a visit from shell & nate

We had a rootin-and-a-tootin time with my sister Michelle, her husband Nate, and their two beautiful girls, Avery and Keira when they visited us here in Missoula last weekend. We loved every minute of it!

Link and Ike couldn't get enough of their 5-month-old baby cuz; they wanted to hold and play with her. We took a short hike of a Missoula overlook (can you find Yoda in the pic?) These two, 3 months apart in age, have a major love-hate relationship! One minute they'd be pushing each other's buttons and the next they'd be holding hands. Strolling downtown along the Clark Fork River Link was pulling the girls in this wagon around the house We took a trip together up to Glacier National Park and on the way stopped for lunch by the gorgeous Flathead Lake Isaac was sooooo sweet with Baby Keira Cute little fam Camping at Fish Creek. Though we doused ourselves with bug spray, we were eaten alive by mosquitos--mostly on our feet! Clever little critters. . . Doncha love Keira in the football hold? Avalanche Falls. Quite possibly the clearest and bluest water I've ever seen Sticky S'mores! Jed helping Aves and Link on the slushy hike up to Hidden Lake Hidden Lake hike This mama and baby mountain goat didn't fear us at all! They came straight at us. . . they must have wanted our lunch! Keira's small little head! Isn't she pretty? Playing at the Dragon Park Happy Birthday, Aves! Thanks for coming, guys!

my little garden

This is my first honest-to-goodness garden, and believe it or not, it's thriving!

Indulge me here, just a bit, by giving a shout-out to my first ripe tomato. Ah, summer harvest! How I savor this time of year. Tasty daily salads. Little hands combing pea vines for a sugar-snap snack. I wonder how many raspberries will ripen, pink and unscathed, before the kids get to them first? Ha! No better way to get them stoked about local, healthy grubs, I guess. Little herb garden in front

running fools

It's running season, and it's hit (the boys at least) in full force!

Jed was 3rd in a Mountain-to-Meadow half marathon at Lolo Pass

Isaac trained for the Missoula kids marathon where they log 25 of their training miles and run the last 1.2 miles on race day. Way to go, buddy!

Then Jed placed 9th in the Missoula marathon, with a respectable time of 2:52:01. [This just in! We heard that there was likely a--ahem--cheater who jumped in the race somewhere near the end just before Jed. . . which would put Jed in 8th place!] Way to go, sweetie pie!

half birthday

As you may know, we celebrate Isaac's half birthday in lieu of the actual day. It's the best you can do when, as a parent, you resist violently the idea of your child being smothered with gifts over a 2-day period, or the notion that he would have to wait 363 whole days for the two biggest look-forward-to events in his life to be celebrated back-to-back in an overwhelming rush (kind of like this sentence). And let's face it: a birthday just does NOT get celebrated properly when it falls within 48 hours of the biggest overblown holiday in our country. Hence, the half birthday!

(My attempt at a baseball mitt cupcake-cake, in case you were wondering what that is.) After receiving a new storm trooper helmet, the boys went hog wild with it!See what I mean? New Luke Skywalker costume! The birthday party was Star-Wars themed, complete with Jedi tunics for kids who didn't wear costumes. Here the kids are lined up for a Jedi-training obstacle course! And then water balloons to defeat the (sidewalk-chalk sketched) Death Star spaceships. What's a Star Wars party without a little light-saber sparring? Rescuing Han Solo from the Carbonate!

Easy solution for the cake--line cupcakes up as a light saber! Leia Clara, Isaac's cute little friend. This was the first party we've had for Isaac where friends brought gifts. He was stoked! Left, Elena, and Aunty Caitlin! She was a godsend, helping out behind the scenes as Jed and I ran the show (or should I say, flew the Millennial Falcon). Lily and Ike Taeven, Elliot, and Nicholas The kids were visited by a very non-threatening (I am tempted to say "comical") Darth Vader! (Didn't know Darth had such gentle blue eyes or sported such a hip 'fro!)

a gorgeous day for a hike

We saw our first moose in the wild! Wow.

We visited the Bernard DeVoto Memorial Grove on the Idaho/Montana border--a grove of mammoth cedar trees, the oldest in Idaho. Tree "hugging"

the best dad

(written mostly by Ike with a little help from Mom, Paul, and John :)

heart my boys' daddy

mama bear

Today’s weather was absurd. Part of the day was clear and calm while other times the rain torrented down in gusty sideways sheets. It was during the deluge that Isaac’s school bus rumbled up the street to the stop, about four houses away.

Now, maybe this is a bad-mama disclosure, but I sometimes slack off when it comes to watching Isaac walk home (though I’m militant at watching him go to the stop in the morning). But today while the sleeted sheets pounded the house, I dutifully watched the bus come and my kindergartner disembark.

He looked so small. So fragile and umbrella-less. He clutched a blue plastic animal-covered bag that I knew held his special things from being Star of the Week. I hoped he would manage to run home, but he just wandered, disoriented.

I started to tug on my shoes to run out to him. When a voice of reason in me whispered, “Oh, he’ll be okay. It’s only 4 houses down—in fact, it will be 3 or 2 houses by the time you even get to him. He’ll make it on his own.”

But another instinctual voice—what I have come to recognize as my “Mama Bear” voice—overrode it, and I responded to the stronger urge that sprang from my breast to rescue my child.

I finished pulling on my shoes, hastily grabbed our neon yellow Pooh-bear umbrella, and sprinted out in the storm.

He hadn’t made it far. He was still several houses down, slowly making his way bewilderedly against a ferocious headwind.

I reached out my hand with the umbrella first, enveloping him protectively under it, and wrapped my other arm around him. He looked up at me. In his face: bliss. We half-ran together the rest of the way and shook ourselves off on the front step.

Later that night I eavesdropped as Isaac told his dad, “Today when I got off the bus it was raining so hard I couldn’t even see. And I was getting so wet! So I cried out to Mommy to come help me. And guess what. She came!”

Then he turned to me. “Did you hear me, Mommy?”

rite of passage

Isaac--in the most serious, non-joking way--just had to document what happened on our hike yesterday to Link (with a little help from Dad):

Oh, to be a boy. The world is your urinal!