Eight, By the Sea

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to see the ocean for her eighth birthday. So she got on a bus with her friends, paid the fare (one sand dollar) and took off.

 BEEP! BEEP! "Next stop: Oysterville," said the bus driver.

Unfortunately, the bus couldn't take them all the way to the water. "Schools of fish are always trying to get on for a field trip," the bus driver explained, "and they are far too soggy.

So the friends had to walk the rest of the way to the beach.

"But where IS it? We must explore!"

Finally, through the tall grass, they saw some seagulls and heard the crashing of waves.

"There it is!" cried Taylor. "The OCEAN!"

 Morgen was delighted!

 She immediately waded into the ocean's shore...

...only to find it FREEZING cold, so she jumped right out and into the air!

 Micah was still trying to find his way through the tall grass....

(...he thought it tickled his nose...)

 ...until Taylor found him and showed him the way out!

Feeling the cold water, Micah exclaimed, "I'm going to be BRAVE!" He hiked up his shorts and ran straight into the oncoming surf. What a brave little boy, indeed!

 Their big sister apprehensively watched from up in the tall grass. She wasn't sure she wanted to venture into that cold, cold water with her siblings.

 But the salty ocean air, the sound of seagulls and the water crashing onto the sand exhilarated her senses until she couldn't help but to come out of hiding.

She paused momentarily, as if to unknowingly reflect the Birth of Venus itself...

 ...and lept for joy into the frigid surf!

Korah was very pleased to be at the ocean's edge.

 Back and forth, back and forth, they ran with the tide....

...until it was time to line up and travel back from whence they came.

It was time for some birthday cake!

HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY, MORGEN!

(Editor's note: it's amazing to me that I can lay down the strangest-looking cakes, so far from my cake-decorating fantasies, and all the children ooo and ahhh, salivating with forks poised at the ready. Maybe it's because cake is such a novely around here, or maybe it's because children have simple, joyful hearts and I ought to take a lesson. Either way... they heal my perfectionist spirit with their cheerful ones.)

 Two things to notice here: one, that Noble is apparently trying to put cake directly into his stomach, thereby fitting his entire fist into his mouth. And secondly, notice the little friend in the foreground. Morgen and her school pal she brought along, found these fuzzy little guys and invited them to the party!

"We're here!"

Hmph. Party crashers.

 Taylor always writes the funniest cards.

Then... how do you burn off a sugar high when it's dark and rainy outside and you're stuck inside a beach house? STAIR SURFING!

 This is where mommy turns a blind eye. It looks like someone's ankle is about to break here.

 This is a laughing face, believe it or not.

They've never had so much fun smooshing into each other!

 One last family photo around the birthday girl before we leave.

You are so loved, Morgen-girl! May God bless you big, this ninth year of life!

Historic Oysterville

As a trade for 7 hours of mural painting, I got to take my family to a beach house in Oysterville, WA, where I spent two days cooking Morgen's favorite foods and making birthday cake and cleaning and....

Wait. I never saw the beach! It's a good thing I find deep fulfillment in serving my family, because that was a lot of work. I'll stop talking now and just show you some photos, because I'm starting to feel like I need a vacation.

1854: Abraham Lincoln is President. Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden. And a little town perfect for harvesting oysters is founded.

1892: Basketball becomes an official competitive sport and Grover Cleveland is elected President.
I'll bet he ate oysters.

Only next to the sea would a moss so pretty grow to cover everything with it's soft and dreamy veil.

Them's a lot of oyster shells.

And a little trip to Jack's Country Store for some birthday ice cream. They have pretty much anything you might need in a pinch, and cool, retro candy and gum, like Clove and Black Jack. I got some Dots to put on Morgen's cake...I've never been much of a candy eater, but what's with candy buttons? What a dumb candy. Pretty, but dumb. Let's just say we ate a lot of paper.

We decided to visit this old cemetery to see what history we could find there.

Have some time on your hands? You could research why Chief Nahcati was buried in the Oysterille Cemetery instead of in Nahcotta. Maybe Nahcotta came after 1864.

I love this: boulder as headstone. This is what I want. After my viking funeral. Somebody notarize that.

And then, because my kids absolutely love the potential of a ghost story, we had to stop on the way out and take a photo of this "not-in-Kansas-anymore" house. They made up all kinds of stories about it's history and we quickly sped away when they could've sworn they saw someone behind the curtains:

Oooo, spooky!!

Coming up next: Morgen's 8th birthday and a day at the beach!

Gnocchi at Sunset

A Poem for Febe

I close my eyes and try
to make the traffic sound
like waves. The games of kids
pretending is the same,

Without the element
of magic that comes from
friends
and salty air

And gnocchi-making to
a rainbow sunset.
The gift of respite, on
the job, was burned into

My senses with the smell
of bubbles in the bath,
the ocean rolling in,
the blue and orange and gold.

Inspiring me to try
a poem with my hands,
to keep on making art
with my whole life.

Your laugh is balm to my
encumbered spirit and
so glad am I that you
are my friend, mi amiga.

Bicycle Dating

For the record --because that's what this is for-- thanks to my mom carting four of the kids away to have hotel room/jumping on the bed/swimming pool fun for the night, David and I got to go on a little bike ride date! Noble babbled away in his little bike seat, yelling "HI-EEE!" at everyone we passed. We took the scenic route and had dinner at some food carts. Bummer, Scoop was out of Salted Caramel (the flavor you'll dream about), but that's okay. Riding home to the tune of cotton candy skies and white sliver-of-a-moon and the singing chatter of an ice-creamed toddler, we are feelin' the Portlandia. We are feeling blessed to spend this time together, refreshing our Selves....

So Here's What Happened

Around five o'clock this morning, David and I sat bolt-upright in bed to the most sonorous rumbling we've ever heard. At least... I thought we were sitting up. I think we were just jerked into consciousness and were still laying there, staring into the dark. The traffic on the bridge behind our house is a constant white-noise for us, so we both thought a horrible accident had occurred. A trash truck had driven off and crashed into the park below! The bridge itself was somehow coming undone, cable's ripping out of the ground for sure!

"What. Was. THAT?" We were both sitting up in bed now. We realized it was thunder...and we had just torn a huge hole in our roof. We jumped out of bed and ran willy-nilly around the house; I'm not sure what we were doing. I went to the back door to see if it was raining and a light mist was coming down. I was about to stick my hand out to see how it felt when the air crackled and popped (yes, quite like Rice Crispies) the sky lit up with a flash and then "BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!" Another tremendous rumbling of thunder! Now the dog was running in circles and I beamed like I'd just pulled up to the gates of Disneyland.

I ran to get my shoes on-- we had to get that hole covered; it was really starting to rain! By now 2  kids were in our bed and the dog was underneath it when David informed me we were out of tarps. We laughed at the irony of tearing off the roof because it was leaking, only for it to rain the very next day. We should know by now that when the weather report says sunny and 80's all week (no matter what the weather report says, really) in Portland that means "rain". Our only option seemed to be to haul our backyard canopy up onto the roof.

It was...ridiculous. Even the neighbor, who had thought we were being bombed, saw Dave on the roof in the rain and asked if he could come over and help. We finally got the awkward and useless canopy onto the roof (although Taylor and I feel a little victorious over that) and the rain had stopped! Neighbor-dude got a tarp from his house and he and Dave put it up, letting us know he's ready and willing to help us with anything else we need.

Seriously, we are blessed with the nicest neighbors. I once won an Ice Cream Block Party from Dreyers for an essay I wrote on "Why I Love My Neighborhood". It's just that great. My block, not my writing.

So here we are today, Father-and-Son Demo Team, under shelter of plastic.

Taylor (who's awesome) made these handy-dandy hammer-holders! This is not the best photo, but he was proud of those hammer-holders and I wanted to get them in the picture.

 Nothing fills a boy with a sense of worth and purpose more than some good, hard work.

He spent all day alone with me (at Taco Hell and the grocery store and running errands), and only a couple of hours doing this with Dave. He comes up to me at bedtime and says,

"I had a good day today with Daddy."

(Hm. Chopped liver.)

Where are the other boys, you ask?

I had the settings all wrong for this picture, but I had to take it quick before anything changed. I love finding my little guys just reading away amongst a scattering of literature.

...and all our attic junk.

...and a moose antler.

Alright Thunder & Lightening....bring it on!! Of course, now it will only be hot and sunny for the rest of the week.

Coming up.... the Weird-Wire-Cage-Thing-From-the-Attic-Eves mystery is SOLVED!

Stay tuned. (Riveting, I know....)