Back to School!

3rd Grade, 7th Grade (gulp)
and 2nd year Preschool!


and the fabulous Miss Bell!

28 things about summer 2009

this year was the summer of...

1. braids

2. iced jasmine green tea/no coffee

3.gardening

4. few headaches

5. only one book read aloud to mac and emmett...Eragon (vs. the 20 books read aloud last year)
but lots of books read to Silas!

6. making the couch into a giant pillow slide

7. evening beach, daytime pool

8. lots of vegetables from the garden (didn't buy one tomato, green bean, lettuce or zucchini or cucumber!)

9. silas potty trained and preschooled

10. facebook, still not sure how I feel about this...

11. cousins really loving eachother, baby FEEEEEE!

12. yoga

13. mui tai (sp? forgive me matt!)

14. the staycation to beat all

15. "playing for change"- the whole family loves it!

16. more chores for the kids. they are not too happy about this.

17. Tobeys 19th hole restaurant.

18. Zarina being free and then lost and then found and then free again

19. peaches and nectarines (last three years it was watermelon!)

20. mac and emmett lounging in different positions all over the house

reading reading reading

21. doomed tuesdays (always hit crowds or traffic)
22.new piano teacher in OB, new guitar teacher too
23.the "trip" to Palm Springs
24.the ZOO! and wild animal park! (again)
25. the stingray attack on Mac! but then surfing!
26.the sound of Mac on guitar accompanied by Emmett on piano, priceless!
27.dungeons and dragons
28.silas jumping off something saying "to infinity and beyond!"

This was the summer I got to stay home with a 2 year old, 8 year old and 11 year old
and it was unexpected, difficult at times and great.

There will never be another one like it! And I guess I am ready .... now, on to Autumn!

The Finger Gym

Emmett made Matt a "finger gym" for his birthday. Yes, a place where ones fingers can work out. Matt loves it.




(also need to mention Mac's completely heart-melting present for papa...a handmade book with pictures of them together and .....Silas' made him a colored paper airplane...)

Happy Birthday Mattie!!

We love you sooooooooooooooooo much!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo

did I mention superheroes?

here silas is "super naked with his wingspan" (his words) you may need to click to

enlarge for full fabulous effect!!

he could jump off things all day, but likes it best with his partner in crime fighting, RY!

They take their roles very seriously!

Surf Lesson#1

Megan's girlfriend Crys is teaching Mac and Emmett to surf!
They both had so much fun and, of course, want surf boards.....
I love these series of pictures Megan took of Emmetts turn!




And here goes Mac! She stood up for 10 seconds!


And here's Megan looking beachy!!

Thank you for such a great day!

Muy Thai Camp

Spent three hours at my gym's Muy Thai Camp with teacher Scotty Dingas!

last days of summer...

too hot to go outside...but there's nothing better than free time.

before babies and gardens, before pottery, before africa, before matt...

....before walden, before new york and san francisco.....when I was just a kid (only a bit
older than Mac!!!!)... I was a ballerina bunhead and these people were like family

and dancing was my whole world!! Seems forever ago and yesterday, of course.

I dug up these photos today along with a letter I wrote to myself (15 pages) when I was 14 years old.... about the state of my life in 1985 and the people in it.
What a time that was!

I gotta say this facebook thing is tripping me out a little bit. I feel very pulled in every direction
with all these memories from 4 very different times in my life...all of them incredible and different. If I were to go to a reunion or revisit a childhood home it would be different. One "era" at a time. But in 3 days I have covered the key players in all decades.
Weird.
Fun but definitely weird.
(I am even revisiting 14 year old vocabulary. ;)

And I have to say I am really impressed with all that is going on in the lives of these

people NOW. Really incredible people.

HI Facebook Friends from the Past.

I have taken the plunge and already found many long lost friends.

(and spent way to much time messing around in front of this

glowing rectangle!)

It's great to reconnect with you Eva, Melissa, Damion, Sean, Dawn!

Here is an updated, latenight, no make-up, keep it real photo for y'all.

Signing off, finally, and good night!

growth!

artichoke blossom!

baby pumpkin!

caterpillar on the dill that will turn into a swallowtail
butterfly!

An old one but a gooooood one!...

...check out Mac's long hair! I think Mac was 8 and Emmett 5 here.

exclusively for craig (by emmett)

D&D!! we have started to play (well we started our characters we have not started the
role playing yet).
My character is a human ranger named Regdar Axelheart. I surely fit the ranger category because I have crazy abilities such as navigator and blind fighting.
Mom's character is named Fig Fallenstar, shes a human theif.(she has 18 dexterity. dang its gonna be hard to hit her.)
Mac's is Ave Hornblade. She is a human fighter with 18 strength (holy cow)
Pop's Dungeon Master.








A little story, by Emmett.
"ah what a refreshing island i am going to stab it to inflict damage just for
the heck of it" said the idiotic dude (stab) "rowwr" said the island "oh my gosh i just stabbed a zaratan." (swallow) moral: make sure the island your standing on is not a zaratan

om shanti shanti shanti

Cami,
I wish you were here to take this yoga class with me.
Today the teacher told the story about ..."a woman climbing a rope with tigers
down below her and tigers on the cliff above her and a mouse
nibbling on the rope...she looks up, she looks down... then she sees, in a
crevice in the rock next to her, a patch
of wild strawberries.
Without much else to do she eats a perfect wild strawberry and smiles."

Then our teacher says that we should think of the tigers as what we all
face yet fear everyday and the mouse as time ticking away and the strawberries
as the happiness in the now.
Then she tells us to let this guide our practice and let go of our tigers for the NOW.

So...Later, after chatteranga-ing my butt off, sweaty and all vibratey, she says
to get into "happy baby" pose...my mind drifts to all the "tigers" in my life and of course
"the strawberries" too and "the mouse" and she says ....
"surrender, we are going to be here for a while."
(tears, tears)

When yoga is all-encompassing like this, stories, sounds, breathing, work, rest,
thoughts, feelings, pure physicality...
I love yoga.

Farm-Pool-Drums-Zoo-Toddlers-Knitting-Paints-Beach-Love-Zucchini-Cousins-Summer

I think this past week was the very best.
I'll never forget it!