New School Year

The new school year, 2014-2015, has begun.  My first and fourth grade boys were ready on day one, with new sneakers, a dose of enthusiasm, abundant happiness, and a little bit of sassy.  I'll take it!!



SUNFLOWERS

 

 

We went on a family drive recently to the islands of Vermont searching for fossils.  We did find the fossils eventually, but first we landed in a gigantic sunflower field.  The sky was unbearably blue, the flowers, so stunning in their attention to the sky, and the steady cacophony of the bees made this probably one of the highlights of my summer.  We took a bunch of photo's - the favorite being when Anders took a panoramic shot, and passed the camera off to Anna in order to join in the picture.  You can see him hiding behind a sunflower to the right in the second photo posted here. 

The Honey Harvest

 

There are times in life when it's not difficult to feel your good fortune.  This is one of them.  Having neighbors across the street who have honey bees, AND get bee suits that are kids sized, and take the time to teach your kids about keeping bees is just plain old good.  This time the boys got to actually harvest the honey and brought home a jar of it.  I've never seen the boys covet and treasure something like they have this jar of honey. 

Good Friends

to have a good  friend

no better luck in the world

at school, even better

Act Quickly?

I am quite honestly shocked that summer is over.  It has flown by in a way that is indescribable.  I have one day left before I am officially back at school and the boys have five.   HOW is this possible?  I think if you ask them how their summer was they'd have lots of great things to say; they had a great vacation in Maine, they did lots of fun stuff with cousins and friends,  and basically broke the routine of the school year and just played.   They were busy - busy with kid stuff. 

I, on the other hand, feel as if the summer was full of work.  Anna's business got its' legs and is off and running.  This took an enormous amount of work and energy and I was fully engaged with this project.  I also had a few work commitments that interrupted the flow of my summer and soon after it was the slow build up of back to work.  I shouldn't complain, but I sort of feel sad that summer vacation is ending.  I think in a way, I missed having Anna around more.  She was so consumed by work that we as a family didn't quite escape into the luxury of summer the way we usually do.  So here we are, on the brink of a new school year.  Both boys happy to return, and both mom's I think wishing for just a little bit more of that unstructured time for the four of us to enjoy together.  I don't think we have the energy to "act quickly" and pack even more in - but I understand the sentiment and perhaps panic in that statement.  However, I think what is more likely to happen is that we'll make a point to slowly stretch out the summer right into the next school year and possibly even the next season.    

Spotted!

We went for a canoe ride this afternoon and ended up banking the boat at a rocky point on the lake.  We all jumped out, hiked up a set of steps and onto a trail that we happened to find.  Perfect for us, because we all settle in and become more alive in the woods.  In fact, we all love being on a forest trail.  We found lots of treasures including the first green acorns of the season, teeny tiny pine cones, forts that someone else had built out of sticks, large moss covered rocks to climb on, and then WHAM, the boys spotted the best jewel of all; a large barred owl.  If you've never seen one, they are huge.  This one was as big as our largest chicken Freckles, and she is enormous.  The boys were ahead of us on the trail and spotted it as it flew over them.  They first thought it was a hawk but Anders quickly realized it was an owl with a giant wingspan.  The owl landed on a branch above us and then just sat there staring.  We of course all stared back.  It stared for quite a few minutes - and the four of us just stood there wondering just what would happen.  We hooted a bit and the owl pleased all of us by twisting it's head around to listen to our imitation calls.  Then it took off and landed close by again, this time on the other side of the path.  We of course followed it and stood there amazed at it's bravery, curiosity, and willingness to hover so close to four humans.  Simply a beautiful surprise in the middle of this beautiful day. 

Shadow Play

The boys created this shadow piece this morning after noticing the morning light on the floor.

Shadow Play  

Bread

Once I lifted him

no longer than a baguette

exquisitely baked
each day, communion with him  

Killing 2 Birds With One Stone, or What To Do on a Summer Sunday

Early this morning Anna had a conversation with Kuba about what he might want to do today, a beautiful summer Sunday in August.  It's the first one we've had in a while with just the four of us and Anna was gathering ideas.  He had 3 suggestions as follows:  "We could all go to the Granby Zoo in Montreal, or we could all get dressed up fancy with belts and then ask Siri if there is a wedding nearby that we could go to, or we could kill 2 birds with one stone." 

I love this for a few reasons.  The first being that it does seem that whenever we have to go somewhere "fancy" like a wedding,  the boys always need to wear a belt with their dress pants.  It's the only time they ever wear belts, so he must have made a correlation between a formal event and belt wearing.  Additionally, we have had so much fun as a family when we get all dressed up for something special. 

Next, he and Anders and I had a late night conversation last week about idioms and expressions such as "killing 2 birds with one stone," or "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," etc.  It was a fun conversation and I tried hard to think of as many examples as I could, and this one must have stuck.  I am not sure if he understood this one, or if he did, and this was his way of saying that he wanted us to get all dressed up for the zoo, or bring a wild animal to the wedding.  And finally, I find it hysterical that he wanted to ask Siri, our IPhone goddess, where a wedding might be that we could crash as one big, fancy, belt wearing family.  In the end we did none of these suggestions.  Instead we went swimming at Lake George, got ourselves some fabulous sunburn, and ate hot dogs and creemees.   

Usually I determine what to post on this blog, but Anna told me more than once today that I just had to write this conversation down.  I know she thought it was so very funny.  I just keep wondering what the hell he'll be when he's all grown up.