Independence Day

Time regained, a special family weekend

On Friday morning we packed up and drove to the west side of the state with Jon's parents for a family reunion of sorts with Jon's dad's family, fully intending to come home Saturday morning. Two days at the beach and two barbecue dinners later, we rolled into our own garage late Sunday evening. The unexpected, the unplanned, can be fun and exciting, and we were having such a great time, and such great weather, that we just couldn't bring ourselves to leave.

Perhaps one of the greatest things about this trip, besides the hours spent enjoying the waters of Lake Michigan, was the time spent with family that Jon remembers only from childhood, I remember only briefly from our wedding, and Calvin remembers not at all. The Ophoffs are a large family and spread all over, so to gather almost all of the siblings (for Jon the aunts and uncles) in one place for a weekend is a special event, and we spent precious time gathered in kitchens and sitting rooms talking, for some of us reacquainting, and ahhing over babies and children.

It's hard to believe, but for all the very valuable time spent in those gathering places of the home, I have almost no pictures of enjoying the people, only of enjoying the environment. On our first night there we attending the 87th birthday party of Jon's great uncle, the event that was ultimately responsible for the weekend. Tag, bubbles, and Popsicles with second, third, even fourth cousins, barbecue, cake, candles, and a belted kingfisher catching fish in the lake below.

On our second day we went to the Grand Haven State Park and staked out our towel spot with umpteen other beachgoers, who graciously left and gave us more space an hour later when the clouds started rolling in. Clouds didn't stop us from swimming and building with sand, and they lifted later as we walked along the lighthouse and pier.

This is a location from Jon's childhood. I've seen pictures of him as a boy on this very beach and along this very pier. How appropriate that I'm reading Proust these days, because these are things once lost in time, and are now found again.

Grand Haven has a quaint main street of shops (and a tiny museum) that drew us to town after dinner, and sent us home with a dragon puppet and a book about blacksmiths (because every vacation, no matter how impromptu, deserves a souvenir). And our second night in the welcoming home of Jon's aunt and uncle was again spent giggling with family over summer snacks and glasses of chilled white wine after the kids were in bed.

Impromptu is impromptu, and the next morning, about when we intended to be headed for home, Jon was on the phone canceling his two afternoon piano lessons while Calvin (successfully) lobbied for a second trip to the beach. He came to me at the achievement of this success and declared triumphantly that we were indeed going to the beach and that everyone was coming "even Aunt Karen and...and...the other man!" and that is why we were there, because these, Jon's aunt and uncle, are people Calvin had never met, but after a weekend of introductions he found them special enough to include in his conquest, and maybe he can even learn their names and to become comfortable with them.  The beach was fun, but it was the time with these people that was most notable from the weekend.

And now we're home. Being away for two days, by surprise, and having no internet access has left me feeling a little off, as far as time is concerned, and Jon staying home on a Monday is going to leave me even more confused. I feel as though we've been gone for a week, and yet I've lost days in my mind as well. We are home now, the pictures are edited, the time catalogued in the mind, then tomorrow is another holiday, another day of celebration.

Weekend fun—Father's Day edition

The garage sale is over and life can return to its normal fast pace. When the sale ended yesterday we were surprisingly left with only three small boxes of leftovers, one of which went to the basement, for sentimental or practical purposes, while the other two were eventually spread between a handful of Freecycle users. And the guest room at our house now actually has a bed in it—a real bed not a sofa bed—so people should come visit us now (but not too often if you want me to get any sewing done in there).

A weekend should be full of fun and adventrue so yesterday, at Calvin's request, he and his dad started another science experiment, this one about bacteria and fungi. I watched the boys swab Ollie's mouth and Calvin's mouth during a break in garage sale doings. That's an experiment that will take all week and we'll be visiting our growing friends every day.

And this weekend we celebrate dads everywhere. I should have something more profound to say about dads and father's day because I've been fortunate in my lifetime to be surrounded by men who are wonderful fathers, but I just hope they all know how very beautiful that role is in life, and how very important. My own dad is in Chicago and Jon's was busy as well so it ended up being a (delightful) party of just the three of us. A party of three that moved furniture, weeded gardens, played in the sprinkler, blew bubbles, and had a camping style dinner. With the fire pit finished and no need to drag it all out to the driveway every time we use it, I think we'll be enjoying fires more often. Tonight we roasted sausages, apples, and carrots for dinner, then finished it off with s'mores. Then we watched the birds play in the newly weeded garden while we waited for the bats to come out, and enjoyed a bedtime story by the fire as well.

And that brings our weekend to a close. It felt long, and we accomplished much. That's the best kind of weekend. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

Birthday party, Oz style

Calvin's birthday party was last night, the party we've been planning together, he and I, for a couple of weeks now. My favorite part of the whole thing was his interest and enthusiasm for every step of the planning, and his enthusiasm didn't wane on the day of as he was handing out hats and glasses left and right, and eagerly eying the presents on their way in. Though he is gaining friends in our neighborhood I am still avoiding the big birthday bashes that are so common in our time and our party was limited to family, which kept it small and enjoyable. This will be a short post, after a long day, but I wrote about the party details here.

Just follow the yellow brick road...

The Wizard will greet you at the door.

Camera on timer, not so in focus, but still a family photo of Munchkins, Quadlings, Winkies, Gilikins, the Wizard (Calvin) and Ozma (me). Many of these details, like the hats and the glasses, will make sense only to those who have read the original series, but they're fun even if you haven't.

I didn't get a picture of it (I have no idea why) but he was ecstatic upon opening a set of Magic Tree House books, the next four that he hasn't read. Surrounded by packages unopened and toys already unboxed it was wonderful to see him get so excited about those books. We have made a point of giving books as gifts for every occasion and he not only expects them now, but gets very excited. When he received money from my godmother this time and was asked what he wanted he readily supplied the title of the next book in the Oz series.

Dinner at the Emerald City.

The cake and the characters on it (part of our gift to Calvin) will again make the most sense to someone who has read the series. Calvin did a lot of explaining at this party. You can read a little more about these fun characters here and here.

Looks like summer

Again I have not much more to share than pictures. We've spent two days working in the gardens again, plus some reading and some games and some usual, usual stuff. In the garden we raised our vegetable gardens further, added more dirt, marked them off by the square foot, and planted them. That took some of yesterday and much of this afternoon. In other news I worked the book sale this morning (and came home with nothing remarkable) and we went to the Dexter Ice Cream Social after, where Calvin enjoyed the bounce house, the ponies, the ice cream, and we all enjoyed a hay ride. I love our little village. And we have a new vintage/antiques store. We stopped in on our way to the car after the social (and before we got home and gardened in the 90 degree heat) and Calvin was having such a great time admiring all the stuff (where did he learn to do that???) that the owner told us to be sure and bring him back because "he might have the gene," by which I assume he is referring to a retro-loving gene, but I'm not entirely sure.

There wasn't much else to the day, but the evening held a visit from gram and grandpa (who seem to know automatically when we will be exhausted from yard/house work and need not only food but also good company) and an inaugural run for the fire pit. It works. It even makes s'mores.

Beware the s'more monster. He has a chocolate face and beady eyes and because we're up late he's not getting enough sleep. That, after all, is what summer is for.

And the garden is almost done, although we still have more room. We are still on a squash and broad leaf planting break thanks to the squash bugs that got us two years ago (everything I've read said wait three years before trying again), but we've filled our plots with a variety of tomatoes, some peppers (purple peppers!), broccoli, cauliflower, chard, eggplant, and beans. Tomorrow we're headed out to chose other (or more of the same) for the remaining plots. This is our first year with square foot gardening, which you can see we are not following squarely, since you are not supposed to have the same food in abutting squares and our tomatoes are abutting all over the place, but it's a learning process, and we're going to learn this year just how important that spacing really is (although the trial and error method is a bad one here since results depend on other outside variables). Here's hoping for good crops this year.