Beach

In the past week I've been fortunate enough to spend three days at the beach. Mostly in the rain and chill, but it didn't matter. It has been a wonderful reconnection with an old friend.

I grew up the Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest and I'm a beach girl through and through. This does not mean tanning on a towel! It means I can spend hours walking the shoreline and climbing logs, alone or with company and be perfectly at peace.

The first day was spent with my children at a tiny strip of sand near the boardwalk downtown. The rain was pouring and the wind was freezing cold (we had woken to snow in the morning), but my daughter had requested the beach as our destination, so way stayed as long as we could--about thirty minutes--before we were driven, dripping, back to the car. The magic was there, even in those chill conditions.

The next day we drove south as a family to Oregon where a short memorial was planned for my husband's grandmother. She passed away last fall, and her descendants gathered for a moment of silence on the shore as her ashes were set adrift in the outgoing tide of the Pacific Ocean she loved. It was my first experience with this sort of service, and it was a fitting and unique send off for a woman who had led a unique life.

After a family luncheon, we changed the kids into less formal clothing and spent several more hours exploring the beach. It was a cool, windy day, but the rain declined to fall. I loved watching my children and their cousins, my husband and his cousins, walk and talk and stare and the waves in awe. It was worth every minute of the fourteen hours we spent driving to be there.

Arriving home, we had a day to ourselves before my husband's brother and family joined us from Oregon. It was their first family visit to the Northwest and we spent a wonderful afternoon at the state park on the beach watching the starfish and marvelling at the sandstone cliffs and rock formations.

It was good for me to remember what I feel like when I'm walking on the beach. When I'm absorbed in observing Creation. It's a hugely centering thing for me and it brings both a sense of well-being and an outpouring of joyful gratitude.

Winners of DAy 5 & 6 and My Weekend!

Woohoo! Day 5 winner is Wendy Steed of Idaho and Day 6 winner--winner of MY gift certificate to 8pizza on eBay--is Gayle Oreluk of Illinois! Congratulations ladies!

Saturday was great! Spent the day travelling and visiting with my family and playing on the beach. I miss the beach so much! There just aren't huge stretches of easily accessible sandy beaches here. One of the few drawbacks of my current fair city!

Sunday has been nice! Gorgeous weather, nice dinner with my husband and kids after a spiritual day at church. Looking forward to a new week with lots to do and some fun stuff as well!

Treasure Hunt Day One Winner and My Tuesday

And the Day One winner of our Summer Treasure Hunt is Terry Fleming! Congratulations, Terry!

It was a long, hot day, which we gratefully spent at home. Breakfast, snack time, lunch, snack time, naps (sadly not for mommy), snack time, dinner, playing in the mud in the back yard (and the baby tracking it in for Daddy to clean up), baths, stories, favorite things and bedtime. Nice.

I got most of the laundry done today, caught up from the trip. I am down to a pair of canvas shoes, the bath mats, one whites/lights load and a pair of my husband's black socks which can't go in with any of the previously mentioned items.

I did good on my Most Important Stuff, better than I have lately anyway. Drank 64 ounces of water. Wrote 100 words. Wrote in my journal. Made dinner (melon, steamed broccoli, mac & cheese with hot dogs--hey, it's better than McDonald's right?). Still have high hopes for a 15 minute work out (just cleaned up the living room, which is the most important indicator of whether I will exercise or not) and a few minutes a scripture study.

Yesterday I drove the new van, who's name is Ruby Kke (not a typo, pronounced Kiki), around doing errands yesterday and totally felt like the captain of my own starship :) I think it is going to work, and the novelty of the doors opening and closing by themselves has not worn off yet!

Got to talk to my sister at length, who is now engaged and trying to navigate the bizarre seas of planning weddings that involve masses of bits and pieces of families, and budgets, and what everyone else wants her to do and what she wants to do. She's so adorable about it and I'm so glad that she's mine :)

We'll be taking the car, who's name is Sky Blue Kke (even though it is really sort of dark turquoise) to my sister's this weekend and I am excited to see my hometown--it has been almost 9 months since I was there last and I miss seeing my family and my growing-up place.

More tomorrow. You know I really signed up for this contest to force myself to blog every single freaking day for a month, right? I'm hoping it will form a habit :)

Home again, home again, jiggety jog

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

-Susan J. Bissonette

Well, I have now been officially 32 for a whole week. I'm not sure it feels much different than 31, but I like even numbers, so I'm hopeful that the year will be an auspicious one.

About three weeks ago, my husband started in on the "what do you want for your birthday" line of questioning. I, of course, have a long list of fun stuff I'd like, but I wasn't really craving anything for this birthday, so I hemmed and hawed. He continued to pester me for a week oer so and then finally said, "Hey! I know what to give you for your birthday!" at which time I of said, "What?" and then he said, "Let's go visit your mom and grandma!" So we packed the car last Saturday and drove through a few states and arrived at my Gram's house.

From the time I was eight, until I hit twelve and began to spend my summers at dance workshops (and occasionally after that), I went all by myself to stay with my Gram and Grandpa for a few weeks. My Gram has always been a special and important person to me and I really wanted her to meet Baby Bear and get some 4-generation photos of us with her.

The trip was an adventure from the start, since my little corner of the Northwest decided to have a terribly uncharacteristic late March blizzard! The roads were crazy because of the weather and so it took us almost 3 hours longer to get to half way than it usually does (including the stop to help stranded motorists on the freezing, slushy mountain pass), so we ended up at a Best Western in the the middle of nowhere at about 1 in the morning needing to rest.

These people had the BEST Continental Breakfast I have ever eaten at the sort of non-sleazy-but-still-cheap motel I generally stay at while travelling! Seriously, I should have taken pictures of those Belgian waffles. Yes, that's right, I said Belgian waffles. What is cooler than Belgian waffles at a Best Western? Belgian waffles at a Best Western you can make yourself! They had this nifty batter dispenser and a restaurant-style waffle maker that I now covet (in a healthy way of course). The batter tank dispenses into your paper cup the perfect amount of batter, and then you pour it onto the waffle maker, do this fancy twisty-turny thing to the handle (and yes, I stood there and stared at it for an extra 2 minutes before I figured out the twisty-turny thing the first time) and when the thing beeps, you open it and voila! Perfect golden Belgian waffles! I was enthralled as you can probably tell.


The rest of the trip was great. We went to the zoo, shopped, visited with family, ate at my favorite fast food restaurant which they do not yet have within many hours of my home, worked on a some genealogy projects and got some awesome 4-generation photos with me and the kids and mom and grandma. Princess got spoiled, Baby Bear grew hair, I got two birthday cakes, and my husband got to see huge amur tigers close enough to touch (if it wasn't for the tiger-proof Plexiglas between him & them). All in all, it was all good.