beds and bikes and a new tattoo

so glenn's dear mother, kathy (a.k.a "granny apple") and father, "big ed", paid for a pair of custom-made beds for the girls and for glenn and i. my friend and fellow artisan's co-op member, peter, built them for us. for the girls, he made an incredible bunk bed (june calls it a "bump bed") that is a crib on the bottom for juniper and a regular bed up top for hazel.

each night, after we sing our songs and say good night, glenn and i can hear them in there discussing their new beds. "you're way up there, yaya!" june says to her sister, over and over again. (yaya is junebug for hazel.)

when june is older, it can be converted into a regular bed on the bottom as well.

because hazel likes to have a plethora of stuffed animals and books, etc. in her bed, her ingenious father devised a pulley system for her.

here he is, so proud of his brilliant contraption.

all of these friends made it up there via said invention...

and here i am on our new bed, which is so high up it might as well be a bump bed. (it's about 4 feet from the floor to the top of the mattress.) we had peter build cupboards underneath for storage.

also, we went for the first family bike ride of the season this evening. it was lovely.

and, after my hand, i felt compelled to have my shoulder tattoo redone as well.

this tattoo i designed when i was 20. it is different symbols for change, a star shape that turns into waves for the tide, the moon going from new to full, and a chaos symbol with a heart in the center of it. at the time, the star shape symbolized myself. it had become quite faded.

so, i went back to nic for a new coat of paint. and, i had him add three new stars to symbolize glenn, hazel, and june, since i am no longer a lone star.