7 Quick Takes about Coming Home, a House Full of Invalids, and Literal Birdbaths

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

I did the math and I've been gone for 16 out of the last 60 days, helping with church summer camps for the teenagers, going home for a family funeral, and helping the oldest kids move in at college out of state.

While that's happened, Phillip has held down the fort here while simultaneously taking zero days off his full-time job. Everyone has stayed alive and they even had fun (he took the kids to the beach, the skate park, mountain biking, and running) but all other non-essentials for survival have been nonexistent. 

Practicing the piano, doing household chores, and showering regularly have become optional. Last time I was here, I distinctly remember a 'no-eating-in-the-living-room' rule, but nevertheless the day after I got back I watched my 10-year-old plop down on the sofa with a jar red pasta sauce and a spoon. THAT'S NOT EVEN A REAL SNACK.

Phillip asked me, "Are you appalled, or does it feel good to know that you're needed?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Both."

—2—

Unfortunately, I brought home COVID from my latest trip. Some of us never got sick at all, some of us just felt a little crummy, and Phillip spent a day wishing for death. 

The "man cold" is not a factor here, because Phillip never complains about being sick. In fact, if he utters a single word about physical discomfort, you should say your last goodbyes because it means he's probably dying soon.

—3—

Exhibit A: I came home to this on Saturday. Phillip had twisted his ankle which resulted in this giant bruise that went around his entire foot, from his toes to his ankle.

Doesn't really show in the picture, but the whole middle is a lovely greenish color.

Even with his foot like this, and barely able to put weight on it, Phillip was 100% going to go on a work trip this week. Until that is, he got COVID from me which maybe makes it a good thing. Now that we're over 40 and don't heal so readily, injuries that don't get enough rest are just going to hang around and plague us for the rest of our lives.

—4—

Phillip briefly wondered if he'd broken his foot (I would characterize it as more curious than concerned) so I did a little Googling on his behalf:

The last bullet point was very helpful. I can imagine how you might hurt your foot, look down and see that it looks like one of those cartoon ham hocks with the bone sticking out, and still not realize exactly what the problem was.

—5—

So basically I've spent the last several days taking care of invalids and putting the house back in order, and it's odd to say but that's my happy place. 

It's not exactly exciting to regale people with stories of how I'm getting quotes to fix our cracked counter and figuring out where the heck our new insurance will cover a mammogram this fall, but I'm good at being the administrative linchpin of the home and it feels good to be back on the job.

—6—

We have a large garden bed filled with Siberian irises that is sadly overgrown. I went out there three days ago with the simple mission to weed it, but the more I looked at it the more I realized it was in desperate need of some major help.

Apparently you're supposed to thin and divide irises every 2 to 3 years, and I haven't done that in the 14 years we've lived here. 

A work in progress.

Luckily, I've been assured that irises are almost impossible to kill. Let's hope that's true because if anyone can manslaughter a plant, it's me.

—7—

My 12-year-loves shopping. I've noticed her making a conscious effort in the last year to stop making impulse purchases, but the thing about her having a pet is that there are all kinds of cute pet supplies online and HOW DO YOU SAY NO TO THAT? 

Her latest find is this birdbath on Amazon and I cannot handle how cute it is. It even works: it's battery-operated and recycles the water from the tub through the showerhead up above.

Admit it: a bird taking a bath in a literal bathtub is what you needed to see today.

Pringles was extremely suspicious of this new addition to her cage, but we've caught her in the tub at least once since it was introduced, so baby steps. Still working on her trust issues with the water spraying from the showerhead, but at least we can turn that part on and off until she's ready.

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7 Quick Takes about Sandbox Reminders, How to Use a Gift Card, and College Move-Ins

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My kids and I were going to make a baking soda volcano, and I thought the easiest and cleanest place to do it was the sandbox in the backyard. The kids could bury the bottle of baking soda and kind of mound the sand up around it to make a volcano.

What a reminder when we got out there how the kids are getting older! The sandbox was filled with crabgrass and looked like it had been abandoned:

Clearly no one has played here for months.

It does seem like a long time ago, but I so vividly remember watching them spend entire days in the sandbox with their diggers and buckets and shovels. WEIRD.

—2—

I'm a cheapskate of the "use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without" variety, so my 20-year-old's latest achievement made me very proud.

A while ago she won a drawing for a $50 gift card from the grocery store she works at, and not only did she manage to stretch it out to cover her meals for lunch breaks in July and August, but on her last day she had exactly 74¢ left so she bought a 71-cent candy bar on her way out the door!

—3—

This week I got the little kids on the bus for their first day of school, then drove to the aiport and flew with my two oldest daughters to drop them off at college. (Don't worry, Phillip was still there to feed and take care of the littles when they got home from school.)

We have family that lives about 30 minutes away from their college campus, so I've been staying at their house and driving back and forth to get the girls moved in to their respective places.

It's been extremely busy, and between the time difference and the long days of driving, shopping for necessities, hauling boxes and unpacking belongings, and then realizing they need more stuff and doing it all over again, I'm exhausted. 

—4—

My 20-year-old, who's been feeling it too, exclaimed the other day "Mom, I'm OLD! My back hurts and I want to go to bed at 10 o'clock... and I don't know what 'skibidi rizz' means!"

It's so gratifying to see your children beginning to age out of coolness after they've spent years giving you a hard time about that very thing.

—5—

The 18-year-old is all moved in to her ridiculously nice apartment-style dorm on campus. Everything is new, they have an amazing view of a freshly-landscaped courtyard, and I'm really hoping the kitchen counters are faux look-alikes and not real granite.

This should be illegal for college students.

I keep reminding my daughter that she won't live in a place this nice again until she's at least 30 so she shouldn't get used to it.

On the other hand, she's been working her butt off to save money for this since she was 14 and she also earned several scholarships, so this is on her dime and she should enjoy it while it lasts.

—6—

I'm almost done getting the 20-year-old moved in. We have a few more things to buy and set up this afternoon and then she'll be ready to move in. 

She's living off-campus in a perfectly appropriate college apartment. It's clean, but the fixtures are landlord specials from the late '80s and the doorframes have obviously been painted over about 200 times. This is the kind of apartment I lived in during college and when Phillip was in grad school, and I think it builds character.

However, I noticed that the roommates have been drying their hands with a square of fabric from a T-shirt hanging on a pushpin in the wall above the sink, so I did go get them a command hook and a real towel. Because that's maybe building a little too much character.

—7—

Tomorrow I go home, and I've been away so much between my Young Women calling and a family funeral in the last two months that I'm ready to just stay home with Phillip and never leave again.

Unfortunately, I woke up this morning with a nasty cold, and Phillip has been working so hard to hold down the fort at home while working that I would feel terrible about getting him sick.

Hopefully it runs its course quickly, and maybe no one else will get it as badly as I do because they're not on immunosuppressants for lupus like I am!

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7 Quick Takes about Campground Bathrooms, Timber Tina, and When You Start Becoming Your Mother

It's 7 Quick Takes! How was your week?

—1—

Well, this Quick Takes is late again because we were camping at Acadia National Park! We pulled into the campsite much later than we planned to on the first evening and my 12-year-old noticed that the sites on either side of us were empty.

"Yes!" she said. "No people on either side of us!"

"Well, not tonight, but maybe there will be tomorrow," I reminded her.

She thought about that and sighed, "Ohhh... I feel sorry for them."

As it turned out, people did come on the following nights, but it was actually our neighbors who woke up the entire campground at 5AM firing up their giant monster truck to go fishing or whatever. So we weren't nearly as bad as she'd predicted.

—2—

The campground was very nice, and by that I mean amazing. The bathroom on one side of us was slightly older (but still very clean), but there was a brand-new bathroom on the other side of us that we preferred to use for obvious reasons:

We were definitely the trashiest things in this bathroom.

It was the nicest bathroom I've ever used personally.

The industrial sink outside the bathroom was nicer than my dishwashing setup at home by a factor of a million.

The campground was pricier than the barebones KOA ones we've stayed at before, but it cost less than staying at a hotel and it had a nice new playground in the center and a heated pool. So it might be really hard to go back to the ones with pit toilets now that we know what we're missing.

—3—

Pictures do not do justice to the views in Acadia. The scale of this landscape was the most breathtaking part about it, and that just can't be replicated in a photo. 

Zoom in and you'll see teeny tiny people on the rocks, and that will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. You kind of had to be there.

The 20-year-old nearly had multiple heart attacks watching the younger kids jump from rock to rock like billy goats, and I remember the feeling. When the kids were younger and top-heavier and had less ability to judge what is a reasonable risk and what isn't, watching them constantly trying to kill themselves or crack their heads open was my least favorite part of parenting. Now that they're older, I can mostly trust their judgment and just look away.

We drove up Cadillac Mountain for the spectacular views of the entire park, then hiked up Acadia Mountain which had a slightly less-spectacular view but an amazing return hike over and through the rocks.

On the way down, we found a rock shaped like an Among Us character:

And one that looked like a face:

—4—

We also went to see Timber Tina's Lumberjack Show, which was as fun as it sounds. Tina was an excellent host (her Midwestern accent that reminded me of home) and we got to see log-rolling, chainsawing, speed climbing, and axe throwing competitions. 

—5—

Even though this trip was a lot of fun, it was also haphazardly thrown together at the last minute. That's just kind of how we roll on vacation in general, but even the kids were like "Mom? Dad? I think we should have planned this better..."

We were buying tickets for stuff on our phones on the way to the event because we didn't have time to plan in out in advance. We forgot a bunch of stuff and barely communicated about the itinerary beforehand. We didn't even leave for our trip until 5 hours after we wanted to because we were just so behind.

The thing is, if we waited until we had time to plan it out we wouldn't have gone at all, and we really wanted to fit in a family vacation before the 18-year-old goes to college next week. And as we told the kids, we did the best we could with what we had at the time, and even though it wasn't perfect it was still good.

—6—

One reason that we were so frazzled was because I'd taken a last-minute flight home to Minnesota just a few days prior. So I wasn't there to help plan or prep for the Acadia trip, and Phillip was too busy trying to do his job and mine to think about vacation planning. 

The reason for the unscheduled trip was a memorial service for my uncle, who passed away a few weeks ago. Funerals are weird because it's a sad reason to get together, but you also get to see everyone including family members you haven't seen for a long time and that part makes you really grateful. I'm glad I went.

—7—

The older she gets, the more I hear myself coming out of my 12-year-old daughter's mouth.

She was helping her younger brothers (ages 8 and 10) get themselves lunch; one of them needed to slice an apple or something and he said, "I don't know how to do that."

Instantly she responded "Then it's a perfect day for you to learn!" In the same sweet but also exasperated voice that I would have used in that situation.

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7 Quick Takes about Bug Bites, Strangers on Planes, and More Than I Ever Wanted to Know about Mimes

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Well, I returned home from camping for a week with zero bug bites, but the day after I came home one of my kids left some windows open that didn't have screens on them for some reason, and now my legs are covered with itchy welts from mosquitoes. Irony.

—2—

This has been a very busy week. I've unpacked from camp, seen my daughter in a play, gone to church and meetings, grocery shopped, coordinated three teens getting to and from their four different workplaces, worked a shift at the temple, and driven taxi for everyday basketball camp and gymnastics practices, a laboratory blood draw, two dentists and an orthodontist. I'm also gathering school supplies for the younger kids and thinking about the logistics of helping my older two get moved in at college out-of-state in a few weeks.

Right now I'm writing this from the airport because I'm going home for the weekend for a family funeral, so good luck to Phillip at home with the kids. It's a nuthouse there.

—3—

In a lot of ways I feel like an introvert, but I also like to chat with strangers when I'm traveling by myself. So I'm not sure what that makes me.

My Uber driver to the airport was a great conversationalist, and even though she had flawless English she spoke with me in a little slow Spanish when she found that I was learning so I could practice.

The people on either side of me on the plane, however, are less interested in talking. In any language. (They're at least more subtle about it than the lady on my last flight, who literally draped her jacket over her head after she sat down and kept it there the whole time.)

—4—

The gate agent who checked my boarding pass gave me a smile and a heavily-accented, "Okay, Mr. Yennifer" and I think life would be a lot more fun if I could be addressed that way at least occasionally.

—5—

The railing on our front porch was rotting and starting to sag, giving our house a haunted mansion feel that I'm not too fond of.

Phillip was going to replace the old railing, but once he removed it we realized we liked it much better that way and decided to redo the porch floor with no railing.

There are still a few things to finish up, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Now instead of haunted, our house's new vibe is the-garage-is-full-of-tools-from-a-DIY-project-project-so-we're-all-parking-in-the-driveway. You can't have everything.

—6—

Sometimes on summer nights we'll have what my kids call a "beach dinner." We'll bring paper plates and swimming stuff, and Phillip will grab take-out food on his way home from work and meet us at the lake. After a picnic-style dinner, the kids can swim.

Usually it works pretty well, but this time the 8- and 10-year-old kept leaving their food and wandering over to the playground nearby, and we had to keep calling them back. 

After the tenth time. I asked the 8-year-old, "Have you ever head of the phrase 'herding cats'?"

"No, but I know how to do it."

"How?" I asked. Maybe he had some tips for me.

"Squeeze 'em."

You guys, HE THOUGHT I SAID HURTING CATS.

—7—

To amuse her siblings, the 12-year-old was miming at the dining room doorway like she couldn't get in. Her 10-year-old brother looked confused and then said, "Oh, she's being a French clown."

I laughed but then started wondering: are mimes French? So I Gooogled it and I went down a rabbit hole and that ended with how Marcel Marceau used his miming skills to quietly smuggle Jewish children to safety during WWII.

Which just goes to show you honestly never know where you're going to end up with the Internet.

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The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying Mali

You've probably heard the name of Timbuktu and maybe thought it was just a silly name for a made-up place, but did you know it's actually a city (once upon a time, a very important and rich one) in Mali? Mali is in West Africa. mostly covered by the Sahara Desert and cut through by the Niger and the Senegal Rivers. My kids picked it off of our giant wall map to learn about in this year's Educational Summer Vacation (read more on what that is here) and here is what we found out! 

(This post contains affiliate links, so if you use them to make a purchase I'll get a small commission at no extra cost to you. For more information, you can read my full disclosure and privacy policy. Thanks!)

Monday

A long, long, loooong time ago, Mali was part of the Ghana Empire in 300 A.D. (That actually has nothing to do with the modern-day country of Ghana; "Ghana" is just a word that means "king.") 

It later was part of the Mali Empire in 1200 A.D. (names of leaders in that time period that you might recognize from history class are Sundiata and Mansa Musa), and the Songhai Empire in 1300 A.D.

After that, it was colonized by the French in 1892 and finally gained independence in 1960.

Tri-color flag of Mali with the "pan-African colors."

My kids drew the flag of Mali and added it to our wall, then found Mali on our giant wall map and filled out their faux passport pages.

Download the Free Printable Passport Pages

I had a picture book about Mansa Musa all ready to go, but my kids beat me to it. They remembered hearing about him in school and told me the story of how he was the richest person who ever lived, with a net worth equivalent to $400 billion today. He gave out so much gold as he traveled through Egypt on his way to Mecca once that he ruined their economy for years. 

 

We read a great (but long) picture book called If You Were Me and Lived in... the Ancient Mali Empire by Carole P. Roman. 

And even though my American, Christian family is definitely not the target audience of the Jannah Jewels series, the younger kids enjoyed the graphic novel The Treasure of Timbuktu on their own time.

Islamic early chapter book where strong, independent Muslim girls learn about their cultural heritage through time-travel and adventure.

Tuesday

Mali is famous for its music, actually. I read this post, summarized each paragraph for the kids, and stopped to show them the videos (they particularly liked this song and this one)

If you have older kids, you should watch this video on the Festival au Desert, also called the "African woodstock." It talks about the festival being suspended due to Al Queda taking over in 2010, which I'm excited to read about in the novel I got from the library called The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. (If that isn't a great title, I don't know what is.)

If your kids are younger, stick with this video of the Bambara Dance on YouTube instead. It looks fun and extremely exhausting, and if they tire themselves out trying to imitate the dancers you could probably use the break.

After showing the kids this video of a Malian instrument called the kora, I asked them what makes sound. We talked about how musical instruments all work by making vibrations, which bump into the air molecules and make them vibrate. When vibrating air hits our ears, we pick that up as sound. We talked about the different ways to create those vibrations: strumming, plucking, blowing, or hitting an instrument. Could they create their own musical instrument?

Two of the kids wanted to sketch out their ideas:

A hybrid between a piano and a stringed Malian instrument called the kora.

Like a car, but the steering wheel changes the length of the string, the brake dampens the sound, and the gas strikes the string.

Three others made a prototype with materials from our recycling bin:

Drum with a stringed instrument attached to the side.

This was actually kind of cool to listen to, it made sounds by bouncing different kitchen implements on the side of the counter.

The String-a-Doo: a milk carton with holes cut in it and rubber bands strung across the inside at all different orientations.

Wednesday

Mali is home to animals like gazelles, antelopes, giraffes, lions, panthers, hyenas, crocodiles, hippos. I asked the kids what they thought was the most dangerous animal in Mali?

They guessed but none of them guessed right. I gave them some statistics:

• Lions: 250 deaths/year
• Hippos: 500 deaths/year
• Crocodiles: 1,000 deaths/year
• Panthers/Mountain Lions: extremely rare (rarer than lightning strikes)
• Mosquitoes - over 1 million deaths per year 

To be fair, it was kind of a trick. It's not the mosquito itself that kills so many people, but a single-celled parasite that some mosquitoes carry. 

We watched this video on malaria (my college daughter is currently animating some biology slides for her professor and said that she could tell the animator wasn't a biologist because the blood cells were drawn backward in this video):

Malaria is considered to have been eradicated in the U.S. mostly due to the widespread use of screens on our windows. I asked the kids to make a PSA on how to recognize and avoid malaria, and the results were absolutely hilarious. They recorded a TV-style commercial, but if your kids are shier or more artsy they might rather do a billboard instead.

Thursday

The official language in Mali is French, but Bambara (also called Bamanankan) is spoken as a first or second language by 80% of the country. It's also a language spoken in Senegal, Niger, Gambia, Mauritania, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Bambara is a tonal language in the Mande language family. There wasn't a written alphabet until the French assigned the Latin Alphabet (with a few additions) to it in the late 1800s. 

In 1949, the N'ko script was invented by a West African so that there would be a native way to write the Bambara language, but the Latin script is still way more commonly used.

Chart downloaded from Omniglot.

While watching this video on how to write N'ko, we tried to follow along and write the letters.

I wasn't planning on cooking anything during our week visiting Mali, because it's usually a lot of work and some African food doesn't thrill my kids enough to be worth it, but they were adamant that we make something so we tried these honey sesame sticks called meni-meniyong.

Friday (and Saturday)

Today, we were going on a long car ride and that was the perfect excuse to put on this hour-long documentary on the Dogon People of the Bandiaraga Cliff. I doubt they would have paid attention at home but that's the beauty of road trips, I guess.

I also brought along this book about moms carrying their babies strapped to their backs called The Everlasting Embrace by Gabrielle Emanuel, which was perfect because we saw plenty of it in the documentary.

The next day, we watched a video about mud brick building in Mali and how important it is, and then we found another use for mud. 

Following this tutorial from Kid World Citizen, the kids collected dirt from the yard, mixed it with food coloring in a bucked, and painted designs on rectangles of scrap fabric to make a patterned cloth called a bògòlanfini. 

Painting the mud cloths. Definitely an outdoor activity.

When they were all finished, we put them in the sun to dry for a day. After washing, the designs were a lot fainter but were still there! I actually wasn't sure it was going to work. Real bògòlanfini are usually painted and washed several times over to make the design really pop.

Drying on our neglected deck that really needs to be sanded and re-stained.

In all my years of doing The Educational Summer Vacation, I've never come across a boring country and this was no exception. I knew very little about Mali before this week, but learned a lot! The kids had fun (especially painting with mud) and I can't wait for the next random reference someone makes to Timbuktu — and I will actually know where that is for once.

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7 Quick Takes about Ineffective Signage, Drinking Glasses, and Returning Home from Barbieland

Really, really late 7 Quick Takes this Friday! I haven't had a chance to sit down and write this post until now because I've been camping all week with my church youth group, but more on that later.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you buy something from them I may get a referral commission at no extra cost to you.

—1—

Here's what happens when you clean the kitchen before you go to bed, leaving behind a helpful "NO DISHES HERE" reminder note on the counter for your night owl teenagers and early riser children:

In the morning, this is what I woke up to.

To be fair, there are no dirty dishes directly on top of the sign, so technically they still followed instructions. I will either have to be more specific with my next sign and specify exactly where "here" is, or maybe just send them all to boarding school.

—2—

We're in the process of switching out our light bulbs on the main floor for daylight bulbs instead of warm light. It's amazing! 

I've always been bothered by how dark our kitchen seemed, even with the lights on, and now it's like staring directly into the noonday sun. Okay, not really. But it's a lot brighter and I like it much better. 

For now we're not switching out the lights in the bedrooms or bathrooms, because my daughter claims that daylight bulbs make you look bad doing your makeup and Phillip says warm light is better for relaxing and getting ready for bed. What do you think we should do? What kind of light bulbs do you have?

—3—

The other household change I'm loving right now is my new water glasses. I never thought I would say that, since I'm 42 years old and I've never owned or even seen a drinking glass that made me think "Wow, what a nice glass!" At best, we just owned or inherited whatever we had and went "Meh, this is fine."

Now that's a classy-looking glass of milk.

These glasses are very minimalist, which is probably why I love it. I actually drink more water now because they're so pretty to look at and fun to hold in my hand.

—4—

Most of this week, I've been at a camp for the teenage girls in my church congregation and other area congregations, with maybe a total of 75-ish girls. 

Each day there were workshops, scripture study sessions, a devotional, and a service project. Girls spent their free time swimming, making stuff in the craft barn, or shooting at the rifle and archery ranges. They could drop off nice notes for each other at the camp post office, or spend the tokens they earned for kind behavior at the camp store on little trinkets, stickers, jewelry, or toys. 

There was a polar bear swim every morning (optional, but the girls did get a Klondike bar for participating), special hikes, and a 1-mile swim (also optional.) There were silly camp songs, an outdoor concert, glow-in-the-dark games, and a ridiculous skit night that the girls loved. Luckily, I didn't have to plan any of it, I just showed up and supervised.

The view at night from the beach.

—5—

One other woman and I were assigned to watch over the 11- and 12-year-old campers. I hadn't met Danielle before but I adored working with her. She made the week so enjoyable, and I think we made a good team. Honestly, I would like to see her again just for fun!

Danielle and I handled any emergencies that came up (at 7AM wake-up on Saturday morning I already had 1,344 steps on my fitness watch, mostly because we'd been up way past midnight dealing with campers' problems the night before) but the bulk of the day-to-day work of getting the younger campers where they needed to go was done by the older campers, who are designated Youth Camp Leaders. It was a beautiful system and I loved seeing almost all of the older girls rise to the challenge.

Seriously, though, I'm going to need about a week to catch up on sleep.

—6—

The Youth Camp Leaders chose a Barbie theme for camp. The dining hall was festooned in pink and white balloons and streamers. As campers checked in, they were given pink T-shirts that said "I am Kenough" and got their photos taken behind a big wooden frame that made them look like a Barbie doll in a box. It was all really well done.

The funniest part was the Ryan Gosling memes hung up all over the place. I kept finding new ones throughout the week, but this one in the bathroom was my favorite:

One of the camp caretakers was a man in his late 60s or early 70s, and when he saw the shirts he asked me what "I am Kenough" means. Even though I didn't see the Barbie movie, I'd heard enough about it to give him a brief summary. 

His response? "Sounds like a movie I'd only watch if I was on my deathbed and my nurse turned it on before she left the room because she hates men." (I laughed, but actually that's kind of why I never saw it, either.)

—7—

At the camp rifle range, I discovered a new activity that I don't have an ounce of natural talent or ability for.

My very first target. Believe it or not, my second attempt was even worse.

When I showed my target to someone standing nearby, I got the most diplomatic reaction ever: "Well, look at that! You aimed for the T and you got it!"

I sure did. I started to perforate the edges like a stamp, too, but I unfortunately ran out of bullets.

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7 Quick Takes about a Bonus Day in Philadelphia, Getting Up Close and Personal with Wildlife, and Clearing Out the Sandbox

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Our crazy week of travel is over and everyone is home now. The oldest four kids flew to visit their grandparents in Minnesota, and Phillip and I took the youngest two to visit his family in Seattle.

We ended up getting flights that were scheduled to leave the airport within 30 minutes of each other, so we all went to the airport together and then rode the shuttle getting off at our different terminals. I'm sure people on the shuttle were very confused when the 8 of us were obviously together and then half of us got off with the 12-year-old waving and yelling "Goodbye, Mommy!"

Phillip and I have never flown with just two kids before. Our standard method to get through the airport is one parent in front, all 6 kids in a line behind them like ducklings, and a parent in back to make sure no stragglers get left behind. I started to line the kids up out of habit and then realized: there are only two of them, which means that Phillip and I are running one-on-one defense now. We can each just hold one kid's hand and not worry about crowd control. Weird.

—2—

Unfortunately, both of our family's respective flights were delayed again and again. We were there for so long that we ended up meeting up in the middle for dinner before going back to our gates.  

About 5 hours later, the older kids eventually got on their direct flight to Minnesota, but Phillip and I (and the two littles) had a decision to make. We'd already missed our connection in Philadelphia and the airline didn't have another flight from there to Seattle until 2 days later. 

Should we still even go? Or should we just give up and go home, and pretend like we'd only come to the airport for the ambiance and the $16 cheeseburgers?

—3—

In the end, we went to Philadelphia and spent an unplanned day exploring the city. A gate agent got us on a flight with another airline leaving the next night, along with a hotel voucher (unfortunately it was midnight and the customer service line stretched around the corner and into oblivion, so we cut our losses and paid for a room ourselves.)

In the morning after breakfast at the hotel, we took an Uber to the center of the city. Our driver's Cuban Spanish was hard to understand and he didn't attempt to slow down for us at all, but he gave us some good suggestions of what to see in the city. At least I think he did.

We saw the Liberty Bell, Congress Hall (the 8-year-old's commentary was "Ugh, a tour? I hope they make it quick, this place smells like dirty tissues"), Old City Hall, and the Benjamin Franklin Museum.

We also walked past Benjamin Franklin's grave, and one of the kids wanted to know why it was covered with pennies. "Benjamin Franklin was famous for saying 'A penny saved is a penny earned'," I explained, to which Phillip responded "Is a penny stolen from his grave a penny earned, too?"

No grave-robbing occurred here that I am aware of.

After stopping for Philly cheesesteaks, we visited the Philadelphia Mint to see how coins are made. The Mint was probably my favorite part of our visit, and we actually didn't even know it was there until a security guard at the Old Town Hall happened to mention it to us.

—4—

Our seats on our flight to Seattle that evening were scattered throughout the plane, all of them in random middle seats that no one else wanted. I was worried about the 8-year-old getting bored or annoying the people next to him, so I asked the people on either side of me if they would mind trading seats and they refused. Wow, I get that no one likes sitting in a middle seat, but come on. He's 8. 

I was going to leave it at that, but the lady next to me flagged down a flight attendant and asked him to figure something out. The guy on my son's right volunteered to switch with me, and it turns out that this row had TONS of legroom for some reason and now I got to sit in it. 

I guess the people next to me should have traded with my son, after all. Their 6-hour flight would have been a lot more pleasant if they had, which is think is called poetic justice.

—5—

In Seattle we stayed at my sister-in-law's house, and spent the next several days having fun with her family and the brother-in-law who lives nearby with his family. My mother-in-law also came up to join in the activities.

Definitely the most unique place we went was the Olympic Game Farm. You get to feed the wildlife up close, and I'm not talking about giving a handful of corn to some deer over a fence. 

I'm talking about driving through the middle of a truly wild animal's habitat and bison are literally sticking their heads in your window as far as they can to get the slices of bread you're holding. 

This felt like the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park where the raptors are breathing on the window... and then they come in.

It was exhilarating and a little bit scary. It was a ton of fun, in the same way as a rollercoaster. Wildlife looks different up close, and when this deranged face is coming at you and clearly thinking: "You are in the way of my bread" it definitely raises your heart rate a little.

I will never look at a llama the same way again.

I don't know how these animals sustain such enthuasiasm about plain slices of bread, all day long, day after day, but they just swarm the cars looking for it.

Just having my car casually mobbed by elk, thanks.

Afterward I couldn't help but wonder what the rental people were going to think when we brought the car back. There was literally bison slobber on the insides of the doors.

—6—

We also went to a couple of lavender farms in the same area. We took an informative tour about how lavender is grown and dried, tried lavender ice cream (weird because it was like tasting a smell), and took some photos.

Really picturesque with the mountains in the background.

One day we went to a park and there happened to be a dog show next door. I thought it was interesting seeing all the different kinds of dog breeds, and I got a laugh out of this trash can I saw on the way in:

At a dog show? Fat chance.

We also went to a few different beaches for boating, kayaking, or just walking on the shore. 

This is a dead crab stacked on top. Kids are weird.

It was so much fun to see my family, especially the ones I haven't seen for a long time!

—7—

Now that we're home, I'm doing a little decluttering and decided to finally let go of the sandbox toys my boys haven't used for a year or two. 

Donating them is a little bittersweet but that's life, I guess, and soon they will be played with again by a happy preschooler instead of sitting lifeless in our backyard. If the Toy Story franchise taught me anything, it's that being neglected makes toys sad.

And on the plus side, I found a use for the boys' old, falling-apart laundry hamper from last week's Take #2!

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