re-cap

Summer came and went.

I like slow summers. Summers full of otter pops and kids playing in the sprinkler. Maybe some camping and getting together with family, but mostly just hanging out at home.

This was NOT one of those summers.


Job interviews: We went to two. One in Northern California; one in Idaho. Both were delightful experiences.

Family Weddings: Dave had four nieces/nephews get married this summer. We attended two of the weddings and one of the other receptions. So, that was busy. They all looked so happy and it was wonderful to live close enough to attend.

Boise: Dave worked three straight weeks of the night shift which is basically the worst. We don't see him at all. Even his one day off a week he sleeps all day and then stays awake all night. Plus keeping all four kids quiet requires me to be much more helicopter-y than I am comfortable with. So the kids and I packed up and headed to Boise to be with my sister. It was a delightful, though short, visit. It is awesome that Dave's family lives half way there because it makes for a convenient stop along the way.

Logan: The last week of summer vacation I went up to Cache Valley and convinced my sister to play hookie from her job to hang out at the lake. Perfect ending.

We (minus Dave) also went to my Mom's family reunion, which was quite delightful and Ana got to spend a few days at Grandma's house all by herself, which made her feel quite grown up and also homesick.


Now school has started. Katie was so excited for the first day and it did not disappoint. ("It was the perfect first day!") Jack was nervous, but his teacher is good so far and he likes it. Plus his best friend is in his class, so that helps a ton.

Ana and I are beginning home school. Everyone said to spend time "deschooling" and so we have spent the first week taking it slow. Baking, shopping, cleaning, reading, playing (educational) games, and getting lots of physical activity. I am kind of making it up as I go along. I do have a list of the standards to guide me, but when I looked at curricula nothing felt like the right fit for us. The night before school started when the kids got their back to school blessings, I asked for one too. It brought me a lot of peace and comfort. Ana and I have always butted heads a bit, and that has always made me hesitant to home school her. But I know this is the right thing for us at this time. I don't know if it will be a forever solution or just for right now, but I'm glad that I know this is the right choice. It will help me when things get difficult to know that this is what God wants for us right now. I am confident that it will strengthen our relationship.

So here we go into a new school year. There are things to be nervous about and things to be excited about and even things to be sad about since this is our final year in Utah.

Sometimes I do get nostalgic, especially when I look at pictures of my kids when they were littler, but for the most part, I am always excited to watch my kids grow up. I don't think it's sad and I don't really think "stay my babies forever." I usually think "Grow. Learn. Change. Do Amazing things. Live." A new school year always reminds me that they are doing just that. I'm happy with the people they are becoming.

it's a good time

Summer has arrived.

...sigh of happiness...

I love having the kids home. Pretty much everyone I talk to is all like "I have/want to have a good routine for the summer and the kids will do chores and homework" and I'm all like "yay! no routine! no homework!"

That's how we roll around here. But it's not like they sit around watching TV all day. They have chores (but it's more along the lines of "Ana, go pick up the living room" or "Jack, clean out the dishwasher") and they still read and play and whatnot. I love summer so much, though. Warm weather. Popsicle smiles. Running through the sprinklers. Going on hikes. And sometimes, sitting at home doing nothing.

We've had a pretty exciting summer so far.

*I turned 32.  I like being 32 so far. Actually, I love being in my 30s. I think it is my best decade yet. I actually feel like I totally like who I am. That I have talents and gifts. That I can do good things and make improvements and what not. It's very liberating.

*Jack turned 8 and then got baptized a few days later. It was a fabulous day and so far, I can tell he is taking his new responsibility seriously. Earlier in the year he was really having a heard time and I struggled to know what to do to help him. But he seems to have gotten past whatever it was and he has been wonderful lately. He also went to his first cub scout day camp and had a great time.

*Dave has had an easy schedule this month and it's been great to see him so much.

*We went on a family trip to Northern California to interview for a job there. It's a long story of how and why we ended up interviewing there, and I won't get into the details. But the town was delightful and gorgeous, the people were humble and kind, and in general we left with a very good impression. We still have a few more jobs that we are looking into, but NoCal was fun to explore a bit. It was beautiful. We even took a slight detour off of I-80 to go to Lake Tahoe and we loved every minute of the hour we were there. Okay, I didn't love pulling Charlie away. He was having too much fun throwing rocks in the lake and NOT being in the car. We also swung up to Rupert for a day to visit Dave's parents.

*Charlie is starting to talk more and more. It seems like it has taken him a lot longer than the other kids, but that might just be my imagination. This week along he started saying "some" (when he wants something) and he will sign please. He says "thank you" any time you give him something and it is adorable. He can be a little pill sometimes because he is busy and determined, but he has a charming smile that wins me over every time.

*Ana has been such a delight to have home. She plays with Charlie so much. I don't know what I would do without her. In general she is willing to do what I ask and she is so helpful. I'm going to homeschool her next year and I'm really looking forward to building that relationship.

*Katie is hilarious and as fun as ever. She is so ready for kindergarten. And this week she learned how to do the monkey bars. I am blown away by just how big and grown up she is getting. Today I was talking to her a little bit about being safe and what do if she gets lost, etc. After a few minutes, she said, "Mom, can we stop talking about this. I'm starting to feel a little sad." She has such a tender heart.

I love this life that I have. To quote Andy Dwyer (from Parks and Rec) "My whole life is a giant mess and I love it." That's pretty much how I feel. So if you stop by this summer, you will likely see toys in the yard, crafts of the table, dishes in the sink, and me doing the crossword puzzle while Charlie runs around in a diaper. You are welcome anyway. It's always a good time.

the saguaro

Last month we spent a week traveling down to AZ to see my parents and some friends from college and the Grand Canyon. Oh, it was fabulous and sunny.

We spent one morning in the Saguaro National Park near Tucson. The desert is not nearly as barren as cartoons make it seem. The landscape was peppered with bright yellow and purple flowers, barrel cacti topped with blooms, tall spindly bushes with bright red flowers on the tips like a paintbrush dipped in color, and of course, the magnificent Saguaro rising above them all. It was incredible and beautiful.

We took a nature trail lined with information about the desert ecosystem and we found it all fascinating. For instance, we learned the Saguaro provides shelter and nourishment for wildlife and defends itself very well once grown. But in its infancy, it will often begin to grow in the shade of a nurse tree until it acclimates to the desert sun and heat. As it grows, the nurse try dies, both because of its age and because they compete for resources.

After that, I found myself noticing over and over again how often a younger cactus was next to a smaller tree. The older ones too often had evidence of such a tree nearby. Suddenly, they became as magnificent and beautiful to me as the towering Saguaro itself.

 I, too, am sheltering, nurturing, and giving my all to the development of others. It is exhausting. I bear the brunt of the wind and the heat to protect them and allow them to flourish. It is often thankless. The nurse tree is hardly the subject of photographs and paintings and poetry. But it is noble. Like the great cactus, they will be an intricate and vital part of their community. They will stand tall with greatness. They will be able to withstand the heat and defend themselves against those that seek to destroy. And that wouldn't be possible without the sheltering, life-giving, nurturing, quiet role of the nurse tree by its side.

quebec, quebec city - come on *

I know, you were all expecting a mother's day post. I should write something poetic about all the mothers in my life or my mother or what being a mother means to me. I may still, but not tonight. I tried to do this post a few days ago but my internet was being weird. Seriously, though, this month is slipping by like sand through my fingers. The harder I try to grasp it the faster it is going. 

Anyway....

For spring break we planned on taking the whole the week to go to New Hampshire, Maine and then up to Quebec City. But we ended up shortening our last trip to just Quebec City. We went with some of our very best friends, the Dahles. I wish I got a picture of all of us together, but somehow that didn't happen. It was an awesome trip. Good friends, good food and a great place to enjoy it all. Luckily for us, we had a french speaker among us, which made this so much better, because I get awkward when I can't understand what people are saying. We walked a lot, but the kids did great. Saturday was rainy, so we didn't do quite as much that day, but it was still awesome. On Sunday we went to mass at a super old church, which was really cool.

And now, the pictures:

on the road. Dave is wearing my sunglasses. teehee.

Skinny alley

yummy Moroccan restaurant

Cool mural (on the right) and street

Quebec city is the only walled city in North America outside of Mexico This is part of the wall

The hotel Frontenac. This is wear D-day was planned.

From another angle

playing on the cannons

Cool walking street

Katie walked or was carried the whole time.

We stopped and let the kids play at this little park for a while.

Katie filled her shoes with sand.

There was still lots of snowpiles around

Happy

The kids loved the diorama and video about Quebec City at the Musee Du Fort.

A panoramic view of the diorama

Inside the hotel du Frontenac

We got yummy pastries at this little bakery. Look in the window. :)

Cool little street with Frontenac in the background

Cool square and church.

The kids. I am pretty sure they walked on every ledge in the entire city.

The Church where we went to Mass celebrates their 350th anniversary this year. The Vatican gave them a Holy Door to commemorate. It was really cool. You could only use it to enter the church and it had its own sanctuary.

A tiny picture of Katie and Dave giving thumbs up during lunch. So cute!

So there you have it. Quebec City was awesome and was my first real international experience. I have been to Montreal and Vancouver in Canada, but they felt very American. Quebec City totally does not. It was awesome and we made some great memories. Of course the kids just wanted to swim in the hotel pool the whole time, but I think they had an all around good time. What a way to wrap up our time here in the east.


*The movie Planes has a song in it where they rap "New York, New York City, Come on." My kids changed to words and sang it over and over the whole trip.

great things come in small states

We officially crossed the last of the New England states off of our "to visit" list this weekend with a trip to Rhode Island. We left after PTCs Friday morning and headed to Providence. We didn't really know what to do expect. I had looked a few options online, so we had a plan, but we didn't really know what to expect.

We started off walking down Benefit Street, which has a ton of really old (Colonial) buildings. One of the coolest was the First Baptist Church in America. And not just the "First Baptist" that you see on half of the baptist churches in the country and you jokingly say, "oh, hey, this is the first one. Haha." No this one actually was the first Baptist Church in the United States.

Then we walked up the State Capital and then into an enormous and ritzy mall right next to it so that Ana could go to the bathroom. While we were there, though, Ana and I walked into Tiffany and Co to look around and they gave her a bracelet. I told her she was a lucky girl to get a bracelet from Tiffany's. (It is a blue plastic blank armband bracelet, but still.)

 

We headed toward the car, but we decided to walk around Brown University for a minute on the way. There is something about University campuses that I love. There is an atmosphere of energy and excitement and hope for the future and it feels like there is knowledge just hanging in the air waiting to be grasped. So we started down a street hoping to walk across the quad but due to a concert we couldn't cut across. And then it was about 5 blocks before we could cut across towards our car. By the time we could, we were all starving and there just happened to be a little burger joint on the corner. The streets were swarming with college kids, but the place looked good enough so we decided to go it. Best. Decision. Ever. The burgers and fries were delicious. The obviously don't get many kids in there because they gave us a free huge cookie and when we ordered a nutella shake (which was DIVINE) they gave us two small ones for the kids in addition to the normal size one.We made it to our cars full and happy and headed to our hotel. (Of course, the kids favorite part of the trip was swimming in the hotel the next morning.)

Saturday we went down to Newport, RI. We had heard it was a cool place and to check out the Mansions. These turn-of-the-century homes were the summer "cottages" to wealthy families, including the Vanderbilts. We went to two (think Pride and Prejudice home touring) - The Breakers (the biggest and most grand) and the Marble House (the most lavish.) They were super impressive. The former had 70 rooms and was actually considered "simple" compared to other Victorian era homes, though they had platinum panels in one room and everything was ornate. The other was incredibly opulent, almost gaudy. A shrine to wealth. An entire room was gilded in gold. There was 500,000 cubic feet of marble used in its construction. The tours (self-guided audio tours that our kids really enjoyed) talked a lot of the women of the house and it was interesting that though they were sisters-in-law, they were so incredibly different in personality. (I am still deciding what I think of them. I will have to discuss more of this later.)

We also spent some time driving around Newport, walking the streets and looking in shops. We ended the day playing at the beach. The air by then was chilly, and the water was freezing (I am told.) But it was a good way to get the kids last few wiggles out before the drive home. Ana and Dave put their feet in the water. Jack chased the waves. Or rather they chased him. Katie mostly shivered and was very worried about the waves lapping on the shore, but it was still fun. We got as much sand off as a could and loaded back in the car, headed up the smallest state through farms and vineyards, got a quick bite to eat, and the kids drifted off to sleep.

At one point during the weekend, Katie exclaimed, "This is the best day of my life!" She probably got it from Olaf, but still, it does make a parent feel good. Here's to wholesome recreational activities and small states.

train ride

On Friday we knocked off something off my bucket list.

Way back before I knew what a bucket list was, and before I ever thought I would actually LIVE in Vermont, I wanted to take a train ride through Vermont in the fall. I don't know where this came from. Probably my particular mix of nostaligia, Anne-of-Green-Gables-esque romance, idealism, and my love of American geography/history came together to form this idea that it would be the quintessential fall experience.

Of course, I couldn't live here for 4 years without it. Friday we made it happen. Dave worked nights all week so he was off on Friday. (Well technically he got home from work at 6 on Friday morning and went to sleep until it was time to go.) We had to drive a couple hours to the depot, and the ride was a little bit shorter than we thought it was going to be, but it was the perfect length for the kids. We had a great time and it was every bit as fun as I hoped, even though it was a bit past peak colors. 

Waiting at the Depot

Jack with his shiner.

Along the Connecticut River

We drove over this cool waterfall and gorge.

These pictures don't do it justice.

The Green Mountain Flyer

At the Train Station. We got to watch them change engines.

My beautiful girl with her maple stick.

Enjoying the ride

This house used to be a major stage coach station on the route from Montreal to Boston.

Even Katie loved it.

This covered bridge was rebuilt last year after Hurricane Irene washed it out. Can you believe how high the water was? Seriously, that was a crazy storm for the Green Mountain State.

Another covered bridge.

Ana's turn behind the camera.

Pretty trees. And this is PAST peak season.