Summer, don't leave!

It has been too long. And I now have two birthdays to report and it seems that birthdays is all I do on this blog. At least we have a birthday break and I can hopefully be more artistic or sentimental or something.

Lily turned eleven. Gasp. This year for her birthday she wanted her own room. She and Canyon have been sharing a room since he was born and I guess she decided that the man cave, which was creeping out from below the bunk bed into the bedroom proper, was getting a leetle to manly (read: gross boy stuff). So we gave her the guest room, which is a bonus because now we can’t have guests. Sorry. (Ok, she said she’d go back to Canyon’s room for very special people). The rest of you can sleep in the barn.

So I spent the few months before her birthday making a quilt and gathering ‘stuff’ to make a perfect girl room. Those things included quilt, pillows, new dresser, clean closet, and her books. Then I sent the two of them away for the weekend and we flurried about and switched rooms. They came home to new rooms and big grins.

A view of Lily's new room.

For her actual birthday we had homemade angel food cake again, which is becoming quite popular here.

Lily’s pretty independent. She still loves to read, she’ll ride her bike all over town to get to her friend’s houses, swim practice or the library. She plays with her sisters and helps me whenever she can. She still doesn’t like to practice piano though. What’s up with that? Seriously, any tricks—cause I’m about to give up. And, we love her. This year she’s starting middle school and so everyone, and I do mean everyone, please cross your fingers that we can have a smooth transition into the teen years? Please?

Lily and her angel food cake.

Now Alice.

Alice’s obsession from space and Star Wars has turned to the ocean and mermaids. She and Jane spend their waking hours doing mermaid swims at the pool and the lake. For her birthday she wanted a mermaid party. So…as you can see from the cake, we kinda copped out with the clip art. But hey, we hung paper circles from the ceiling and told her they were bubbles. I know, I should be on Martha Stewart.

The 'mermaid' cake and cupcakes.

Alice with her cake.

Alice is my best helper. She keeps track of all her things and loves to tidy her room. Seriously. It’s going to be tricky the next few years because we’re starting to learn that Jane doesn’t have the same ‘neat’ tendencies and they’ll be sharing a room for a long time. Yikes! She is very sweet to her sister, to a fault, as Jane is growing up believing that everyone should treat her as well as Alice does. She loves to do her homework and read books about Princess Leia and mermaids.

She did swim team this year and was amazing. She’s a real trooper and never complained and really improved her swimming abilities. We’re really proud of her.

Even though Jane & Alice's quilt isn't finished, we still cleaned up their room.

Alice almost cried when she saw how organized it was. My little OCD, love that!

We are doing other things this summer too, besides celebrating birthdays which include, but aren’t limited to: swim team, riding bikes, hiking, swimming at Bear Lake with cousins, swimming at Del Valle (our lake), reading, cleaning out bedrooms, going to camps, going camping, sleeping on the trampoline, eating at In-N-Out, and trying to survive the ginormous squash that are taking over the garden.

In short, summer is very busy and I’m not ready to see it go. We’re stretching it out as long as possible!

Happy Summer!

Raspberries

We spent the morning picking raspberries. I used to send the kids to do it on their own, but they always came back with a pitiful amount of berries and the excuse that they had picked all they could. I went with them this time to motivate them. We came back with a fair amount. More than usual. Jane was scared of the berry bushes for some reason and spent the whole hour asking Lily ‘why aren’t you scared?’

Picking the berries reminds me of my grandma. She had raspberry bushes too. I remember her dining room window overlooking the berries and plenty of hummingbird sightings with a white crock of raspberry jam for our toast shining in the middle of the table.

It was strange I was thinking about this because Canyon suddenly said:

“You know what’s funny about your mom’s family?”

“What.”

“Your mom’s name is four letters (Dona), her mom’s name is four letters (Idon), and her mom’s name is four letters (Erma).”

I guess the raspberries have this ‘Idon effect’ on more than just me. Canyon’s never met Grandma Idon or seen her berry bushes—but suddenly he was thinking of her as he thoughtfully squished the berries between his teeth.

Neglect

I can’t believe that summer is almost over. We have been busy, of course, and aren’t quite ready for school to start again. First we had a wonderful Reeder family reunion in the Tetons and then we sent Lily off to Spain. While she was in Spain, swimming in the Mediterranean, we were at swim team and swimming in the pool everyday. Then after she got home (more on Spain later) we all went on our annual camping trip to Tahoe. Mixed in there we had girls’ camp and Alice’s birthday. Really, the pictures are going to have to tell it all for me. I don’t have Tahoe pictures yet, those are forthcoming:

The kids enjoying the cold water at Phelp's Lake in the Tetons.

Our whole family on a hike. Jane was big enough to do the hikes, but wasn't very happy about it!

Swimming at the pool everyday. Canyon had swim team and Alice and Jane 'practiced.' By the end of the summer Alice's ready for swim team and Jane's 'swimming all by myself mama!'

Sparklers on the fourth. We had a great time even though Lily was in Spain. She had plenty of Celebrating to do when Spain won the world cup. Ole!

What We've Been Doing.

Not necessarily in this order:



Playing Little House in the Prairie with our BFF Amy.

Playing with our new chickens Gabriella and Zena and our new baby chicks. This one is Princess Leia.

Playing outside.

Folding Laundry.

Eating cupcakes with our cousins at Baby Luke and Leia's baby shower. (a.k.a. Elise & Isaac's twins)

Alice & I on a trip to Logan for said baby shower. We had a wonderful and amazing time.

This is candy for those of you who didn't recognize it.

Enjoying the garden. I guess all that work was worth it.

The first day of school--it wasn't as painful as I thought. Actually it was pretty painless.

Enjoying our new chicken coop that our summer teenager, Jed, built. Jed was the best helper, au' pair, babysitter, chicken coop builder and golf cart wrecker we have ever had!
Canyon, on seeing the chicken coop: "Mom, I was thinking about the coup and I think it's good that it's camouflage because I think that a fox will come over here and think, 'Oh, there's just a little forest over there.' and then leave without eating the chickens."
I don't know if that's how it went down but we haven't lost a chicken since even though I have seen a fox lurking about the property.

We are happily settling into schedules but miss our summer days and especially summer nights. I guess though, in retrospect, summer wouldn't be so special if we didn't have school to attend to all the rest of the year.

A Midsummer Night's Dream.

While summer is quickly soaring by and all the regrets of things left undone are settling in, there is, at least one thing that we’ve accomplished this year. A summer tradition arching way back into time to the summers of my youth that Lily and Canyon have whole-heartedly embraced: sleeping outside on the trampoline. It only took one night a few weeks ago to get them hooked and we haven’t looked back, they have slept out there nearly every night since. I’ve been more than a little impressed as we’ve had a coldish summer so far and the fog bank reaches our house most nights which means that it’s cold. It hasn’t stopped them and I keep explaining that it’ll be even better when we actually have a warm night. After the first few nights of sleeping out there, Canyon promptly told me:

“Mom, I think the big dipper is going to stay. I’ve been watching it for the past few nights and it hasn’t even moved. It’s probably going to stay at our house for a while.”

Yes. The big dipper isn’t going anywhere. So they trudge out there every night with arms loaded with sleeping bags, pillows, flashlights and books. We go out with them and watch the meteor showers and sometimes even cheat while naming the planets and stars with my new iphone ap: My Universe. How very unromantic, I know.

So it was one of these nights, out there, while laying under the stars that I told them about Shakespeare. We just happen to live backed-up to a vineyard and out past our eucalyptus tree across the acres of tidy green rows of grapes is the white vineyard ‘castle house’ where fairyland exists. We have often been enraptured with the vineyard. We sometimes walk there in the evenings and ‘trespass’ by the green and manicured tasting lawns and marvel at the restored 100-year-old Victorian “castle house.” But this year, this year—fairyland is actually there—and we didn’t even have to imagine it. Oberon, Titania, Puck and others have been frequenting the vineyard—every weekend from 7:30-10:00 for an excessive fee. While we didn’t have it in us (or in our pockets) to actually attend this backyard Shakespeare festival—we would lay on the trampoline and listen to the applause and laughter of the obviously delighted audience. I explained who Shakespeare was to the kids and promised them that next year I would take them. But somehow, as we lay there at 10:30 all snuggled up in sleeping bags and exclaiming at meteors—and we heard the cheering for the final curtain call, I realized that we’re not quite ready—eyelids already drooping and something just as magical, if that’s even possible, as Shakespeare’s play: a real midsummer night’s dream.