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We found some friends here in Iowa! Jet and Esme had fun tending the fire with their sisters, Onyx and Catherine. Us parents chatted not too far off. A great end to a long day on the road!
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Day two of our road trip finds the girls discovering the joys of fireflies!
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This morning we said goodbye to our little home for the past seven weeks- but not after a marathon morning of packing and cleaning. All the work tuckered Esme out, as you can see!
There are some other folks coming in to enjoy this sweet little cottage, so in addition to packing for the trip, we had to pack the remainder of our things into our storage unit. For a family that tries to keep control of how much we own, I am always surprised at just how many things creep back into our lives!
There is a good chance that we will be spending some more time here as the summer rolls along, but for now it is sayonara to Blue Note note and hello to the open road!
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Everyone wants to order at Sonic!
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I rounded the corner at the library only to find this example of how at-home Catherine feels at the BPL.
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On Monday evening, an optimist never sees Saturday’s unfinished to-do list as a failure. It is simply a head start on Tuesday’s.
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Tonight I am thankful for the makeshift village that pops up from time to time and helps us raise our children.
Especially when those particular village members are fishing-folk and are willing to include our would be anglers in their activity.
(‘Cause I provide quite a wide variety of activities, but fishing just isn’t my thing!)
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During a mostly snowless winter in 2011-12, Catherine mastered her two wheeler. She was confident and excited about riding, and during last spring and early summer she did a fair amount of riding.
And then it happend, her first big spill. The fall brought about skinned knees, wailing, gnashing of teeth and a promise of “I am never riding on hills again!” It also made her very hesitant to ride her bike at all. I was able to coax her onto the tag-a-long, but for the rest of the summer and fall she flat out refused to ride on her own.
As this spring turned to summer I was anxious to get her back on wheels. It is a perfect situation for cycling. Our current neighborhood is a perfect place for a girl on her bike to explore. As a cyclist myself, I really wanted to help her enjoy riding so I put the bikes on the 3 bike car rack and looked for places to start riding. (Isn’t that how most parents feel about passing on their passions to their kids?!)
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been bringing C’s bike and E’s trike over to Bradley Palmer State Forest to ride. The long paved road, with gentle hills has been great for building her confidence back up. Tonight, Catherine I and went on a longer ride through the park and we passed the spot where she crashed last year. After she passed it without issue I mentioned it and commented that she hadn’t even had a problem. Her face lit up with the realization of it and we continued on. Bless my Mama’s heart!
And as if that wasn’t good enough, as we headed back toward the car a little voice from the bike next to mine said, “I wish we could go riding together more often, Mama!” To which the only response can be, of course, “I think we can make that happen, kiddo!”
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And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald