READY!

Look at those happy faces!  Don't they just look like summer?  Except we're not quite there.  Almost, but not quite.  

Today is Lucy's last day and it's not coming a day too soon.  She loves school but is ready for a break.  

The big girls have a half day tomorrow and then HELLO SUMMER!

bike rides

swimming

Shakespeare in the park

hammock lounging

the lake

a visit from Uncle Blake

Florida

ice cream

the botanical garden

the farmer's market

reading

summer camps

Colorado

the MUNY

picnics

the zoo

gardening

Six Flags

swim team

Shaw Nature Reserve

doing whatever we like

Just a little bit of our summer bucket list!

It's good to laugh

The sweetest sound floated through my windows this afternoon.  I followed it to the source...these giggling girls.   I asked them what was so funny and they told me "Disgusting things.  Pee, poop, and underwear".  Nothing like an afternoon in the hammock laughing your head off with your BFF, even if it's about disgusting stuff!

The weekend is here!

Right now, we're listening to B.B. King while what is probably our last pot of soup for many months, simmers on the stove.  

The weekend is here and it's awesome! 

It has been a wonderful week but Friday feels so good!  Kevin's going on a long bike ride tomorrow and has a magnificent meal planned for us tomorrow night.  I'm hoping to get at least one run in, plant the garden and sleep in!  Eleanor has some new wheels she wants to break in, Emma has a list of books that she's hoping to read and Lucy, well, she will find fun around every single corner, plus she's really excited that she gets to stay up to watch The Empire Strikes Back tonight.  

Happy Weekend to you!

Scooby Doo!

It was a terrific weekend that has us excited for summer!  We're ending the weekend cuddled up in bed watching a couple of very old Scooby Doo episodes.   Hoping the week is "like wow"!!

Photo by Lucy.  A bird's nest in one of our ferns.

Drowning my tears

Today was my last day in Normandy.  

I promised myself I would not cry at school.  

Through all the hugs and good byes and moments that I'm still thinking about I didn't shed a tear!

 I was pretty impressed with myself and my total control over my emotions.

I shouldn't have been so smug.

Without warning a tsunami of emotion hit me.

Walking across the parking lot for the last time I was betrayed by my tears.   

  And so I did what came naturally and drove straight to Starbucks and ordered the largest iced tea possible.   

Sometimes when things end there's nothing to do but cry and remember how unbelievable lucky you were that they ever started in the first place.  And toda that is where I am.  Feeling awfully sad but even more blessed.

Still learning

I didn't notice this extra kid in the van until I got to work this morning.

Boy, did it make me laugh!

I love living with creative people.

They are flexible and curious and present.

They are teaching me to be flexible.

Which is not my natural state.

Oh, how often I forget to stay flexible!

Like today when I was trying to make dinner, listen to Emma explain something very important, and do 4 or 5 other little things.

Lucy and Eleanor were playing outside and Lucy kept coming inside asking me to get her some birdseed for the bird feeder she made for the back yard,

I kept putting her off until she wouldn't take "just a minute" any longer.

I pulled the birdseed down from the top shelf in the laundry room only to find that the bag was wide open.

Five pounds of birdseed poured out covering the laundry room floor, my head and splattering out into the hallway.

I wasn't happy and I didn't feel flexible or easy going or full of joy.

If I had been creative, four year old Lucy I would have laughed.  Called it a rain shower of birdseed.  Danced barefooted in the seed just to see what it felt like.

Those would have been fun things to do.

Instead I yelled and stomped my feet and spent 20 minutes grumbling about spilled birdseed while I vacuumed it up.

Darn!  Missed opportunity.

I'm not there YET.

But

I love living with creative people.

They are flexible and curious and present.

They are teaching me to be flexible.

Because the grocery store just takes it out of us...

we sometimes stop for frozen yogurt afterwards and we call that lunch.

Happy Weekend!