Our little ones love to fish.  They just can't get enough.  The grandparents bought a lot of crickets this trip.  Jacob even caught his first fish this summer.  Will share more shots this coming week.

I'll dream in melody...

The third time must be the charm.  We finally made it to see Alison Krauss and Union Station last night in Tahoe.  We've tried to see them in the past but one show was cancelled due to weather and another because of an illness.  It was so worth the wait.  What amazing talent and my favorite concert in years.  A band called "Good Old War" opened the show.  They were a ton of fun too.  It was a beautiful evening for an outdoor concert and Doug and I had such a great time.

The Arrow and The Song

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Lauren and her PawPaw spent a lot of time on the phone making big plans for our Alabama visit.  They planned to wrestle alligators, catch birds and coons, shoot rifles and arrows, and go fishing.  They managed to accomplish pretty much all of it during our stay.  They wrangled an alligator they named Gobbler, caught and released a raccoon, went fishing, shot balloons and soda cans with a BB gun, and spent hour after hour "practicing" with Lauren's very own bow and arrow set PawPaw bought for her.  She seemed to be a real natural and got better and better as the week went on.  No matter how hot it was, or how many mosquitoes there were, PawPaw was right there with her, instructing, monitoring, encouraging, and competing.  He's such a good grandpa and a wonderful father.  He's someone I would want to be friends with even if we weren't related.  The Longfellow poem seemed so appropriate as the time these two spent together placed an unbroken song in Lauren's heart.   She'll always remember this time with her PawPaw.  Who knows?  Maybe she'll be an olympic archer someday.  When we made it back to California, I tried to enroll her in a local archery camp but was told she was too young.  If only they knew our Lauren, they'd see she would have fit right in.  Tomorrow is my dad's birthday.  We wish we could be there to celebrate with him.  We hope he has a wonderful, spectacular day!  XOXO!

Fred

Because we're 1,000's of miles apart, Jacob has only gotten to see his granddads 3 or 4 times in his 2.5 years.  He talks to them on the phone and sees a lot of pictures but he had a hard time getting everyone's names straight in person.  We spent the first two nights of our visit with my mom and stepdad, also known as Nana and Poppy.  We drove to my dad's and stepmom's (AKA PawPaw and Granny) the next day and spent the next week and a half with them.  Jacob called my dad "Poppy" most of the visit.  Every time Jacob would call him "Poppy" instead of "PawPaw", my dad would call him "Fred" in return.  I just had to laugh because I went through something similar with my dad's mom.  She wanted to be called Grandma but I kept calling her "Gahbbie".  Every time I called her "Gahbbie" she would call me "Susie".  I finally got the hang of it and began to call her Grandma.  Jacob, too, started to get the hang of it and would call my dad by the right name...most of the time.  Toward the end of our stay, he walked up to my dad with a balloon and said, "Fill it please, Poppy."  My dad looked at him and said, "What's my  name?"  Without even so much as a moment's hesitation, Jacob replied, "Fred".

This saddle was at my mom's house and belonged to my mom's family when she was little.  They had a shetland pony named "Patsy" and this saddle was just the right size for her.  We have a picture of me when I was young sitting on this same saddle, although I was on an actual horse instead of a log.  I couldn't find a horse so I guess you do what you can!

Grandpa's boat

There was a child

There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,

Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,

And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover,

And the song of the phoebe-bird,

And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter,

And the mare's foal and the cow's calf...

-Walt Whitman

The kids and I are home from a 3-week visit to see the grandparents in Alabama.  We had such a wonderful time and it was hard to say goodbye.  The little ones had room to run and roam, swim and fish, play and enjoy the outdoors.  The grandparents were so good to us and went out of their way to make sure we had a great time.  Lots and lots of pictures to share through the week.

Do you want to be my friend? Check yes or no.

Wherever we go, Anna and Lauren seem to make new friends so easily.  Heck, they even made a friend in the restroom at a restaurant the other day.  At the park they just walk up to the nearest kid and ask, "Do you want to be my friend?"  Then they all happily run off to play.  Wouldn't it be so nice to make friends as easily when we're adults?  We all need companionship and friends play such an important role in our lives.  Would that we could just let go of all of the insecurities, worries, and baggage and just offer a smile and a hand without worrying about whether or not we'll be accepted.  Being retired military, we've experienced the continual loss of good friends as we all seem to be on the move somewhere new every 2-3 years.  It wasn't until we had kids and lived on base that we actually began to make new adult friends.  There were years we spent living in neighborhoods without knowing anyone at all.  Although children open an easy door for conversations with moms we might not know, but would like to, it's still hard to find someone that you share interests with, and feel comfortable enough to be yourself.  I'm thankful that I'm at a time in my life where I have good friends, here and out of state.  I love the Bernard Meltzer quote, "A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked."    Goodness knows, I am a bit off! Speaking of being just "slightly cracked", here are a few of the latest crack-ups from our very own peanut gallery.

Anna caught an infomercial on TV and called into the kitchen, "Mommy, do you need stretch mark lotion?  Because the phone lines are open right now.  I was just wondering."

We drove by the new Bikram Yoga studio that's just opened in our area and Lauren said, "Mommy, that's the place I was telling you about.  If you want to be like this (she sucked in her stomach and poked her chest out), you need to go there."  Anna piped in and said, "Yeah, Mommy, if you want to be really stretchy go to Bike-Ram Yoga!"  After a good laugh and a good groupon deal, I took their advice and went to a yoga class.  I still have 9 classes to go but have decided that hot yoga is almost like childbirth.  With your first child (and your first class), you're excited and giddy and not really sure just what to expect.  When your second child (or second class as the case may be) comes along, you're not sure if you want to go through it again, at least not without a few drugs because well, you're scared and you know it's going to hurt.

We'll be visiting with the grandparents soon and the girls have been on the phone A LOT planning out all of their activities.  After one lengthy call between Lauren and my dad, my dad called me and was telling me about their conversation.  Lauren is planning on catching birds, hunting deer, and wrestling alligators.  My dad mentioned that at one point in the discussion Lauren said, "Mommy is mean sometimes."  My dad asked her what she did to make me that way and she responded, "Let's not talk about that."

We took a day trip to Empire Mines in Grass Valley a few weeks okay and Doug and the kids had the following conversation on the drive there.
Lauren:  When I grow up, I'm going to buy a motorcycle.
Anna:  Yeah, maybe I'll buy a motorcycle too....or a hot car.
Doug:  What kind of car, Anna?
Anna:  Ummm....a pink Chevy with a TV in it like Ryan and Mrs. Trish.
Me:  Mrs. Trish has a mini-van.
Anna:  Oh yeah.  Maybe a hot pink car with a TV in it or one that serves me burritos or McDonalds.

Jacob's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.  He's a little parrot and repeats everything you say.  When I ask him his name, he responds, "J-tob Tiest".  When I ask him my names, he says, "Mommy Tiest".  When I ask his age, he says hes "Two!"  When I ask him how old Mommy is, he replies, "Mommy ooooold."

He tries to help out around the house and he'll get forks out of the drawer at meal time and place them on the table.  Unfortunately, however, at the end of the meal he takes the same forks (now used) and puts them back in the drawer.  He loves to help me unload the washing machine and put the clean laundry into the dryer.  He also likes taking the laundry from the dryer and placing it into the basket.  Walk away for even a second though and he'll have that clean laundry placed back in the wash and be trying to climb the machine to turn it on.

Doug spent a morning putting sticks in all of the windows so Jacob can't open them and climb out.  Even though he's figured out how to get by all of the other child safety latches we've put into place, my one consolation was that at least if he got out of the house, he couldn't get out of the backyard.  Yesterday I found him outside, climbing the gate, and removing the padlock (it was unlocked anyway).  He threw the lock on the ground and then started working on the gate handle.  If this keeps up, I really am going to be oooooold and gray by the time he turns 18.

Hawaiian Funnies:
At the Hilton Waikoloa there was a young man who ran along the shoreline each night, blowing a conch shell and lighting torches.  The first night we saw him, the kids were very impressed.  After he lit all of his torches and was making his way back, Anna yelled over to him, "Nice conch shell!"  I started to laugh, she asked why, I stifled the laugh and said I was just so happy to be there enjoying the lovely evening with my family.

The lighting of the torches affected Jacob in other ways, however. He spent all of his time trying to blow the torches out. He huffed...  (I know these aren't the clearest pics but I still love them anyway!)

And he puffed....

But he couldn't blow the torch out, much to his dismay.
 

We stopped at the Waikoloa market to get some gas and Anna saw the following sign.  Lauren asked her to read it out loud.  Anna read the sign quite accurately until she got to the end.  At the end, she read, "Violators will be subject to criminal execution!"  Worriedly, she turned to me and asked, "Mommy, they kill you??"  I calmed her down and explained the word prosecution.  Lauren asked Anna what it all meant and Anna said, "They don't kill you, Lauren, they just "persecute" you."

Oh, how I love our babies. I'll be in and out over the next few weeks as we're getting caught up on spoiling of the grandchildren by the grandparents, but will be back in July.  Happy summer!