by Heather Plett | Aug 20, 2008 | Uncategorized
Tomorrow (barring any more delays involving trailer lights that prevent us from driving in the dark) we will be home. Tonight I’m still fighting for computer time in a hotel room with my computer-deprived family.
For a little preview of part of our vacation, you can check out the lovely slideshow on my sister-in-law’s blog. They shared half of our vacation with us (on the west coast, if you haven’t figured that out by now), and I contributed a few of the pictures to the show. (Between my brother and I, we have every interesting moment digitally documented.)
I’ll try to write more soon, when my index finger heals. (We nearly burned down the tent last night, with our children – and us – inside. In the end, the only casualties were my most-used finger and an air mattress we hoped to spend the rest of the night on. Oh – and the cord connecting the battery to my husband’s CPAP machine. It was a little scary.)
I just realized I mentioned the only 2 negatives on this vacation. Trust me, I’d have a hard time coming up with anything else negative.
More soon.
by Heather Plett | Jul 26, 2008 | Uncategorized
Without knowing the other one was doing it, these two simultaneously got buzz cuts.
My sunglasses are not nearly as cool as my daughter’s! But at least I have a cool hat.
by Heather Plett | Jul 25, 2008 | Uncategorized
We went camping this past weekend. On every trip to the bathroom or the beach, and every time my young niece wanted to go for a walk or my daughter wanted to go for a bike ride, we would stop along the path to pick plump purple wild saskatoons. They were delicious. (If you’ve never had them, they’re a little like blueberries, but they grow in trees instead of small bushes close to the ground.) Other than an unfortunate encounter with a bee, the girls enjoyed the opportunity to pillage the woods. What was almost second nature to me – to pluck a ripe fruit out of the bush along the path – was rather novel for them.
Though I’m not planning to move out of the city any time soon, some days I lament the fact that my children have so little opportunity to enjoy things in the wild. I spent many of the summers of my childhood looking for wild things. In the Spring, we hunted through last year’s grass to try to spot the first fuzzy purple crocus to poke its way to the surface. A little later in the season, we’d wander the fields looking for wild tiger lilies or bright orange cowslips. Along our driveway, the bush was lavishly dotted with soft pink wild roses. Those were a little more tricky to pick, though, because of the thorns. We felt especially lucky when we’d stumble on wild ladyslippers in the cattle pasture – but we always heeded the warning of my older brother who said that those should NOT be picked because they were becoming endangered.
Then there were the fruits of the wild – chokecherries along the path to the barn, wild raspberries along “raspberry lane” where we’d ride our bikes to the field to bring dad his lunch, wild saskatoons, and occasionally – when we were lucky – wild strawberries.
Wild animals were mostly for looking at (like the wild beaver that inexplicably made its way to our dugout, miles from a stream or river), but occasionally even those were fair game for the capture. I remember standing at the base of a tree where my older brothers had instructed me to guard a raccoon while they went back to the farmyard for a box. I shirked my duties, though, when the raccoon started coming down the tree – I think I beat my brothers to the farmyard.
My kids are completely “citified” (wow – spell check says that’s a word!). Almost everything they come into contact with is domesticated or tame. Fruit only comes from the store (with a few exceptions, like the raspberry bushes at their grandparents’ house); and flowers are either planted in the flower beds, bought at the florist, or mowed over with the lawnmower. And wild creatures? Well, you should see the way they react to bugs that get in the car! Oy veh!
by Heather Plett | Jul 18, 2008 | Uncategorized
When I get home from work these days, Maddie likes to talk. And talk. Incessantly. We go for a bike ride – she talks. I do laundry – she talks. I wash the supper dishes – she talks. I try to get her to go to bed – she talks.
Yesterday she was telling me about a show she’d watched with her sisters. I think it’s called Wife Swap? (Where 2 women switch homes for a week.) Apparently one of the families lived a rather chaotic and crazy lifestyle and liked pretending they were pirates. The other family was much more structured and organized and the wife and daughter were more into girlie things.
I asked her “so… if I were to switch with another mom for a week, what kind of woman would you want it to be?”
“Well,” she said, and thought about it for awhile. “Someone kinda organized, but still a lot of fun.” And then she smiled. “Just like you.”
Good answer.
by Heather Plett | Jul 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
Another great weekend is behind us. We danced, we ate whales’ tails, we listened to good music, we tried to hide from the rain, we dreamed about buying funky (but too expensive) clothes from the handmade village, we wandered, we mused, we got muddy, we talked to friends, we people-watched, we pointed out all the old regulars, we reminisced about the over 20 years of history we’d seen in this place, we shared moments with our offspring who’ve attended every year of their lives… aaahhhh, we had fun. It’s always such a let-down to see it end.
Just a few memories to hang onto as we go through withdrawal… (As you can see, we enjoyed a wide variety of weather.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykRwpsLb3mA]
