sunshine

Most of our weekend in KC was spent with the Bollinger family - friends we made while living there.  Those truly salt-of-the-earth people that are the kind of friends we'll come back to for a lifetime.

We have made a tradition of spending Memorial Day weekend together.

This weekend it was sunshine all around - the yard, the pool, the park...

Our three littles played with their three littles while we grown-ups solved all the world's problems.  

It felt like vacation...

The new aquarium at Crown Center....She was holding a star fish!

My kids have a stud for a Dad.  For so many reasons.  

Today because he makes holding slimy things fun and doesn't make their mama do it.

Hello, sting ray.

Remember the kids' table?  These are the things memories are made of.

Grilled pizza, Bollinger style.

"Let's play charades!"  I heard it coming out of my mouth and realized that I'm that dorky Aunt Judy who squeezes cheeks and gives chachkis for gifts and suggests charades at family gatherings.  Own it.

Top favorite of the weekend was a new park - for you in the KC area, its called Black Hoof and is near 87th street.  Loads of natural play spaces, shade, room to roam, and a great walking path...

(Build something!)

It even has wearable pets.  This one came all the way back home with us.

An all-around incredible way to kick off the summer.  

I sit in overwhelming gratitude for the gift of friendship.

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life.  And thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine."

- Thomas Jefferson

Jane

Jane Hosey-Stern is living her dream.  

She is the proprietress and artist of Junque Drawer Boutique in Olathe.  GO THERE.

junquedrawerstudio.com

I met Jane when we both taught junior high in Overland Park.  During my plan time, I would stop by the coffee, then go into her sanctuary of an office, shut the door, and she would give me free counseling until my plan time ended, or maybe awhile after.  She would say that we were in there gossiping and planning and creating and dreaming and growing a friendship.  

I would argue that we were both very busy growing a person - Me.

She inspired me to look within

open myself to new people

follow my gut

be irreverent

live out loud

be real

and to stick with the "weirdo" students with whom I fell in-love and who no one else could tolerate.

She is absolutely one of a kind, and so is everything she creates.  She's no longer working in the schools, but instead has this incredible emporium of all things lovely and big and inspiring.  You really must go there.

We went there this weekend, and just seeing her again was a reminder of how good it feels to be real.  Seeing all the awesome things in her studio was a reminder of how creative and unique she is.  And did I mention dream-chaser?

Aunt Jane loaded us up with goodies.  The kids thought they had hit heaven, and I knew I had hit beyond there.  

Let's start off with this.....

Look at my new rings!  She whipped up my new T ring while we were there.

.

Everything you never knew you wanted is spilling out everywhere.

I came home with this one...

                                  

She put this necklace on Buzz, and suddenly our son is frat boy about 15 years early.

an artist at work

not my favorite picture of us, but still makes me happy because I love this woman!

GO THERE.  GO to the THERE.

Find it on facebook for lots more pictures.  GO THERE.

Bergans

We kicked off summer with a trip to KC this weekend!

The familiar pit in my stomach showed up within a few miles of crossing the county line. 

I loved living there so much.  Really deeply loved the people, my job, our apartment, our church, the shopping, how fast people drove, our two incomes, our freedom, just all of it.  

I always feel truly physically sick for awhile after arriving back there - full of the emotion of what we left behind mixed with deep gratitude for what we have where we live now.  

The Bergan family is very special to us, and Charlene makes the most amazing brunches (sticky bacon, bloody marys, eggs in a bag, coffee, sticky roles, fresh fruit...) so like any smart moochers would, we started off there.

I was Paige's 5th grade teacher.  She just finished her first year of college.  

I'm old.  

She's smart and fun and so terribly sweet.

And majoring in English.  Oh so so so so so proud am I!

When Eva was 4 months old and it was time for me to return to work, I called Charlene and asked her to keep Eva at her home while we taught.  

She said no.  

So I asked her to pray about it and I would call her in a week.  When I called back, she said something about baby gates.  I promised to buy out the baby gate store.

She said yes.

Eva spent two years as part of their family, and they loved her and taught her so much.  Its priceless having that kind of care for your children!

See?  She has the touch.

Ryan and I suggested something called Bergan Summer Camp.

A very very good idea.  

I mentioned that this would be what it would be like if they had 5 kids.  Who wouldn't want to find that out, right?

They seemed to find that funny.

More to come about our KC weekend in upcoming posts.

check

On the way home from the donut shop (all 5 of us, in our pjs, now that is the LIFE!), we picked up some nails and free scrap lumber.  We threw it in the garage, thinking that the kids could discover it later when they were in the mood to create something.  

Eventually hammering and nailing ensued...

Then painting began.

Everything -  ev-ry-thing - leads to a naked dance party around here.

So next, of course, was playing with the water hose to scrub off the paint.

Build something - check
Get wet - check
Convo - check (Mr. Duffy shoved his head into our van at the lumber yard and they had quite a conversation.  What a dear dear man.)

It does seem that if space and time is given for nothingness in our day, these 4 goals are, without great effort, met in serendipitous ways.

Yay for summer.
Detox is also going quite well.
Minimal complaining.  Only a bit of hitting.  A few time-outs.  No tears.  Yet.

And I got to make the first batch of pesto for the summer!

Detox

Hello, Summer.

Today begins Detox.  More on that in a bit.

I put on my fun mom pants this afternoon when school got out and let Eva have two icees.  (Yes, around here, that IS fun mom.)  Then she "baked" with random ingredients for over an hour.  These pictures do not even remotely portray the mess in the kitchen.  Wet flour on the floor, eggs dripping down the counter, sugar crunching under our feet, oil on the rug, flour in the oil jar...  

Breathe in and out in and out in and out and do not say anything about the mess in and out in and out in and out and do not suggest that she use more oil and less flour and in and out and in and out and do not say a word about the sugar now tracked through the kitchen and into the play room in and out and in and out.

I did not need Lamaze to bring her into this world, but today I needed it to keep her in this world!

Then we cleaned up for double the time we played.  She would perhaps say that I was no longer wearing my fun mom pants by this point.  But I was still breathing and I still did not say one single word about the mess.  I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees and she washed dishes and counters and body parts.  Singing as she worked.  I tried to sing, but I instead gave every single spare ounce of energy to not minding the mess and all the extra cleaning.  It was successful on all fronts.  Fun time in the kitchen together, happy girlie, reasonably happy mama, and a shiny clean floor to boot.

These next few days, she's going to be in detox.  Getting used to a life in which her minutes 7 am to 3 pm are not all planned out for her.  As happy as we are for summer, this is not going to be an easy adjustment.  She will ask for tv and computer, she will try to say she's bored, and she will push our buttons.  But she will come out of it in a week happy and newly adjusted to making her own play and creating her own fun.

I could stand on a very very high soapbox about the lost art of summer.  How children need - truly deeply need ...

free play

open spaces of time and earth

open calendars 

home

zero entertainment

sticks and dirt

family

solitude

messes ...

in order to develop into the thinking, creative, interested people we want them to be.  No one can reach their full potential by being chauferred all over the state and having their every minute scheduled with entertainment disguised as activities during summer vacation.  But that is a soapbox for another day.  Mostly.

So my goal for this summer is that every single day the kids either 

1. read something

2. get wet

3. build something

4. or have a face to face conversation with someone from our community.  

Hopefully more than one.  Not in an effort to accomplish something.  Just to find free play in them.  We have a long, fun list on the wall of things to do this summer, but more than those things, these 4 are what really matter.  (Thanks, Melody, for the awesome article!)

Today, Eva did all four.  It was a big mess and I'm one tired mama.  But I do think its sustainable through this summer.  I have my hopes so high that it is!  Breathe in and out and in and out and in and out....

yammering

This was, like most other days, without event.  And I find myself tucking the kiddos into bed, changing into my ever-faithful yoga pants, switching on the attic fan, and breathing a deep gulp of gratitude.

Bliss is...

The Buzz on his new bike watched so closely by his #1 fan.  It wasn't yet 8 am, and he was "practicing".

Bliss is also this...

Toasted crusty bread, brie, fresh berries.  Breakfast and lunch.

And this...

My favorite parts of my new favorite room in my favorite colors.

Just look at the names of those books.  The Mystery of the Chinese Junk.  Franklin W. Dixon has my kind of humor.

Anne Lamott says...

"Its always the same old problem: how to find ourselves in the great yammering of ego and tragedy and discomfort and obsession with everyone else's destinies."

Today we learned that a friend miscarried.  Miscarriages have happened to our family twice (once between each child), and I have been fortunate enough to find it physically painful but emotionally quite simple.  They have been very early and I haven't felt the deep emotional loss that some people do.  Eva heard me telling Ryan about it and I explained to her in the most basic terms what happens when someone miscarries.

Later, I overheard her telling River...

Eva: "Buzz, did you know that we had two brothers or sisters that never hatched?  They were tiny like a grain of rice."

River: "Tonya, can I have a rice krispy treat?

Ah yes....the yammering...the pain and the joy and the tragedy and the humor and the reality...

It seems that lately, the yammering has been quite loud.  Grateful am I for ordinary days like today that give space for bliss and self-finding.

Bandaid Hello

We decided Friday afternoon to camp for the weekend and headed out to our usual spot, christened the last time we were there as Bandit Hallow, or as River calls it, Bandaid Hello.

As I sit in piles of smoky laundry and wrestle overtired kids into their naps, it is quite clear that I'm not rested or refreshed by the experience.  Let's play a little game where we stack work and fun up next to one another when it comes to a family camping trip.  Work wins.  Hands down, no comparison.  Geez louisa, camping is a lot of work.

I was in a melancholy way the whole time.  Maybe its because I'm obsessed with every word of Anne Lamott's newest book, Some Assembly Required, have been reading it whenever I get a minute, and it has a melancholy tone.

But when I look back at the few pictures we shot, I see that these truly are the things memories are made of...

the stars aligned and everyone got a nap at the same time

falling asleep by the fire

making tinfoil dinners

berries from a bowl before heading to the swimming hole

bliss

The kids got ahold of the camera in the tent for these two shots...

If you were one of the flies at our camp this week, you would've also seen...

Eva and I racing each other to the outhouse, then walking arm in arm back to the camp.  

Over and over.

River exerting his will at every single turn.

Ryan and I bickering - largely out of our subconscious annoyance that this is hard work instead of play.

Sage loving the swimming hole, and desperately trying to drink the water in it like a puppy.

Lamott says, 

"Peace is joy at rest.  And joy is peace on its feet."

Thank you, Bandit Hallow, for once again giving us a bit of both!