Arcata, California: The ocean

Our hotel was about 15 minutes from Mad River County Beach. We ended up checking it out right as the sun was setting. I only had my phone for a camera. I managed to snap these of the kids before Louisa and Jack tangled up while running from the surf. They both went down in waist deep water. Louisa had sand so thick in her ears I was still cleaning out grains several days later.

The exact same thing happened to Jack when he was this age--he ran right into the ocean and fell face first into the surf. 

Sunny beaches are overrated. These misty shots are ethereal. It felt like we were the only people on the beach. The following morning we went first thing while the tide was leaving so that Sara could collect more shells. The beach has a charcoal-colored sand with some great dunes. It was chilly, but such an adventure for the kids.

 She was so brave when we first got there--Jack is such a good brother for her adventurous spirit. They both loved racing together in the waves.

 He has his mother's skill for collecting.

 And then this happened, and she had to be rescued by Aunt Sara--cause I was laughing. It was the last time she got wet for the rest of the day. It was "too scary."

 Scorned by the cruelty of the ocean, she dug a thousand holes and filled a hundred buckets.

 Brooklyn learned about strong waves, too. This is her face as she came up from underneath the water.

 Jeff tried to convince Jack to go out into the deep surf. Jeff said it wasn't too cold once everything went numb. He stayed out until he stepped on "something gooshy" and got nervous about an inquisitive sea lion. Shane has a good eye for spotting wildlife--he spotted that seal through some pretty serious fog.

 Near the end of the day as it was reaching high tide a bunch of crabs started washing in with the surf. Most of them buried themselves immediately in the sand, but this guy was on his last leg. We tried several times to put him "back in the ocean" but eventually we watched the sea gulls eat him. It was so cool and a highlight of the whole trip for Jack and Lachlan. Louisa refused outright to even touch it.

 Rescue attempt.

 Rolling right back in on the surf. Jack said, "well, circle of life."

 This picture does not adequately display how long it took for us to get Lachlan to pick up the crab. She wanted to do it, but "not with her hands"--can you feel my brain screaming? How else would you pick it up? We finally convinced her to do it with her finger tips. Serenity now.

So many great memories from this trip. The kids are finally getting to the point where their memories will be permanent. This trip also reminded me how important it is to travel with cousins/family. It added another level of excitement. I remember hiking Mt. Timpanogos with the Carver cousins--and those are still precious memories for me. I want them to find strength in those extended relationships like I have--I think these vacations have a huge impact on making it happen. 

I've also realized that spending the time in the car isn't wasteful. I thought that Jack was over his "talking to himself" when he begins to daydream, but he isn't. Not by a long shot. I got some great video of him chatting it up with some Legos. It's probably one of my most favorite things.

Lachlan asked Jeff if Santa was real on this trip. She told him, "Dad, mom says that you buy more stuff on Amazon than any other man alive. And if that's so, then did you buy our Kindles on Amazon?" Then she told him that if he bought the Kindles then he must be Santa. Jeff didn't even try to cover it up--he just told her to keep it to herself. I told him that he should have asked her if she thought Santa was real, but he said he couldn't think that fast. So the cat is out of the bag--and here's to hoping that she won't get mad at Jack during the holidays and tell him just to be mean. She's a terrible. Terrible. secret keeper so I think that the Polar Express will have a few less bell ringers this year. 

Next summer--we're going all the way to Ohio.

And Just Like That...

Summer is over.

I almost can't believe it. June lasted forever, July evaporated overnight, and now we're at the end of August. The rain has been so heavy, wringing out of the sky and I've had tears in my eyes all day because I know that soon I'll wake up to the loss of the season and winter will be storming through the front door.

We set so many goals for the summer. I read my "at least three books" AND I have written a solid outline for my own book. It took me all summer to sort out my thoughts and to realize what I want to do/say--and it really turned out to be different than my original plan--but still inspired (I think) nonetheless.

Lachlan read, Ramona Quimby and Harriet the Spy. She loved Ramona, but I'm not entirely sure that she understood the plot lines in Harriet so we're going to re-read it together. Jack worked on his reading too, and he also practiced his basketball and kickball almost every day. Oh, and he befriended another stray cat. Lucille 2 now lives permanently in our garage. Lucille 2 is fortunately neutered, but has long hair (unfortunately). What can I say...strays love us. The word is out.

Louisa attended summer preschool. She's doing a little bit better with her behavior. I've just come to accept that I'll never hear "oh, she's so good in class" from any of her teachers. At least she's consistent. This fall she'll also be attending the Child Development Lab/USU on campus. We met with her teacher yesterday and I'm hopeful that this will continue to help her learn AND appreciate boundaries. Her speech is also improving. We can almost understand what she is saying, most of the time. The kids are much better at the translation and I will seriously miss them during the day. She gets frustrated with me and rolls her eyes because I ask her to say it over and over again--she leaves off the beginnings AND endings of words so all you get is the middle sounds. It's a real cat and mouse guessing game to try and figure it out. Sometimes I ask her to "show me" and she marches me around the house like I'm an idiot. She's developing a taste (or no taste) for certain foods, whereas a year ago she would gladly eat anything in front of her. String cheese is out. Would rather stab you with it. Pickles are in. Salsa is in. Taco shells, hot dog buns, and Cheerios are out. Cereal with milk is a real gamble. Nuts are in, but peanut butter is on the fence. It could make the "no way" list at any time. Egg salad is way in, along with bagels, deli ham, and peaches. She can eat an entire jar of home-bottled peaches. Cottage cheese will go untouched--won't even put it on a spoon.

Also this summer, Pokemon cards are back. The kids spent all their money on them. They cart around these giant binders and have "battles" constantly. For the record, I find this to the the MOST ridiculous time-waster fad of all time. We went to back-to-school night tonight and Jack's teacher talked all about the "rules for bringing Pokemon cards to school"--oh, my gosh I wanted to shout out that they should be banned. Now he'll be begging to take that lugging binder to school--it won't end well. Ugh.

I just want to highlight a few of my favorite moments from the summer. I'll start by saying that I attended the Mormon Women's History Initiative Symposium (with Brooke)--we met Claudia Bushman. She does Mormon Women research for BYU and Claremont. To say that she is an idol is an understatement. She was one of the founders of Exponent II--she shared the story of starting that newsletter/magazine. I don't want to go into too much detail about it in this post, except to say that her work inspires me to write everything down and save it in multiple formats. ...Oh, I must write a whole post about this too, too much.

 Okay, so we're starting with Louisa's summer preschool graduation. Miss Wendy is on the left and Miss Kami is on the right. These two ladies deserve a medal of honor. Kami was the one who advocated so strongly for her to be in the preschool program. I have such incredible respect for the work she does with the kids in Louisa's class.

 Followed up by this awesome look at Jack and Lachlan finishing last year with the Fun Run--Jack took 6th place out of the whole school as a 1st grader! Lachlan did really well with her class. We practiced our running this summer on the river trail. We are working to get to a 5K as a family. By next spring we should be ready to go!

 Summer time at the Providence Splash Pad. These two can't get enough.

 Swimming lessons with Miss Megan. I've wondered if swimming lessons would ever pay off--we've been going for FIVE years--but this summer was the real turning point. Lachlan can now swim across the length of the pool and Jack the width. They can jump in and get to the side with confidence. I actually think that Lachlan would excel at competitive swimming. She can hold her breath while she swims the length of the pool--it's pretty awesome.

 In June, I took a Girls Weekend trip to Portland, Oregon to see Dar Williams sing all the songs on an album we (Brooke Olsen Lambert, Becca Barratt Hatch, Jenni Taggart Singleton & I) loved in college. We drove, ate, walked, and never stopped talking. It was one of those perfect weekends. I've always known that our friendship was extraordinary and it was one of the most wonderful experiences of the last decade to remember why I will always love these women so very, very, much.

 Couple of zoo trips. They have a new lion enclosure. Looking at this picture I must also comment that Lachlan wore ONLY those flip flops every day for the entire summer and that every time Louisa wore that skirt it would twist off to the side.

 My summer agricultural conference was in Hershey, Penn. I visited several farms (corn, hogs, Amish farmer's market, Alpaca). The alpacas were the highlight. They had about a dozen cria (baby alpacas)--I had forgotten how cute they are--had a bunch of them when I worked at Thanksgiving Point. This was a small operation, but really well organized and maintained. It looks like so much fun--makes me want to run a farm and then I remember how hard the work is...

 And I walked this prize alpaca around the pasture...such a gross picture, but that guy is worth a fortune! He was not my favorite--and I think I'm a bigger fan of pack goats.

 Traveled with the usual crew.

 Lachlan and I attended Aunt Carrie's 40th birthday--surprise party. I may have cried a bit during this part--her mom surprised her with a trip to Seattle.

 Logan's version of "Stadium of Fire" with the Miners. We all liked the band this year, they weren't too loud for Jeff's old man ears. Which was the topic of concern right before we went to leave, he made the kids take ear plugs, JUST IN CASE. We almost didn't go cause some lunatic from the city asked Glenn Beck to swing in and say a few words-- holy gag, thank goodness we had those bloody ear plugs!

 Took some hikes. This one is the last one we took as a family in our old Land Cruiser. We bought it when Jack was born (it's circ. 1991) and it's been awesome--well, except we haven't left the valley in a year. At any rate, the next hike Jeff took with the kids was up Franklin Basin--and it started on fire. The accelerator cable was completely on fire and it melted all of the vacuum tubes. Jeff had to use the kids water bottles to put it out. He and the kids walked out and finally found someone who had electrical tape. Jeff taped up the short in the cable that started the fire and drove it home. I guess that we're lucky I wasn't driving when it did that because I would have told the kids to start running cause I would have let it burn to the ground before I put out a fire, taped it up and drove it home. Louisa told me for a week, "Daddy car, on fire."

 Best hike of the summer. High Creek waterfall

 Hiking with Louisa always involves a certain extent of clothing removal. She loves a good half-naked romp through the forest.

 Jack, too, is finally overcoming his sensitivity about having his shirt off. For years, I've been trying to get him to take his shirt off at the pool or other acceptable places...to no avail. He was very concerned about people seeing his body--pretty sure the Primary has some overkill with the modesty lecture. oiy.

 Went to the Redneck Waterslide. So fun. So dirty. The kids loved it. You wouldn't believe how fast they are going on these plastic sheets.

 Thirteen weeks.
Not shown: laundry, house cleaning, BBQs with the Budges, painting the basement, installing a radon removal system, teaching the kids how to scrub the bathrooms with bleach (made them say, "Bleach will ruin my clothes" five times before turning them loose), driving to Bear Lake for a free roll-away couch, kids staying with Nanny Nancy and Papa Billy for a week, air conditioning fail, picking 40 pounds of cherries and cleaning up the fallen ones, making so much jam, watching the old El Toro Viejo restaurant get torn down, seeing summer movies at the theater (How to Train Your Dragon 2), Jeff hauling 2000 free bricks with Miner for their outdoor patio, and eating pounds of cherry tomatoes.