Summer Cruise '07

I keep waking up at 3:30 am - the after effects of our two-week trip. I really should use the time more wisely. Basically I've just been getting up, wandering around the kitchen and family room, and reading (Labyrinth by Kate Mosse). I probably should have been doing laundry, repacking, making our family reunion family flag, or blogging! Here are a couple of pics of the trip - the itinerary for anyone who is interested included:

The Netherlands
(Amsterdam)
Denmark
(Copenhagen)
Sweden
(Stockholm and Sigtuna)
Finland
(Helsinki and Porvoo)
Russia
(St. Petersburg and Pushkin)
Estonia
(Tallinn)
Lithuania
(Klaipeda)

A windmill/home outside of Amsterdam

The Little Mermaid Statue in the
Copenhagen Harbor
(Den lille Havfrue)

Alicia dressed as Pippi Longstocking outside a children's museum that
celebrates the books and characters written about by
Astrid Lindgren. We didn't actually visit the museum (we were
next door at the Vasa Muesum (absolutely amazing), but Alicia and I quite literally ran
over the the Junibacken to get a couple of pictures. (Alicia loves Pippi!)



The Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki
The church is underground and built right into the granite.


What can I say - it's a McDonald's in the middle of St. Petersburg?!

The girl's in front of The Catherine Palace in Pushkin.

A view of Tallinn in Estonia - possible our favorite stop.

All good things must come to an end....

Look at that Smile!

Cara is now an officially licensed driver! It was the first thing she did after returning from our cruise - not even jet lag could get in the way of this grand adventure. We are excited for her - I'm excited that she can drive herself from high school to community college classes this school year - although I will miss our time together in the car. Congrats!!

A little like Lelly, I thought I probably didn't have too much Americana in my home because I don't think of my decorating style (or lack thereof) as "country". I was pleasantly surprised to find a few pockets here and there.

A small part of the display above my kitchen cabinets
Includes (from l. to r.)
a pony express spitoon,
a pony express Jim Beam bottle
(we have a relative who was instrumental
in the establishment of the pony express),
a reproduction bottle,
an egg basket,
and a Coca Cola sign (if that isn't Americana, what is?)!

Also, although not uniquely "American",
the spinning wheel I use feels like Americana to me...

... and my antique spinning wheel (circa 1890).

Thanks Lelly for a chance to look around the house with a different perspective!

Teacher Appreciation Party

Friday we hosted our 14th Annual Teacher Appreciation Party! After hearing about Cristin attending one as a teacher (when A. was tiny), we decided that it was something that we wanted to incorporate as a family tradition. Over the years we have done a variety of things - it is always fun to sit down at the beginning of May and begin planning. This year was a little smaller than usual - only two students, rather than three, and Cara only has a 1/2 day schedule.


We served a Sundae Bar - who knew when we planned early in the month that Friday would be the hottest and most humid day of the year so far?! Ice cream was a perfect choice. Craig even made homemade hot fudge, mmm. Next year will be Cara's last year and then it is just Emily - we've gone from small to large and now we are headed back to small. I remember one year when we sent over 40 invitations for just the three girls.

It has always been an amazing experience for me to look at our list and see the names of all of the teachers that have been a part of our girl's lives (school, music, dance, drama, church, etc., etc.) throughout the year. I'm grateful for those who are willing to share their time and talents with our children. Grateful for men and women who at times have been able to reach out when my own reaching has felt inadequate or maybe disregarded - it is a reminder to me that it really does "take a village".

College Stuff

Our mailbox is full almost everyday - thanks to C's college search which seems to be in full swing. So many decisions...

small liberal arts vs. large state institution
in-state tuition vs. out-of-state tuition
majors, majors, majors
close to home vs. far from home
small college towns vs. large urban settings
public vs. private

Things have definitely changed since I was making similar decisions - basically I don't remember that there were very many decisions to be made. I could either get a scholarship which would enable me to move a couple of hours down the road (which I did) or get a scholarship and stay at home and attend a state university. Grad school decisions were made even more easily (it was nearby, could be attended part time and I got in - decision made)! I also don't remember studying for the ACT - we just showed up with a couple of pencils, an eraser and a calculator. Today there are tests, prep classes, coaches, counselors, etc., etc.

What an exciting time!
Would you approach college differently if you could do it all over again?

More Sushi

Had to post a picture of this candy/chocolate sushi that I received as a b'day gift. It looks amazing - we are waiting for Craig to get home from San Francisco before we do any sampling. Funny, it is made in San Jose - we never heard of it when we lived there. If you have any sushi lovers (or chocolate lovers for that matter) in your life you've got to take a look at their website. Amazing!

SPT - on Wednesday

Favorite colors - whenever anyone asks I usually just say blue - I don't really know why though because other then wearing jeans I don't really have much blue in my wardrobe and really none in my home. I think it is just a safe/easy answer. However, as I thought about it I realized that I have surrounded myself with lots of different greens in our home not to mention that our home is surrounded by an amazing variety of greens in the woods behind our house that I treasure. In addition a few recent purchases have me definitely leaning in the green direction. I fell in love with the Tess Designer Yarn in a slightly variegated green (for a sweater) and I absolutely love my new VB bag that I helped to pick out for my b'day. (Thanks again, girls!) So green it is!





Loved seeing that my sis, also chose green for her SPT!

Sushi

Once somebody asked me what we like to do as a family - the first two things I thought of were eating out and traveling. Often we like to eat out while we are traveling! :) We are a family of five very different individuals all with different outlooks, different interests, etc. Our family dinners out and the trips we have taken together keep us close - especially when the rest of our lives have us heading in a million different directions. The picture above is at a sushi place that Cara introduced us to.

Yikes!

I can't believe I haven't blogged since the 15th...
In an effort to play catch-up here are a few pictures.

I received this beautiful cookie bouquet as a Mother's Day gift and enjoyed a wonderful day. I think I only had to use the phrase "All I want for Mother's Day is for everyone to get along" once! In case you are wondering, the cookies are fish - somewhere along the way one of my nicknames has become "mother fish". Believe me when I say that the etymology of the nick name would be far too convoluted to try and explain...



A couple of pictures of the inside of the Zion's house - Craig and I were able to slip away for a few days to oversee the furniture delivery, lots of last minute details and a shopping trip to St. George for incidentals (mostly kitchen stuff and bedding). I am not a shopper and that shopping trip just about did me in. At one point I was standing in an aisle at Wal-Mart and I realized I had been standing there for five minutes debating with myself over buying metal or plastic measuring spoons. I may not shop anywhere for a very long time...

Ewe Aren't Going to Believe This...

This is a belated post regarding the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival that I attended on the 5th of May.

It was AMAZING!

It was so fun to spend the day with Emily. We arrived just as it opened - the picture above is the parking area just as it was opening - there were probably 5 more double rows of cars on the left side of the picture. The entrance is near the poles that you can see at the back of the picture. I have been going for the past seven years and every year it just gets bigger and bigger. I'm tempted to stop telling people about it because it was almost too crowded this year!

Emily as sheep. Emily was a great festival pal and hung in there with me all day (we walked in at 9:10 am and walked out of the gates at 4:10). We also met up with two of my knitting friends. The baby lambs and goats, llamas and alpacas kept her occupied, as did the people watching, fair-food, and yarns. She is a good little knitter - she thinks she would like to try a purse next.

Part of my new stash (the picture below - not above - Craig made me promise not to bring back anything that was alive - with the exception of Emily of course). I fell in love with a new yarn manufacturer Tilli Thomas . If you love fiber in any form check out their website. Some skeins are threaded with Swarovski crystals (only $100/skein), there was also silk-ribbon yarn and MORE, including some great grommet bags. The magenta yarn on the left is Tilli Thomas and actually self-gathers/ruffles - I had half of scarf finished before calling it a night!
Other favorites included:

Tess Designer Yarns
Kiparoo Farms

Carodan Farm Wool Shop

and more!

Concert and Musical

I'm a week behind blogging (more than that in housework, laundry, etc.)! I guess I'll start in reverse order. Family and friends know about Emily's busy week - but I thought I'd post this article from the Washington Post - that way it is a journalist, not the mom doing the reporting! Needless to say, it was a great concert. The top picture is from a rehearsal with the women from Sweet Honey in the Rock - they are amazing - what an experience to hear them rehearse with the Children's Chorus and then to hear their performance. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.



The concert was sandwiched between two performances of "Guys and Dolls" at the middle school. Emily danced/performed as a Hot Box Dancer and although the rehearsals were challenging it was a good experience. For those of you not familiar with "Guys and Dolls", some recognizable songs are "A Bushel and a Peck", "Luck be a Lady", "If I were a Bell", and "Sit-Down, You're Rocking the Boat". Emily's Havana Club dance partner is on the far left, the other guys she reports as being "her guys"?.

She's Back....

E spent the beginning of the week at Outdoor Ed at Summit Lake with 1/2 of her 6th grade class (the other half are there now). She had a great time even though she wouldn't describe herself as being particularly "outdoorsy". Her favorites were an activity called "Predator or Prey" (unfortunately as a herbivore she got eaten quite a few times). Some other favorites were the ROPES course, a stream study and orienteering to name a few. She also LOVED the homemade bread they served in the dining hall. I should have taken a before and an after picture - she came home tired and in need of a shower.

Cara and I picked up the balloons right before we picked her up - she said that as the buses pulled in she saw someone with balloons and asked her friends, "who in the world would bring balloons?" Then she realized it was Cara with the balloons :) We were happy to have her home - Cara didn't enjoy being an only child as much as she thought she would!

Almost No Rules Pinewood Derby

We recently attended a "no-rules" Pinewood Derby. It was hilarious. The cars were divided into two groups - kid cars and serious get-out-of-the-way-here-come-the-Dads cars. It was too fun. The top picture is of a car made of pressure-rated PVC pipe that used compressed air - it was beat by a car with a serious motorized propeller*. The 3rd place car also used a propeller. There were also heavily weighted cars (antique irons, wedges used to split wood, a jar of peanut butter, hand weights, etc), even a remote controlled car.

Unfortunately we didn't have an entry this year. A few years ago we entered a pink girly-girl car and we attached a Barbie bicycle (complete with Barbie rider) - the girls even made personalized license plates with sequins and jewels. The car with the Polly pocket in it (above) was covered in jewels and was named the Pollinator!

*There was a bit of an accident with the motorized propeller car that involved several cuts (on one person) that ended up needing 11 stitches. Ya gotta love church activities!

Things are Looking Up?

I had an interesting moment the other day while driving in DC. I was searching for a parking place and ended up going around a particular block twice in order to find the entrance to a small parking lot on top of a building. After running my errand, I looked up and saw the WAMU sign. Now the WAMU sign is only important because I love this local NPR radio station. My car radio is always tuned to it, I generally fall asleep to it (not in the car) and always wake up to it. In fact, the girls lovingly(?) refer to it as "get smart radio". If you never listen to NPR - take a minute today to program your local station into your radio!

The reason I posted it? The sign totally caught me by surprise. As I drove away I realized that I had had a number of opportunities to see the sign while trying to find a parking place, while getting in and out of the car, etc., etc. - if only I had looked up. How often does that happen? What else have I missed? I think I'm going to start looking up!

SPT

Hmm, a treasured item - but smaller than a deck of cards?! Too many things were too big (Craig, the girls, etc.) so I chose my wedding ring which I guess in a way encompasses and symbolizes both Craig and the girls. You can see that my hand has aged (along with the rest of me) in the almost-24 years that we have been married. I would be sad if something happened to my ring - but its value is more than the monetary value of gold and diamonds. What it represents is what I truly treasure.

Earth Day - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Missed out, not only on getting a picture of the huge trash bin parked in our neighborhood for the Earth Day clean-up, but in participating this year. Fortunately it is an annual event and we'll plan to be there next year with our gloves on! We became recycling devotees when we lived in San Jose, CA - where recycling has been elevated to an art form.

In San Jose, you receive a small garbage can (the amount you are charged for weekly garbage pick-up is based on the size of your can). The standard cans are small - did I mention they are not very big?! Conscientious recycling is a must if you are going to be able to get all of your garbage into the tiny can. However, recycling was easy - because most of the sorting was not done at your house but at a recycling facility - so you didn't spend a lot of time standing in front of the bins wondering which bin to put the tin cans into. Extra garbage could only be disposed of by purchasing an official garbage sticker (some of the proceeds went to fund library programs) which you put onto a large garbage bag - without the sticker it wouldn't get picked up. I loved recycling there for two reasons:

1) The people who chose not to recycle had to pay more.
2) It was easy (curbside, not a lot of sorting, etc.).

I love that recycling is just part of my girl's lives - it drives me crazy to visit family in other parts of the country and see them throwing into the garbage can things that we would recycle. Now that recycling is part of our lives - we need to add something else to our daily routines that is a "greener" option.

Saturday Choices

Sometimes Saturdays are made of choices

- for example,
do I do yardwork
or stay inside and clean the house
haha, just kidding.

Actually more important choices must often be made - for example, do we attend the Smithsonian Craft Show (one of our yearly favorites) and its unbelievable display of artistry and craftsmanship or should we indulge ourselves with a drive through rural Montgomery County and take in the Countryside Artisans tour? The two "shows" are very different and yet both celebrate artists, artistry and the beauty that occurs when creative minds create!

We decided to enjoy the Countryside Artisans tour - my favorite stop was Art of Fire. I can't get their picture to post - check out their website - their gallery is amazing.

We also visited the Blacksmith Shop where we purchased a great dinner bell to hang from the back porch at Zion's, and a really neat ribbed basket that uses an Amish single-tree pony yoke as a handle.
Another stop was Plum Stuff - great tables using handmade tiles, found objects, etc. Our last stop before heading home was Stone Wall Farms - great painted furniture and household objects.

We finished our day with delicious sushi - add to all of this an opportunity to help a friend with her move this morning and the best weather all year - what could better.