Leah was our very first babysitter when we finally felt brave enough to venture out after Neko was born. We loved her dearly, but then, like all our babysitters seem to do, she graduated and moved on to Real Life.
When she got engaged, her sister wanted to help bring us in the picture to do something special for her. Tom ended up designing her wedding invitation, and today she and her mom made the drive down to come pick them up.
It reminded us how much we loved Leah, and good grief, her mom is just as wonderful. Sadly, we won’t be able to make it to wedding, but we’ll make a toast to she and Brian that night for sure.
What do you buy at the grocery store? What’s that? Just groceries?
Not in this house. Tom took the kids to the international grocery store today, and came home with a (deceased) octopus. Neko wanted to do a little science research. Did you know you can get an octopus this size for under a dollar?
Nothing like coming home and finding an octopus in your sink.
When I saw the big Bobcat sitting in the yard, I knew we were committed. The high tunnel is going up.
Okay, really we were committed when all the pieces got delivered and started hogging every square inch of the garage, making the kids’ attempts to retrieve a bicycle turn into some sort of high wire act. I so want the garage back.
Originally, Tom was going to build this big, beautiful garden with a fence and seating area and, oh, it was going to be lovely. But then we attended a gardening workshop, where we learned about high tunnels, and how you can garden year round. This whole concept was really exciting, as I once added up our grocery bills for the entire year and almost had a heart attack. Feeding five people a primarily organic, fruit and vegetable filled diet is crazy expensive. (Thus, the obesity epidemic.) After we visited another family who had their own high tunnel, the decision was made, and practicality won out over aesthetics.
Anyway, Tom’s brother John came into town and helped dig enormous holes in our rock-filled ground (hooray for perseverance and patience) which would hold the supports in several feet of concrete. Big thanks to John for helping out, and to Alicia for letting us borrow him.
Needless to say, by dusk we had ton of great big holes in our yard. And, omigoodness, the kids thought they were the most fun things ever. I’m going to add this to the list for my future toy store—big holes and dirt piles.
Addendum: My friend Libby, who has been in construction for ages, said these deep holes are actually quite unsafe for children to play in because they could collapse unless you have those cardboard tube thingies. Which we had, but not actually in the holes at that time. So when I sell holes at my toy store, they’ll come with those cardboard liners or, like, super-safe titanium liners. With lasers.
On our last day in the Gulf, we were finished with our work. I wanted to take Neko to the beach so she could see for herself what was going on.
We were pleasantly surprised with what we saw. Kimberly had told us that all the beach cities were working every night to get the beaches as clean as they could by morning. Everywhere we went, we saw these huge booms in the water surrounding the beach, trying to keep the oil from coming inland. We saw no signs of oil on the beach, other than this one bottle, which could have easily been coated with something else. Convoys of volunteers kept driving by, and helicopters circled on a regular basis.
I applaud the folks in charge of cleaning the beaches, as they’re doing a spectacular job. I even felt confident enough to let Neko strip down and take a quick romp in the ocean (man, it’s hard to keep that kid out of the water). We even saw little fish swimming in the surf.
I do wonder what’s going on further out in the ocean, beyond the booms, where we can no longer see. But it seems, in the meantime, Mother Nature is trying her best to take care of those problems. Crossing fingers it stays that way.
Today we made the two-hour journey from Pensacola to Gulfport, the home of IMMS. Of course, we’re doing this in a U-Haul, so it was a bit of a bumpy ride. But U-Hauls have come a long way since my early twenties, and I was surprised by the gentle-ish ride. (Of course, by the time we made the two hour trip back, I was more than happy to turn in the keys.)
We had a fantastic time learning about their facility, and even got a behind-the-scenes tour of the turtle rehabilitation facility. It was so heartwarming to see all these turtles, big and small, swimming around, looking healthy as can be. I can easily fast-forward twenty years in my head and see Neko busy at work in a facility like this.
Of course, we had our share of seven-year-old moments (gift shop…you are my nemesis), but all in all, the whole trip went really well.
(Plus, there was a bonus three-legged bearded dragon, which always makes the day go well.)
Spending so much time together this trip, I’ve learned a few new things about Neko, which is always the best part of these sorts of trips.
1. When she grows up, she wants to be a Nature Girl. This isn’t the first time she’s declared this as her future profession, but I finally had a chance to ask exactly what that meant. Apparently, a Nature Girl is someone who lives in the woods and takes care of nature. You build a house out of all natural things, and you don’t live with your family any more. Although, she did concede that her friends could come live with her if they decided to be Nature Girls, too. I hope Nature Girls still come home to visit their parents to do their laundry.
2. She’s afraid of going to the movies. There’s always a scary part somewhere in the middle, and it terrifies her. I could go into a whole English lesson about rising action and conflict, and how she just needs to hang in there for the denouement, but it seemed pointless. So instead of going to Beezus and Ramona, we went home and watched two hours of Ace of Cakes. In our pajamas. Which was awesome.
3. She’s really a homebody. I thought with it being just the two of us, we’d go out for a fancy dinner (i.e. no drive-thru), and she’d be thrilled by the novelty of it. But she fought me tooth and nail. So tonight we ate take-out while tucked under the covers, and she couldn’t have been happier.
Tomorrow we fly home, but we hope to visit the beach before we go! Just looking, no swimming.
Ever since the Gulf oil spill occurred, Neko has been worried. She can’t figure out why they aren’t just plugging the leak. (Oy, trying explaining those physics to a seven-year-old when you don’t really understand them yourself). She’s really worried about the effect it will have on the ecosystem and the marine life that lives within it. One day I let her see a slide show of AP images, as I was tired of dodging the truth.
Now every day she asks if they’ve fixed it yet.
And as much as I know that everyone is doing everything they can to remedy the situation, that’s not very tangible for a little person.
So when I found out what CraftHope was doing to help gather supplies for The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, I knew that was right up our alley. Together, Neko and I could craft our own donation. But the more I read, the more I realized that what they needed was help with transportation, rather than more donations.
I thought Kimberly, who was receiving donations in her tiny house in Pensacola, might balk at the idea of strangers offering to help transport, but she didn’t. (Once I saw how many boxes she was storing in her tiny house, I understood!) So I gathered our SkyMiles, and booked a U-Haul, and we left our quick trip to Pensacola.
So far, our trip has been fantastic. Tomorrow we drive several hours to Gulfport, where we will make our delivery to IMMS and see what their organization has been doing to help. Already, I feel Neko feeling better about this situation specifically, but also about her ability to create change on a grander scale. And that, my friends, is worth every SkyMile.
About a decade back, when we lived in the Big City, our neighbors Jeff and Sally had this amazing hammock. This hammock I loved. This hammock I wondered if maybe, in the dark of night, I could just move to our yard and no one would notice. Thing is, Jeff really loved that hammock, too, so I didn’t think it would pan out.
But this year, for Mother’s Day, Tom gave me a hammock. Well, he gave me a cheap hammock from Target, and permission to buy my dream hammock. You know, if I could find it.
It took me roughly two months, but i did track it down. Of course, it arrived just hours before Tom left town for the weekend, but I was so determined to enjoy that hammock this weekend, I muscled it together myself in 95 degree weather while watching three kids.
And today, while Ellery napped, I laid in the hammock. Shep and Neko took turns visiting me. We giggled and looked at clouds and took pictures. I had one of those moments where I couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be.
And then a chicken pooped on us, and we all had to go inside and clean up.
Things have been slow around here blog-wise, but crazy chock-full in terms of busy. We’re in recovery from vacation and preparing for the next few adventures.
99% of our vacation we spent hunkered down at the house. We never once went out to eat (although the grown-ups ordered in a few times). We left the house to bike, go to the grocery store, or hit the beach, but left for very little else.
We did, however, decide our one tourist venture would be to seek out some dolphins. They head into the lagoon in search of dinner, which makes for a great viewing opportunity. Unfortunately, the dolphins were way more interested in looking for food than entertaining us, but we did get to see them slip in and out of the water here and there.
Scott, our faithful captain, kept us entertained with showing us the zillions of oysters, viewable when the tide comes in (the first photo). He even pulled a crab on board for inspection. But mostly the kids loved the speedboat, zooming through the water. Ellery did almost fall asleep at one point, which is a hazard of scheduling our tour during nap time.
Undoubtedly, the tour was well worth leaving the house. But then we went home, put our bathing suits back on, and got back to business as usual.
