I'm Baa-aaaaaaaaaaaack!

It doesn't take much to sidetrack me. Take this blog, for instance. Somehow, back in June, I logged off. And forgot my password. So I just didn't log back on. For months.

It's kind of pitiful, really, especially when I think of all the amazing and wonderful things that have happened in the intervening months that I would have loved to have recorded in the moment.

Summer rituals. Our 18th wedding anniversary. Summer camp. The most amazing family vacation we've ever taken. Some really special weddings. A quick trip to Virginia Beach to see my in-laws. A quick trip to western Virginia to see my brother-in-law and meet my very first grand-nephew (wow that feels crazy to say!) Our oldest child turning 12. Deep Creek 2016.

And all the funny and weird things that happened that I won't ever remember because I didn't take the time to write them down.

So here I am, back at the blog. And I like it.

(Eating gelato in Italy in July. Why can't we make ice cream that tastes this good in the USA?? I guess we'll just have to go back.)

Daddy-Daughter-Mommy-Dates

The girls love it when we split up and Alan and I each take one of them on a special date. The last one we did was a few Sunday afternoons ago. Amelia and I went shopping to utilize one of her birthday gift cards. Shopping with her is really fun. (She bought pink polka-dotted high top tennis shoes.)

 

We dined at Subway, then went to a park we'd never been to before. That's where Amelia discovered the Panoramic setting on my iPhone camera.

 

This was the first one she took, and we almost didn't notice the weirdness until I said, "Wait a minute." Then, scrolling in on my face in the picture, "What's wrong with my nose?"

 

If you want to look like a movie star in a photo, do NOT use the panoramic setting. Unless you want to look like you are in a movie about aliens.

However, if you're going for the Picasso look, then by all means, knock yourself out on the "Pano" setting!

 

While we were enjoying this spectacular fun, Evelyn was playing laser tag and mini golf with Alan.

 

It was a great Daddy-Daughter-Mommy-Date day.

That time you...

...ate an organic, chocolate chip granola bar in the car on the way to the viewing of a very prestigious local businessman and, while doing so, must have missed the fact that one of the chocolate chips fell off the bar...and into your seat. On the first 90 degree day of the year, I might add.

And then you went to the incredibly well-attended viewing with a streak of chocolate on your butt.

At least you were completely unaware and able to be in your right mind as you shared your sincere condolences. With chocolate on your butt.

These Girls Still Live Here

The American Girls still have places of honor here.

And I'm glad.

No More Single Digits

Amelia turned TEN May 16th. How did THAT happen?? We got up early on the 15th to open her cards and gifts that had arrived by mail. (I'm so glad things still arrive by mail!)

 

 

Why did she open things a day early? 

 

This year, instead of a party, she wanted a shopping spree. And since her birthday was on a Monday, we decided to open her cards a day early so she could shop on Sunday.

 

She didn't mind opening her cards and gifts a day early. She's good that way.

 

She was very pleased to find some gift cards had come in the mail.

 

Grandma & Grandpa Blackman sponsored a shopping trip to JC Penney, and Aunt Courtney, Uncle Johnny and the cousins sponsored a shopping trip to Sears. (All favorite places for Amelia to shop.)

Grandma Bisset is sponsoring a shopping trip, too!

 

And Evelyn gathered some choice items to give to her sister.

 

And I'll take this one as a gift to me--one of my favorite current pictures of them!

 

Happy birthday, Amelia! You know what you want, you are determined and insightful, and you are an awful lot of JOY rolled into one ten year old person!

Healthy Discussion

For years I was baffled by angry debates. I grew up in a home where it was encouraged to discuss things from all different angles and to see all points of view. Nobody got heated. Dad and Mom would explain one side of an argument, then the other. This pertained to political topics (which I admit bored me to tears) as well as to spiritual, religious, and biblical subject matter (which held my interest a little more.)

Once out of my house, it didn't take long to realize that not everyone grew up this way. :)

The biggest down side to growing up this way, for me, is that I often have a hard time formulating my own opinion. :)

Things I Know and Things I Don't

Recently a colleague offered to get something out of my car for me. When she asked me what my license plate number was, I paused...and confessed I didn't know. 

However, I do know all sorts of other things. Like the middle names of all my aunts and uncles. Or all the towns Alan and I visited on our European trip in 2001 (in order!) Or all the teachers our girls have had since they started school (again, in order.) All the state capitols. All the books of the Bible. And at one point I even knew all the lyrics to the rap in the middle of the now-obscure-1990's-CCM-Michael W. Smith song, "Love Crusade,"

But don't ask me the license plate number of our other car.

Our New Favorite App

It's called "Masquerade," and, well, you can see what it does to one's face. Makes selfies even more appealing. Or not.

 

Yes, that's me.

Puts tears in your eyes, doesn't it?

 

Or maybe gives you a new identity. Like me as Amelia Earhart.

 

Or my friend Tamara as a Superhero. Or rock star?

 

Or here's Tamara as me and me as Tamara in the ever-popular "Face Swap." I love how the bottom of her bangs become a unibrow.

 

There we are as normal people. Well, as normal as we people are. I miss teaching with Tamara! (But I don't miss making lesson plans, to be honest! And teaching is EXHAUSTING!)

 

Here I am with my former Battle Monument School colleagues at the wedding of my fellow music teacher--who is in the background of the photo. These are great people right here. I'd put my kids in their classes any day.

No app needed for the above pics...but I got sidetracked into adding them!

How we use The Lord of the Rings to teach spelling:

Last week we had some friends over for lunch after church. Evelyn was making name cards for the place settings, when she looked up and asked, "Mom, how does Mr. Sean spell his name?"

I paused, then answered, "Like the actor who plays Boromir."

She didn't even flinch, just wrote it out.

Thank you, Sean Bean.

Our Pink Trees

Our ornamental cherry trees are such a highlight of each spring. But they are so short-lived! Sigh...as I type they are already gone, fallen or swallowed up by the leaves that have appeared.

But they were lovely while they were here!

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened!"

Bike Spring Break

Alan was awesome during the girls' spring break (which also, amazingly, coincided with his spring break!), and took them on a variety of activities. It was fun to get texts from them that week!

This park is only a mile from our house--Herring Run--and has this cool, new bridge.

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything." (William Shakespeare)

Easter!

I think this photo has some sort of special filter on it--some crazy elements going on here.

Mom and Dad came over to celebrate Easter. Jon & Courtney & their kids were in AZ, preparing to head to Mexico for a family mission trip to Curium House, where Courtney set up a dental clinic. Pretty amazing.

We ate together, had an egg hunt with the girls, and Mom gave them these punching balloons. All the girls went for a walk to the playground, and a little later Aunt Shelley came over and we had a great round of "The Name Game," a total family favorite. The girls are at the perfect age for participation.

It was a pleasant, sweet Easter, full of gentle fun and much love.

"...for the immense majority of our contemporaries, the only way of seeing [Christ] alive is for us Christians to love one another." (Louis Evely)

Striking Poses on Stumps

Or...Stump Stands.

Or...being Exstumperaneous...

or Existumpalist.

(Another fine moment in time spent at Baltimore's Cylburn Arboretum!)

Spring at Cylburn

Baltimore's Cylburn Arboretum is one of those kind of places we love. It's beautiful green space in the middle of the city. It's free. It's lawns are perfect for cartwheeling.

Or striking all sorts of crazy poses next to the stately historic mansion.

One of these days we will tour the mansion. I think there is renovation going on. We've never been inside. But it's captivating, isn't it?

We had a picnic on Cylburn's grounds recently. I love picnics. And as usual, when given the opportunity to sit down in the sunshine and take pause, I get the urge to lie down. And once down, it's pretty much a given that I will doze off. Which is what I did. (Note: picnic blankets double nicely as actual blankets. In fact, our picnic blanket IS an actual blanket, scored by my mom at one of her garage sales.)

"As a kid, I was taught that if you opened the Bible in the middle you'd probably land on the book of Psalms. And near the middle is everyone's favorite, the 23rd, there is this line: 'You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.' I don't know how many times I've read or recited this Psalm without pondering what that that line actually means, but here is my take on it. When things are a big tense, when life is not going at its best, when the potential for disaster is just arounnd the corner, when your enemies are all around you - and even staring you down! - that's when God lays out the red-checkered picnic cloth and says, 'Ooooo, this is a nice place. Let's hang out here together for a while....just you and me.'" 
(David Brazzeal, Pray Like a Gourmet: Creative Ways to Feed Your Soul.)

Porch Swing Time

I love, love, love Spring and Fall for so many reasons.

 

But this has become one of my favorite reasons: the porch swing. The hours the girls and I spend reading aloud on this swing are some of the sweetest hours of my life. I know that sounds like I'm just speaking in superlatives...but they really are.

 

 

"That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest." - Henry David Thoreau



Wet Hikes, Chilly Picnics -- Happy Spring!

Jen and Tui and I set up to meet at Oregon Ridge to walk before one of my morning meetings. Of course it was pouring down rain. Of course we were not going to cancel. We'd waited too long to get together! You'd think this would mean we had the trails to ourselves--but don't ever underestimate elderly Korean people. They walk rain or shine, too. They just come prepared with really big umbrellas.

"There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing." - Sir Rannulph Fiennes

Fortunately, my work colleagues simply laughed off my sodden appearance at our meeting.

I love walking in the woods. Our girls are in an I-hate-walking-in-the-woods phase, unfortunately. I am fully trusting that this, like so many other phases, will pass. So I dragged them out to Gunpowder State Park before AWANA a couple weeks ago. Nothing gets rid of an anti-hiking phase like being made to hike, I say! I even packed a picnic dinner.

We sat watching the river, drinking hot chocolate and eating hard boiled eggs and apples. (The menu likely doesn't help the lack of enthusiasm for my woodsy adventures.) It was actually quite chilly and their hands were really cold.

I wonder if Evelyn will ever outgrow her dislike of being photographed?

Hmm...not there yet. :)

\

But I still think they're beautiful. And fun. And funny. And budding adults. They will be taking their own hikes--or not taking them--and packing their own picnics. May they breathe and eat beauty, and seek its Maker.

"Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." - Walt Whitman

"Seek Him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth: the LORD is His name." (Amos 5:8)



3rd Annual Spring Play Date



In honor of the blooming of our pink trees AND the fact that we are now in that teeny-tiny window of time between the onset of Spring and the onset of mosquito season, we have some of the girls' classmates over to have fun in the back yard.

 

This year, they had so much fun they broke the slide. This is just a second or so before the collapse. I guess it's not a good idea to pile nine 10 and 11 year olds on a plastic slide. They had fun, though.

 

We also made a craft. Every year we make some sort of a magnet. Why? Because I get stuck in ruts, and that is one of them. This year's magnets were made out of little rounds of wood we decorated.

 

We also ate a lot of food. I put out the healthy stuff first--red pepper slices and carrots with ranch dip, apple slices with peanut butter, and watermelon slices. We followed that up with a giant bag each of potato and tortilla chips, rice krispie treats, and chocolate chip cookies. Let's just say we were not overwhelmed with leftovers. But hopefully no one went home hungry.

We almost made a pyramid. We. Were. So. Close....

 

But it almost looks like more fun to fall apart.



 

Or more fun yet!

 

Feeling thankful for the opportunity to share some life and fun with these girls. I always feel incredibly grateful when people bring their daughters for these play dates. The joy of sharing in one another's lives, even for a few hours on an afternoon, is such a gift.

 

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed." (Kahlil Gibran)

Blogging Makes a Return!

I miss blogging! I didn't really stop on purpose...just kind of got shuffled to the bottom of the to-do list. Plus, it doesn't help when I forget our blogspot password. Or can't find where the pictures are kept on our laptop.

So tonight I got lucky. And lo-and-behold, here is the lone family selfie from 2015--ta-da!

It was the day of our departure from Massanutten, where we spent Christmas with the Blackmans. As you can see, it was a little bright. :)

Below is Evelyn as one of the bell-players in a performance during their school's annual "Peace Love and Joy" assembly. She rocked the bell set. She really did. So did her classmates. Honestly, I don't think there was a wrong note among them.

And Amelia finally got a front-row spot in the choreography for her class's performance. Don't you love her shirt? She designed it herself. It's a giant emogee. She used a cookie cutter to outline the heart eyes. I was so proud of her.

So hopefully this will put us back on the blog map! I really do enjoy it. Just have to do it. Kind of like so many other things I enjoy but just have to DO. Like going to bed on time. Or Hiking. Or riding my bike. Or getting together with so many people I adore but don't see enough.

Life is so full of opportunity! :)