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Family Values
The idea stemmed from a conversation, a comment to a conversation really. (You never know when what you say will be the seed of an idea or the catalyst for change.) This friend mentioned having a set of family values – a list of what matters in your house. A core. I loved that idea. I’d like to think our family has always had a standard, a set of ideas and theories guiding our actions. But the thought of actually taking the time to verbalize what those are, to write those down, really appealed to me. The kids and I gathered in the library. (That’s what I like to…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Reunion (the feelings part)
It was probably about two hours after we all said goodbye. Loaded into our separate rides and drove away. Somewhere on Colorado Highway 9. The mountains were being their beautiful selves. Maybe there was a song playing. I was lost in thought, not completely aware of what was happening in my brain and in my heart and in my mind. Until. I was crying. Not like sobbing, just like tears leaking out behind my sunglasses and I was sort of surprised and sort of on track. My heart was full and heavy and satisfied and restless. All the opposing things a heart can be. Especially a heart of one…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Reunion (it begins)
I’ll tell you this – it feels a lot like my childhood felt. Brothers ribbing me endlessly, jokes flying over my head, loud laughter at all the wrong things, most comments resulting in some sort of physical violence, too many opinions, everyone is certain they are right and a general house volume of barely controlled chaos. One entire decade later, my three brothers and my father and I are all in the same house in the same state. It’s rowdy. It’s pretty fun too. It’s kind of out of control. Sometimes we each step away – to the porch, the stream, the fire pit, the…
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A little London then . . .
Every now and then I look into my archive of Posts I Forgot to Ever Publish. I’ve got journals filled with ideas and bits and pieces of article starts and story lines and sentences that go nowhere and words that have never seen the light of day. I fell across a sweet one tonight though. London is thirteen years old now. She has the recipe for her own specially curated potato soup inside of her head and she makes it spontaneously, no need to refer to to the original instructions any longer. She is capable of being an excellent map navigator and she is learning how to speak Spanish…
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Five Finds Friday (photo booths gone wrong, Filipino food & fabulous people)
FUNNY The boys and I had a little afternoon excitement recently on a belated birthday date together at a local fun park. You know – one of those places where you ride go carts and step into the batting cages and play gigantic video games. I don’t mind admitting that I’m a sucker for photo booths. There was a giant one there and the boys were kind enough to oblige me since I had just treated them to lunch and batting cages and go carts and super intense air hockey games and some kind of gigantic fruit ninja video ridiculousness. The photo booth was sort of weird and…
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July Fourth Shenanigans
If you know me, you know that my favorite holiday is July Fourth. It’s the family and it’s the food. It’s the farm and the fun. It’s being together and it’s tradition and it’s years stacked on years of celebrating a summer day and lives and family and friends. July Fourth on the Farm is the best. It was Ryder’s first July Fourth. That dog legitimately loves the farm. (And spends his days racing to the pond and collecting briars in his thick coat and harboring dirt and mud all over his legs and just in general being a happy go lucky mess. The food is plentiful at the…
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night time at the farm.
There’s always a part of every July Fourth that leaves me feeling more whole than broken, more established than misplaced. The fireworks lighting up the sky. The sameness of tradition and wonder. The lovely simplicity of this beautiful porch where the only view is green and trees and a river’s edge. And then there are the quiet quiet moments. Long after dark has settled on the green and I step outside to let go of all my breath and I stand beneath the stars and the haze and the clouds and the Virginia moon breaking through it all. I’m standing on the bottom porch steps, a little in love with…
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Gray Mountain Farm
You guys. We are at the farm. The beautiful lovely Virginia farm. Where the mountains ensconce you and the framily embraces you and the mosquitoes bite you and the wireless signal evades you and the Internet still doesn’t trespass onto the property. So I just can’t easily share the good life we are living on these gorgeous acres across the wires on this blog. And that is alright. Just picture us all tubing down a muddy river. Working on endless food prep in a continual prep-cook-serve-eat-clean cycle all the day long. Going on little hikes and gator rides. Feasting on different people’s specialty meals and desserts. Sharing long held, over…
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just a little more thanks giving before we switch holidays
I know no one wants to even think about Thanksgiving any longer. Even the most reluctant of us recognize the official Changing of the Holidays the weekend after Thanksgiving. So it’s all Christmas Christmas Christmas now. And I’m all in for Christmas. I really am. Yesterday we chopped down our tree from the great outdoors and propped it back up inside our house – a strange tradition that I love but have to wonder how it would appear to someone unfamiliar with the custom. I’ll jump right on that polar express to trees and ornaments and stockings and traditions and the red and the green. Tomorrow. Today I just want…
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what was I saying?
Oh yes. While our freezer was dying and our washer was waning, we were on a road trip. To that sweet land of Virginia to celebrate a kind and generous and hilariously fun family that I like to call my cousins. Amber was getting married. And my Piper Finnian was the flower girl to Amber. Amber. A grown up who was once a kid who once wore a white dress and served as the flower girl at my wedding nearly eighteen years ago. Me. A grown up who was once a kid who once wore a white dress and served as flower girl at Amber’s mother’s wedding about thirty years…
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Keigley CAMPaign: Oconee State Park
Last weekend was our camping weekend. Oconee State Park. It was a good weekend. And I plan to go backwards in time and recap each state park visit. Eventually. But I jotted down this during our weekend as we were hanging out and enjoying the incredibly perfect weather. ________________ 8:17 p.m. Otto is resting in the hammock. Riley’s reading by flashlight in the tent. I’m writing this, eating raisins, staring at the fire. Kevin is leading the others on a dark Frog Hunt. Listening, shining the light. Two kids are already holding amphibians in their increasingly filthy hands. (Nails embedded with dark dirt that has at least twelve more hours…
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Our Lodgings: Better Than A Hotel!
Sometimes on road trips you have to stay in hotels. And sometimes, a hotel is a good time. You’ve got the pool, the free breakfast, the room service. But you also have the high cost. (Especially for a family of eight, a number hotel managers declare is unsafe for one room.) And you also have the creepy probability that no one actually ever washes hotel comforters. Anyway, for our Jamestown Journey, we didn’t even consider a hotel. Because we had something so much better. Someone, really. Our cousins Sherry and Willy. (Our kids have these names burned in their brains because Sherry and Willy swooped down a few years ago…
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When The Relatives Came to Town
The title of this post is a title of a Cynthia Rylant children’s book. She’s a great children’s author. Do you know her? She writes a series about Mr. Putter and Tabby. And she wrote a beautiful book called When I Was Young and in the Mountains, which is just my favorite. (Because I love mountains. And I love prose that reads like poetry.) Oh, and Kevin met Ms. Rylant when she attended a program at his school when he was in the fourth grade so our family’s copy of the book is signed. And all of her lovely literary merits have very little to do with this post. Except…
