Sometimes still a sweet, little girl

Yesterday I decided at the last minute to go to a concert at Wolf Trap (Don Henley...it was SO great!), so I needed to let the kids know I wouldn't be home after work. Amy FaceTimed me and we chatted for a while on the evening's plans. When we were signing off, she kissed her phone to tell me goodbye. 

Sometimes she can still be that same, sweet little girl! 

Letting the kids be themselves

As the kids are growing up, they're figuring out who they are, and I'm figuring out how to let them do that. For instance, when I took Amy back to school shopping, I realized that she really doesn't have any interest in being particularly "in style" - she just wants to wear black leggings and a graphic t-shirt. Couldn't even talk her into other colors of leggings, or maybe leggings with a pattern to them. These are the shirts she picked out. You could argue the one on the left is stylish (the plaid button-up), and it is....but she wore the Batman shirt on the right underneath it. She likes the things she likes (Harry Potter, and a new-ish obsession with super heroes), even if others around her aren't into the same things. (She'd also really love to find a friend who's into the same things she is, though.) She's comfortable with who she is, and that is so very very awesome.

I found this in Kohls when he was
shopping with me, and he said he'd
wear it. If he hadn't been there...
not so sure.

And Reed. I used to be able to buy him shirts with funny sayings on them, and he loved wearing them. No more. Now, he'll still wear a shirt like that, but only if he's picked it out. Wanda bought him a few silly shirts for back to school, and he will not wear them. I guess he really wants to only express his own sense of humor....fair enough!

TWO middle schoolers!

The summer has felt both long and short to me. We had so many camps to juggle for Amy, it felt like every week was really busy. Of course Reed did a whole lot of nothing, but that's a different story.

After vacation, we had a few more days at home to relax and get ready for BACK TO SCHOOL!

Of course we did our annual tradition of having breakfast for dinner the night before school starts, complete with name and grade pancakes. (P.S. wouldn't it be great if one day Reed and Amy have their own kids and continue this tradition?!)

Amy was well prepared for middle school after attending the "Lion's Leap" orientation, but she was still pretty nervous for the first day – excited, but nervous. It's a big adjustment, going to a block schedule, with "A" days and "B" days, plus two lockers (one regular one, one for PE), lots of new kids and all new teachers. Reed was nonchalant about starting eighth grade - middle school is old hat for him. Honestly, though, I think even he was ready to start school again.

Hope it's a great year for both of them!

Good times out west

We got back last night from a long overdue visit out west. We stayed with Grandpa Larson in Spearfish, SD, for six days, and in that time we drove nearly 1,100 miles. Keith's got a great condo (really it's a small house, I'd say, since it's not attached to any other condos) with two bedrooms and two bathrooms - we were very comfortable there (Reed slept on a cot in the garage! he was happy to have his own space, I think).

On the first day, we had a great surprise when Martha showed up with her granddaughters Harmony and Dalila, who we'd never met. We also got to visit with Pete and Nubby, plus their son Jeff and his family (who were in town from MN). Then we went up to the cabin that Keith helped his brother Pete to build, up on a hill outside of town. The boys all go up there in the evenings and have a few beers. It's a great spot! Kenny's son Sam came to town in the afternoon, on his way home from Texas where he had a summer internship, back to college. We went to town to see the shop where Martha sells the clothes she makes, and then visited the fish hatchery.

The next day, the weather was cruddy (like 55 degrees and rainy) but we made our way to Mount Rushmore. Afterward, Sam and Keith headed back to Spearfish and we hung around for a while. Tod and the kids did a ropes course / zip line park. Reed started strong, but halfway through got to a part where you basically walked on a wire...and he was out. There was a less-than-cool extraction via ladder. We aren't going to talk about that much. LOL. Amy and Tod continued on and did a couple of more courses, and suprisingly, Reed decided to do the main zip line thing - it was so long and so high! I could hardly believe it. It was pretty cool to see. I got videos of that and of Amy and Tod doing the shorter zip lines that were part of the ropes courses.

The next day, we drove to Gillette, Wyoming, to visit Tod's nephew Derek's family. We got to see Derek's oldest son Larson (age 10) play his first football game of the season. Then we hung out at Derek's place for a while, where we were joined by Tod's sister Jennifer (over from Billings) and then Martha too when she got off work. It was really fun to get to see where they live and get to know their kids (Larson, Tensley and Blaine) a little bit. Tod taught the older kids to make para-cord bracelets too - hopefully they'll remember that!

The next day, we drove basically back almost to Gillette again. Stopped at Devil's Tower on the way, which is an amazing national monument. We walked its circumference and then headed to Keyhole Dam for some water sports. Derek has a boat and tubes, so there were several boat rides. Martha brought her kayak, which Blaine in particular loved. Amy and Harmony enjoyed just floating in the water. The spot was quiet and uncrowded - we nearly had it to ourselves. Martha cooked a "low country boil" on a propane grill, and we had watermelon and cookies and a general good time!

The selfie stick really came in handy!

The next day we drove through Ekalaka, stopping at the cemetery and driving through town, on our way to Baker to visit with Kathleen. It's been quite a while since we've seen her, and she's had a really rough go of it. I know she was really happy to get to spend a little time with all of us - we had a nice lunch together. Jed was there as well, and joined us for lunch, then showed us around some of the concrete jobs he's done around town.

For our last day, we had a visit to the High Plains Western Heritage Center, where Keith volunteers. It was neat to see a different kind of local history than we see here in Virginia. Well the backlighting isn't so helpful in this photo at right, but here's Keith and Tod with a buggy like the one Keith and his siblings would ride to and from school in, bringing the day's water for the school with them. Wild!

And of course most days included Skip-Bo, as tradition dictates!

An all-around terrific trip, even if a bit exhausting!

It's good to be the parents of the big kids

This past weekend, we finally got to officially welcome Nikki AtLee to our family as she and Stevie married! Hooray!

One of the best parts of our wedding weekend at the hotel with family was that somehow through the magic of the passage of time, we are the parents of the Big Kids. You know, the kids who can help out with the little kids. The ones that you can let go visiting in the hotel lobby or in another room. How amazing is that!? It was great. And as if we wouldn't have appreciated that enough on its own, we also got those first-hand reminders of how very intense life with babies and kids under age 3 is. It is exhausting even just to watch! Our kids had a lot of fun with Kyla and Mitchell, and maybe even more fun with Sierra, Colton, Crosby and Jay IV (Aly is practically a grown-up, so I'm not counting her as a kid anymore). I realize this is the last big family event that we'll all travel to together – the last of the Mitchell kids to get married, and they've all graduated college. That's a little bittersweet. But hopefully there will still be trips to the river, and maybe even vacations to new places too.    

What just happened?!

It's 9:07 a.m. and Reed just woke up.

I can't begin to explain how unprecedented this is. I think he's maybe never in his entire 13.5 years slept that late. I was actually sitting her thinking I should check on him in case he was sick, or in case he'd snuck out during the night! He is generally up by 7:15 at the latest, even now in the summer time. We keep thinking that whole "teenagers sleep late" thing will kick in, but not so far. Maybe other teenagers don't have a 10 p.m. bedtime.

When he walked out of his room, he was totally disoriented and asking if the world had gone mad. He woke up and wondered why it was so bright outside. Weird how that works when you sleep 2-3 hours later than you usually do!

Well here's something new

Amy decided on Sunday to try being a vegetarian. So far, five days in, she's sticking with it. I don't think any one thing prompted it, but she's trying it on for size. We'll see how long it lasts!