn away the base of the largest trees, and the beaver packed mud on top so that the rest of the tree would not catch fire.  "This is just how the local Haida people have cut down trees for as long as anyone can remember!" said the Beaver.  "We should make you a Haida totem pole for your new treehouse home, one with each of your faces on it."

And so they did.
They created a totem pole with an axe and a maple leaf (for the Canadian Ninja),

two crossed flaming swords (for the Red Ninja Kai),

a wolf showing her smiling teeth (for Wolfy),

an eagle holding a salmon (for Eagle and his eaglets),

a beaver with giant teeth and a cross-hatched paddle tail (for Beaver),

a bat with long pointy ears (for the Vampire Bat),

and a frog with berries on her tongue (for the Frog Fairy).

When they finished placing their totem pole in their new treehouse, our friends were tired.  The little fluffy eaglets were tumble-bumble-yawning all over the place, and papa Eagle took them home to their nest to rest.  The beaver went home to his dam, and the rest of our adventurers went inside the treehouse.  They snuggled into their snuggly pillows, and cuddled under their cuddly blankets, and had wonderful, salmon-and-berries-and-treehouses-and-totem-poles dreams.

Sleepytime Adventures

Here is the most recent saga from Epic Sleepytime Adventures

Chapter One:  Journey to Vancouver Island

Once upon a time, there were three friends:  a Canadian Ninja, a Red Ninja named Kai (with a backpack that had a button on it and a robot inside, and two flame swords), and a wolf named Wolfy.

They were in the Olympic National Forest in Washington, and they wanted to go on an adventure together.

"Let's go to Vancouver Island!" the Canadian Ninja said.  "I'll teach you guys how to find huckleberries and blackberries, and catch crawdads, and climb trees!"

"How will we get there?" said Wolfy (she was worried they might plan to swim, and she was not a super strong swimmer).

"We can build a raft" suggested the Canadian Ninja. He started to chop down trees.  The Red Ninja Kai helped, with his flame swords.  "This would go faster if we had fairy dust."

The wolf said "I know where we can find fairy dust!  Follow me!"

He raced through the forest, over a stream and around a big boulder, and took them to a dark cave.  Inside the cave was a single, glowing blue mushroom.

"Um, hello?  Mushroom fairy?" said the Wolfy.

Suddenly, a pair of sparkling green-and-blue wings unfolded from beneath the mushroom, and a beautiful fairy stood before them.  "Hello, Wolfy!" she said. 

"Hi!" said Wolfy.  "We are planning an adventure to Vancouver Island, and we could really use some fairy dust to help us get there!"

"Well of course!" said the mushroom fairy.  She reached under the mushroom, and pulled out a sack full of dust.  "Here!  Use it wisely -- just a little sprinkle will do!"

"Thanks!!" said the adventurers.  They waved goodbye to the mushroom fairy, and walked back through the woods to the edge of the water.

Wolfy sprinkled some dust on the big chopped-down trees, and they tied themselves together into a strong raft.  The adventurers got on, and pushed out into the water.

They floated across the water for a while, and suddenly they saw dark dorsal fins circling their raft.  "Orcas!" said the Canadian Ninja.  "Normally they don't want to eat people, but this raft might make us look like a whale or otter -- we better get out of here!"

"Fairy dust!" said Wolfy.  She sprinkled some on herself.  "I'm flying!" she said.

Canadian Ninja did the same.  "Woo hoo!" he said.

The Red Ninja Kai said "Oh, I don't need any dust, I can just make my robot turn into a helicopter!"  He pushed his backpack button, and his robot popped out and transformed into a helicopter.  He got inside, and the helicopter picked up the raft and lifted it right out of the water. 

The three adventurers took off, flying over the dark water.  They saw the dark shapes of the orcas in the water, and one of them even jumped up and tried to snap them!  "Can't catch us!" said Wolfy.  "I'm glad we aren't on that raft anymore!"

Soon, they saw the shore, and flew over the beach and over the dark woods until they saw a tall, tall Douglas Fir tree - the tallest tree in the whole forest.  "Let's stop here!" said the Canadian Ninja.  The Red Ninja Kai carefully piloted the helicopter to land the raft in the treetop, and the Canadian Ninja tied it securely into place.  Now the adventurers had a treetop platform to sleep on!

They were very sleepy from their long journey, so they each pulled some leaves and branches from the trees around them.  Then the Canadian ninja, the Red Ninja Kai, and Wolfy each laid down on their soft piles of branches and leaves.  They thought about how they would build a treehouse in the morning, and the adventures they would have on Vancouver Island.  Then they cuddled into their cuddly pillows, and snuggled under their snuggly blankets, and had beautiful, canadian ninja wolf raft fairy flying dreams.

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Tacoma

Alex in 2014

At night at campsite on bike: "I not scared of anything, because I can't see ANYThING!"
Fake sneezes constantly "aaaa-CHOO!"
Love Captain Underpants
And Captain Hook
And making friends with every kid at every play and campground
And
Blackberry cobbler
And huckleberries
And ferries
And bikes and big red helmet and swim goggles.

Anything and nothing

You look sleepy, Alex.


I'm not ANY sleepy!!!!


Are you ok Alex?

NOTHING! I NOT ANYTHING!

The Best Alex in the Whole Wide World

Alex likes to speak in superlatives.

Ivan is "the best big brother in the whole wide world!"

A dozen kids, plus cousins and brother, are "My best friend!"

Uncle Chris is the "best Uncle in the whole world!"

Dan is "My best daddy in the whole world!"

Oma makes "the best pancakes in the whole world!"

Kix are "my favorite best cereal!"

but if you make him mad...

then you are "the worst brother I ever know!"

"the worst mommy!"

"this was the worst bad day and I like nothing!  nothing!"

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Carnival rides

Alex went on his first carnival rides at the county fair today. The first was the big chain swings merry go round, the big adult one with oscillations built in and high speed. Alex was barely tall enough, and as the ride took off I was on a swing in front of him and became really worried that he was going to freak out. Because I was having to work not to freak out myself...it was fast and HIGH!
Just when I was going to turn around and check on him I heard his deep little voice yell out
"Hooraaaay!!! I'm flying!!!! I'm flying!!!! I'm flying!!!!!! Cannonball!!! Cannonball! Flying!!!"
He kept that up the entire ride.
Which is a good thing, because I really wasn't sure I could soothe him very well in my own white-knuckled state.

Later on a traditional roller coaster (a junior-sized one) he was much less jubilant. Ivan said Alex was pretty sure it was going to go off the rails. (See serious expression, dark baseball cap)

Dirt rider

"My bike is like a monster truck!!! It goes over the rocks and bumps!"

Mommy! Look at these flowers! They are for you! These flowers are for you mommy! You can keep them!

I can ride a bike all by myself!

The best part of my bike is....I learned to ride a bike all by myself with no training wheels!!! Aaaand Ivan almost crashed me but he went...and I turned...and saved me! And I can ride a bike! All by myself! My purple bike!