End of Summer!

Today is the first day of school for us. We celebrated by having an end-of-summer beach trip late yesterday afternoon:

Wombles, constantly in motion

My only view of Nutmeg

J taught Pixie and Bud how to boogie board. They did a great job! We were impressed to find they're ready. I love J's fist pump on Pixie's first ride, below:

Getting Bud set

Of course, there were wipe-outs. Bud recovered pretty quickly from this one:

And Pixie from this one:




We had a great time at the beach!


Then, at dinner last night, we talked about different skills the kids have learned this summer. The highlights were:

• Nutmeg learned to eat "solid" food
• Pixie learned to ride her bicycle
• Bud learned to really swim
• Wombles learned to use the potty

What a great summer!!

The Second Two-Thirds

After getting to bed laaate on Saturday evening, we picked up and went to church on Sunday morning. This is the church that we've been going to whenever we've visited J's parents over the course of the past twelve years. We've lived in six different houses in that space of time (although some were in-town moves, so there have only been four churches).

Last summer we visited for the first time since J's parents moved away. That's when we realized that their church family was our church family, too--the only continual church context we've had over the course of our marriage. The people there are very important to us; getting up and going to church was a no-brainer. The church was, in fact, the reason we came up when we did instead of a bit later.

We also like to hang out with our friends. One of those families was getting ready to leave for a trip just as we were coming to town--but they were playing a benefit for the old schoolhouse on Sunday evening, and invited us to come.


Our whole family. And then hang out with them for dessert at their home afterwards.

Note: Before leaving for vacation, we asked the kids for one thing each that they really wanted to do in Quincy. Pixie: "Rent a boat on Bucks Lake." Bud: "Go to the fair!" Wombles: "Go to Claaaiire's house." Claire is the young woman on the far left, above.

After making sure that it was family-friendly (i.e., chaos-tolerant) we went for the dinner and to hear (most of) our friends play. It was one of those unexpectedly delightful evenings--perfect weather and mountain-backdrop beauty aside.

There weren't that many people there--but there was a big enough crowd to hide in. Thing is, we didn't end up blending into the (figurative) wallpaper...we were known, and knew in return, and it was beautiful. We ran into people J hadn't seen for more than twenty years, and people we'd seen that morning. And not just a few. A lot of people. We had been so warmly welcomed by the Kepples, and then they played, and we were embraced by others. We introduced Nutmeg. We caught up on plans. We belonged. And it felt like it was our town, too.


And Bud didn't end up pushing Wombles off of the top of the ladder on the old-school slide, which was great. And the boys were pretty awful--throwing grass, yelling at each other--in a way that made the experience real and gritty and undreamlike.

But still lovely.

And the music--why can't I talk about the music? I can try to pick it apart when I'm washing dishes and folding laundry, but don't want to attempt a description at the keyboard because I know it won't work. And not just because I'm inarticulate (although that's true).

If I had a couple of eternities, one of the things I'd like to learn and explore is how music can communicate and also effect; how it can simultaneously tell and show; and sweep us into something larger than ourselves that can't be adequately described in an alternative medium (like prose). And how are we wired this way? And how does it work?

Anyway, listening to and watching the Kepples was a poignant pleasure. And if I needed to share what our week in Quincy was like with someone, I don't think that I could do it without handing them the Kepples' Living Room Sessions CD. It's not so much that it was our soundtrack while we were there (although we did listen to it) as that it captures wholesome beauty in unexpected ways that somehow match our time there.

Hi, Tracy! Hi, Vickie!

After the show, we headed to "Claire's House" and hung out waaaay too late. It was great to try to do a year's worth of catch-up and simultaneously glean parenting wisdom from Tracy!

Happy Sunday, y'all!

Family Vacation: The First 36 Hours

I was going to count the first 24 hours, until I realized that vacation really starts when you get in the car. That makes this post about the first 36.

When did we become that family? There are bikes strapped to the top of the van!

We love driving. All of the packing and prepping is done, plans are laid (to be carried through or revised), mail is held and farewells said. And then...we get into the automobile. A clean break: a time capsule where you enter in one location, have an adventure, and then exit to find yourself in another place.

Or..we turn around and go home before leaving our street to go back and look for that camera cable I had in my hand. Just a few minutes ago. And I look for it inside for about five or ten minutes before giving up and getting in the van...to find it in my purse. Nice.

But we're on our way! Again!

We have made the drive to Quincy often enough that we have a rhythm and there's just enough predictability to make deviations interesting. It's not chaos. It's 540 miles of loosely orchestrated adventure, much like a sporting event: passing familiar towns like yard-lines on a football field when you're headed for a touchdown.

Nutmeg stretching out during our first stop

We often make the trip up with two stops, chosen from four different locations. This time around we made four. It was fine, anyway. One of my favorite stops--and the reason the travel is making the blog, anyway--is north of Sacramento. There's a Safeway (clean restrooms!) with a small, private parking lot behind it (great for nursing a little baby!) and a random large plot of grass (for running around and burning off the sugar highs from the cookies we gave them in Stockton!). For years we have stopped here before crossing the flats and then heading up into the foothills; before wending our way up the Feather River Canyon.


Not long after we left Sacramento, J spied some blackberries on the side of the road. Heaps of them. Summer comes a lot sooner to the flats (what else should I call them? I don't even know), and so he pulled over and said, "Ten minutes. I just want ten minutes." This was one of our extra stops. He picked and picked while we hung out in the van. I was reading Greenwitch; I have no idea what the children were doing.


And it means that we had blackberry cobbler for breakfast. YUM. SUPERYUM. A tasty slice of summer served up early, nice and warm.

You know what? I lied. I'm only doing the first 12 hours. It's late, and I need to go to bed...too many episodes of Parenthood last night. Rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, though, I'll throw this up in faith that I will eventually get to the deliciousness of Sunday in Quincy with our second-church family; we had the added bonus of a community get-together and live music and the warm hospitality of friends. I've been ruminating all day on what made Sunday special, and what those themes meant for the rest of our trip.

And I've been singing The Kepple Family's unique version of the old WWI tune "Katie" all day. So beautiful.

No! No! I'll talk about Sunday some other time!

Goodnight, y'all.

Sleeping Cap

Have you got your sleeping cap on?


Bud does.

It is summer in California, and he was wearing winter jammies and a sleeping cap. Go figure.

He's sweet. And a freak. Sweet freak. It's fun to say, and I love him like crazy.

Sweet freak.


We just got back from our family time away, and I can't wait to blog about it. It was powerfully refreshing and a whole LOT of fun. More soon...I hope.

Nutmeg's First Haircut

(Photo courtesy of Pixie)

It was time. Oh, it was time. The baby who was born with a full head of hair just kept growing it...and growing it...and rubbing a bald spot in the middle...and growing out the bottom some more...until she had a serious mullet. SERIOUS.

If you do not know what a mullet is, please Google "mullet image" right now. I'll wait. Thanks.

As one of my seventh-grade students explained to me about 10 years ago (when I didn't know what a mullet was): "You know, Mrs. C.: Business in the front, party in the back!!"

Crying about her Mullet

Yikes.

Two and a half months ago, Nutmeg had enough hair back there to make her eligible for the founding fathers' club:

Now she has a very cute pixie haircut! (Not the same as PIXIE, who also got a haircut). We're doing the no-bangs, clip-it-to-the-side look for now.

Thank you, J, for doing an awesome job cutting all of the kids' hair. And thank you for loving our girls just the way they are.

Just thought I'd share! Pictures of all four with their new haircuts soon. Happy August!

Camp Postscript

How Could I forget? For Bud's 6th birthday earlier this month, Wombles gave him a soccer jersey for La Furia Roja. That's right--Spain. He was SO EXCITED. Apparently it's a big deal to wear soccer jerseys to camp. You get a "call up" and get to go down front, where everyone tries to guess which team your jersey is for.

Not too hard to do when his read ESPAÑA across the front, but fun nevertheless.

Now generally, you wear the camp t-shirt. But this year Bud wore his special jersey every single day. Five days. I'm doing camp laundry every night to get Pixie's t-shirt clean, so that's fine. What killed me was when he got up Saturday morning, saw his Furia Roja "kit" (he's calling it that) in the laundry, and was upset that it wasn't clean. For him to wear again on Saturday.

I let him wear it dirty.

He did not, however, wear it to church on Sunday.

Camp!

Oh, how we love camp. Love. It.

Love how the College has some of the best day camps around; love that faculty kids get half off tuition; love that we can walk there and back and that check-in is about 100 yards from J's office door. Love that I get quality two-on-one time with Nutmeg and Wombles.

Love. It.

This year Pixie and Bud doubled up and did Sports Skills camp at the beginning of summer and each picked a sport-specific one last week. Bud did soccer (super duh) and Pixie chose tennis.

Last year we encouraged her to do soccer instead of tennis. We thought she'd be bored. Also, as she's had very little, ah, opportunity to work on the kind of coordination required we thought she'd be really frustrated. She asked again this year and we let her go for it. And she had a blast. Shows what we know. It reminds me of last summer at the fair when she really wanted to ride the big, grown-up swings. We thought she'd be terrified, but eventually let her on. And on again. And burned through some batteries taking photos of her gleeful, smiling face. You hink you know a kid! ...part of the fun of being a parent. Apparent.ly. Heheh.

I mostly got goofy grins in the camp pictures. After, Bud asked me whether I could make this face:


He's learning all sorts of things at camp! Besides this face, he's brought home some interesting/annoying mouth noises (I am reminded of my brothers drumming on everything, with their hands, for a few years--a constant beat going on. And how it drove Dad crazy at the table. Yeah, it's kinda like that).

And, next time you talk to Bud, I encourage you to ask him about the real life sewage monster that lives beneath Santa Barbara. And about James, who was never heard of again, although his goggles were left behind.

No, I don't actually encourage you to ask him about that.

But we all had a great camp week last week!