Monkey Lobster

Virginia

When your 4th grader can't stop talking about early American history, you pile into the car and head to Virginia for her spring break.

We started our trip in Chincoteague. An island on the coast, with miles of National Seashore, wild ponies, sandy beaches and roads and trails for biking. If you squint you can see some of the ponies in the background by the trees.

Then we continued on to Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown. Elsa was so excited to walk through the doors of the court house where Thomas Jefferson first practiced law, stroll the streets where Patrick Henry addressed the public, and lay her hands on the original bricks laid by the first settlers in Jamestown. Giddy she was, we were grateful to experience that level of excitement without having to hit the parks in Orlando. So seeing as we were driving right through D.C. on the way back home, we couldn't rob her of the full experience without letting her lay eyes on the Declaration of Independence. 

What made the trip most enjoyable for those of us not as excited about early American history as Elsa was, were the bike paths and scenic road that tied everything together. Traveling with a child with special needs can be tricky and in a lot of ways Cyrus is still really just a big toddler. Trying to get him to walk, follow the rules and not touch anything is a losing battle. He used to be a big back pack rider but at this point he has just grown out of it. So now the WeeHoo is our new best friend. He is so happy to be in it, I see our future trips and weekend adventures being planned around bike routes. Now if we can just get him to peddle forwards instead of backwards.

 

Too much fun............

My home was packed with family and friends this past weekend. It's hard for me to accept sometimes that now we are the grown-ups, the parents, the ones responsible for making everything happen. It turns out that we eat better and have more fun than they ever did.

I remember sitting up late one night with Sara when we were teenagers, she wondered if we would ever have kids and hang out together with our families. This time she wondered if our children would hang out together without us someday.

There was lots of food and drink, dancing and singing. Turns out that printing up the lyrics to "Sweet Child of Mine" was one of the best ideas I've ever had. Feel free to ask to listen to the recording (recordings?) of us doing it on my iphone.

It was so great to settle into this new house of mine. There was a kids table, a tweens table and a teen and grown-ups table. A couple of the kids were confused about my status, they decided that I must be a grown-up because I was so tall. This made me happy. As did the breakfast that arrived with one of our guests of pickled, smoked and cured fish and an array of other items that can only be found in New York City. With so many small vultures around I thought it would be most wise to put the spread in the center of the grown-ups table where we could guard it on all side and throw small scraps to the vultures to keep them back.

This little blog of mine is kind of an insurance policy for me. If my house were every to catch on fire and I could only grab a few thing I would not need to grab boxes of photos because they are all archived right here.

I just thought I should add this one to the collection.

just wanna have fun

Well, we have moved from outdoor to indoor.

And these girls are serious. And feisty, and fearless, and tough, and smart, and a whole lot of fun. After an undefeated season we had our big championship game last night. My heart was beating so fast I thought that it was going to beat right out of my body and run out there on the field with the girls.

We were down one then tied, then down one, then tied, then down one, then tied, then down one, then tied, then down one, then tied and then lost in that last few minutes. We play in a league two age groups older than our girls, and even though we played a smarter, more skilled and more sophisticated game of soccer, we just got beat by size.

I love to stop and think about how good this activity is for their growing brains. How in the moment they are, how hard they are working, how committed they are, and how it will carry through into their lives.

This past fall I started playing in a co-ed grown-up league myself. It has made me more patient with Elsa about putting her socks, shin guards and shoes on, they are a real pain. (I'll try not to talk about my current knee injury that's had me picking up my guitar more often that usual.)

But most recently, the coach I assist has given me the keys to the car and I'll be coaching these girls solo for the up coming season. Maybe he won't text me too much from his seat on the stands? 



But what is really comes down to is that, girls just want to have fu-un. It's all they really want.

Ta-Da!!!!

even more fun with friends

It was so fun to see Elsa skiing with a friend. They had so much fun. Nordic skiing is something that not a lot of people do, it was great to discover another family who shares the same passion.

scenes from a dreamy kitchen

Here it is, the big unveiling........ It's been so amazing working on this project, a dream come true.

I had a long wish list, it went something like this: locate kitchen in the center of the house, open to the living room and dining room, but enclosed so no one is unnecessarily walking through it, have a counter I can use for bigger project as well as function as a breakfast bar and evening drink area, have ready to cut on butcher block counter top, a compost chute, a baking area, an easy to clean, big, deep, sink with a fauset like the one I had at camp, open, hanging stainless steel storage, a good range hood, and a soft floor.

I love this sink. It couldn't be more perfect. I got to draw and erase and draw and erase and draw it out on a big piece of plywood that we then bought to stone soup concrete where Micheal made it all come to life. I was determined to have a compost chute, and I wanted to be able to reach it from the sink and the butcher block cutting area. So it was located right in the middle with some curvy lines to match the curved on the other counter. The compost just falls into the pull out trash drawer, into a big plastic container.

Steve from Valley Home Improvement, who happens to be the best carpenter in the Valley and possibly the world, could make anything I dreamed up happen. He helped me get everything just right. He taught me how to tile, convinced me to use black grout and never tired of caulk jokes and "name that hip-hop tune". 

I really wanted a peninsula vs an island. I don't need to be able to walk all the way around it and this way I get an extra couple feet of counter space as well as storage underneath. I chose to have the counter top hang over all the way around, this way I could sit in the kitchen and look out while I worked, and sqeeze a few more seats in. I also wanted to have some of the drawers open from the outer side of the kitchen for things like pens and scissors and napkins. I really wanted to have the kitchen as open and as enclosed as possible. I am happy to say that I have achived that.

I love that grown-up and kids all love to sit at the counter and keep me company while I am in the kitchen. I love how easy it is to serve and clean up breakfast. I love that it's always the first seat anyone entering the house takes. I love that it's where home-work gets done. I love that it's where music gets played. 

The lighting really brought it all together. My electrician helped me get it just right so that all the lights could be dimmed and that not a corner was left in the dark. 

Well I think it's the coolest kitchen I've ever seen, stop by for a drink sometime.

cross country

I'm still hopeful for some local skiing this winter, but this time we had to drive over an hour to Vermont to find enough snow. 

We love cross country skiing. We're crazy about it. We love being out in the quiet of the winter woods, we love covering many more miles than we would on foot, we love swoooshing down the hills, we love coming home cold and tired.

It's not an easy sport, it takes a lot of balance and a lot of hard work. Big uphill climbs take a lot of "motivational voice raising", but they always end with a "thanks for making me do that, it was really fun". We think it's worth the pushing.

We do most of our skiing on wooded trails around here, but a few times a year we head up to the cross country touring centers. They are supper fun.  Miles and miles of wide, mapped, groomed trails, fire warmed lodges with warm drinks, and friendly staff to make route recommendations. Graftons Ponds Outdoor Center offers snow tubing as a bonus and luckily ski rentals as we discovered that morning that Elsa had out-grown her ski boots.

We are praying for snow in these parts and itching to go again (a little closer to home).

come on in

So here begins the tour. We are getting close, but there is still so much to do, painting, tiling the kitchen, putting up shelves, turning my temporary pantry into a guest room and moving my kitchen contents into the kitchen, moving furniture back into the house and then getting ready for Christmas.

If you know me then you know I am Christmas Crazy. Christmas Crazy is a condition that does not affect most middle eastern immigrants, but somehow I have beaten the odds and have a pretty extreme case of it.

This year I am learning to let go. There will be no handmade gifts, no creative advent calenders, no new decorations, the wreaths have not yet been made, a Christmas tree will have to wait until the living room wall is painted, and decorations have not yet been dug up out of the wreckage that is our basement.

Our holiday excitement is around regaining the use of our home. And although it is coming in small phases, it is far more exciting than any Christmas we've seen before.

So far we are loving the new floors.

Thanksgiving

The 18 hours spent in the car was worth it. So many cousins, so much delicious food and so much love to go around.