Crew Weekend at Mowglis

I am way behind in posting camp photos for Will. I have a whole slew of photos and video from Parents' Weekend still sitting in my laptop, unshared. Mowglis continues to post tons of photos from camp activities on their website and Bill and I check periodically to see what Will is up to and whether he looks like he's having fun. He hasn't written asking to come home in two weeks (well, there is still today for me to receive a letter but knock wood it is a happy letter).

So in these camp photos, I have seen the boys rowing, sailing, swimming, racing and generally having fun in the lake. They made a sweat lodge, had an additional field day and prepared for crew races this past weekend, red vs. blue teams. This preparation included painting the team banner, painting themselves with war paint and a building big bonfire. Will will have to tell me more when I see him but it certainly looks like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys having a great adventure.

I think that is Will with the hatchet in the center of the picture. It is hard to tell...one way we recognize Will in the camp photos is by his bathing suit or his tan crocs. Since he is wearing neither, it is hard to be sure, but this boy does look like he is having fun. I go up this weekend to bring Will home and I can't wait!

Eva goes to Camp

I took Eva up to Casco Maine for four weeks at Camp Arcadia. Eva was excited to go because she would get to ride horses, learn archery, canoeing and other camp-craft and get to be amidst all kinds of nature. She was in the Junior Girls cabin Chickadee, about the nicest and most comfortable cabin there. As the girls get older, their cabins become more and more rustic until eventually they have no onsite bathrooms, electricity or hot water. You know, right as girls are getting to the agae when cleanliness and their appearance become an OBSESSION. Should be good for building lots of character.

The other building here is the infirmary, where you Limp In and Leap Out.


Camp Arcadia is located on Pleasant Lake. Doesn't it look Pleasant? It was but it was also "freeeeeeeesing!" (to quote Eva).

Happy Birthday Eva and Bill

Bill got lots of chocolate for his birthday, most of which wasn't Eva-safe (fortunately for Bill and unfortunately for Eva). The little shop down the street, Grape and Bean, is a regular stop for birthday and other shopping. We are there regularly for bread and wine and coffee and the yummiest ginger ale ever. Their chocolate is a special treat!

Check out Eva in her new sunbonnet! She outgrew the little pink one (now Lyra's hat) long ago and pined for another.


We had a nice family birthday out in the garden. Eva got lots of books for her birthday, a journal from Aunt Edie, a jewelry chest and a sewing basket. Eva has learned to embroider and I'm teaching her to sew on our new sewing machine. Eva is in heaven!

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Lyra *really* wants to figure out the monkey bars.

Am woefully behind!

You would think, with Will and Eva at camp, that I would gave posted all kinds of photos and updates out here. But NoooOOOOOOooo I cannot seem to get to it! I think it is because Will and Eva aren't here to play with Lyra while I make the updates. So here's the quick scoop and I will post photos soon.

Eva turned 9 and had a fun birthday party tie-dying t-shirts with her friends. Bill turned, well nevermind, but he had a fun party with family.

I took Eva to Camp Arcadia in Maine about a week and a half ago and it poured down rain the day we flew up but it cleared up for move in day. She wrote a bunch of sad letters home right after getting there but I spoke with the camp and they said she is having a lot of fun and doing great! She did write to a friend and say she was having fun, so it must be true! Eva comes home mid-July.

Bill to Will to Camp Mowglis last Saturday and that was somewhat more involved since Will originally didn't want to go. He had gotten himself pretty excited until it came time to leave for the airport. But Bill said after Will got settled in at camp, he was fine for Bill to leave. I talked with Will's swimming instructor and she said Will is having a lot of fun and is making friends with the other boys. They have an all day hike coming up and a gathering with a nearby girls' camp. Can't wait to hear about that since one of the reasons Will decided he was excited about camp was that there wouldn't be any girls. The boys are required to write home on Sundays if they want to eat lunch so I should be hearing from Will next week. HE comes home mid-August but we are all going to visit him when we go to pick up Eva.

Lyra and I are having fun at the pool, playground, and reading books that are for HER and not the big kids. Swim lessons went well last week vut not this week. Lyra misses Will and Eva but she may have a hard time when they come back.

More later!

Day One at Mowglis

Will began his summer at Mowglis today. Mowglis is a traditional New England boys' camp, with an emphasis on hiking. It is also traditional in the sense that the camp session lasts seven weeks to allow the boys time to really get to know each other and experience camp culture to the fullest. The smile in this photo is a bit misleading. Will is actually pretty apprehensive about being at camp for so long (ok, to be blunt, he hid in a closet in the attic this morning in the hopes of not having to go). After seeing the camp, on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire, Will was somewhat more positive. The people we met were wonderful, and Will is very adaptable. We are all hoping that Will makes lots of friends at camp and transitions quickly from being homesick to enjoying his summer community.

Get your tongue off the pole!

I swear I heard a mom shout this to her child just now! It wasn't me...really!

Wills Plastic Surgery on Baby

Lyra's baby was as shocked as Lyra to discover, when she awoke from her plastic surgery, Will used silly putty to give her a complete face lift. Now she looks like Richard Nixon.

(That was from Will. Isn't this creepy??)

Eva's Gymnastics Meet

Here's Eva's floor routine from her meet last night. She has worked very hard all year and recently just got her roundoff back handspring! That was something I never learned to do.

Waikiki

I ended up last week with an almost last minute client trip to Hawaii.  I arrived late Thursday and left mid-day Saturday, but I did get a few hours Saturday morning to explore.  This is Waikiki beach.  One of the cab drivers told me it is all fake - it was originally marsh land that was filled in with sand from Australia.  Even if true, the result is a really beautiful beach.  I am not normally a fan of highly developed beach resorts, but I liked this spot.  

KCC Farmers Market

What to do when stuck in a strange city on Saturday morning?  Google 'Farmers Market'.  This is the KCC Farmers Market at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu.  The selection was wonderful, but I did not think local tomatoes, pineapple, orchids or other goodies would survive a ten hour plane ride back to Virginia.  I did get half a pound of Maui coffee beans and four different varieties of local honey.  

Yard House

I stopped for one pint of the local IPA at the Yard House restaurant on Lewers Street in Waikiki.  It is a Western US chain that claims to have the largest selection of beer on draft in the US.  They certainly had an impressive selection of taps, but I don't trust myself with the tall glasses that are their namesake.  

LIVE FIRE!

I just find this billboard, which was common in Waikiki, to be bizarre.   

My understanding is that with strict gun control laws at home, many Japanese take the opportunity of visiting the US to try out shooting.  I get that.  

But advertising for the lady in the lace blouse who want to take a break from shopping at Hermes and Cartier to try out the high-tech pistol with the laser sight?  I guess this is just a niche market I don't appreciate.  

I am also not certain I want to go shooting anywhere that welcomes children.  

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A fine day at the zoo! Eva had a surprise half day (surprise for me since I forgot to put it in my calendar). Will is having his final chorus performance at 4:00 so we have time for a fun zoo outing. Poor Lyra hasn't gotten as much zoo time as Will and Eva did at her age so this is good for catching her up!

Happy Birthday Will!

I have had a lot of trouble getting birthday parties together for the kids. Will takes care of this by planning his own. To celebrate turning 11, Will decided he wanted to have Capture the Flag birthday at the park complete with nerf guns and general mayhem. He drafted rules (since there are lots of variations in this game) and drew a map of the park for his friends to see in advance. We had a total of 12 children (though Eva wasn't there the whole time). Great fun was had by all despite the foul weather. It was about 60 degrees and rained lightly through the whole game. The advantage of this was that no one else was at the park so the boys did not run roughshod over any children, small or otherwise. I think the red team was the overall winner. We trekked back to the house for cake.

Now I have to figure out Eva's birthday....her plans are often more elaborate and, as a result, don't come to fruition as frequently.

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You're never too old for the merry-go-round!

Preschool Art Chair: Before and After

As room parent in Lyra's class, it was my responsibility to have the children decorate a piece of furniture to be auctioned off at the school Gala. EEK. This is the sort of thing that causes parents to all of a sudden become very busy at work and home with other things. It fills so many parents with dread that the school even hired an artist to help out painting special backgrounds etc. if room parents needed extra help.

We had to pick the chair color last fall from a selection of very pale and plain colors. I ordered a cream colored on (it's wasn't as green it looks in the picture) but it was pretty darn BLAH. There was no option to have a black or dark brown chair, either of which would have been really cool foil for some bright colors. I did not want to have to repaint the whole thing and was struggling with what to have the children do that would really be their work but still look pretty. The children are all 2 years old or just turned 3, so any sort of "representational art" project would be very difficult.

Fortunately, a couple of parents in Lyra's class offered to help out and one of them had the idea of having the children sponge paint the chair. This was BRILLIANT because a freeform project like this would allow the kids to really paint the chair themselves but the result would still be something you'd want to have in your home.

I traced Lyra's hand and my hand, shrunk it down to 2/3 the size on the copier and traced them onto contact paper so we would have handprints left on the chair when the painting was done. That turned out to be a good use of the very boring color of the chair. I wrote everyone's name in a handprint using a ultrafine blue sharpie.

It's CUTE! (Though I wish I had better handwriting) I hope it raises a good amount of money for the school. The next piece of furniture I paint will be for our family and not on anyone's deadline but my own. I'd say I wouldn't do this again but I want to use up all the paint and polyurethane we have leftover. Plus the kids are fired up to do their own project now.

Every time I do something like this, I am struck by how weird our society is about art. So many say the are not creative or "artsy craftsy." Sometimes it seems there is the perception that only special and gifted people can create art. Sometimes I get the sense that people feel art and craftwork are valuable or important ways of spending time. Either way it is sad that so many people feel they are not creative or that creative activities are not an important way to spend time. Who didn't love doing this stuff growing up? That makes no sense to me. One of the best things about having kids is it has given me the opportunity to go back to the creative and art activities I loved as a child.

Spring Piano

It feels like Will just had a piano recital but this weekend, he had another one. Will played a short piece by Haydn (Sonatina in C Major, H. XVI No. 7).

I wish I could have recorded some of the other students but Lyra was a handful and I had to take her out. I listened to most of the recital from outside the door and from downstairs in the reception hall. Bill was attending a school event and not able to help me out. There was some beautiful music going on, Mendelssohn, a fantastic Sonata by Prokofiev and a Beethoven Concerto. One little boy played Schumann's Fantasy Dance. This is a piece I once played in a recital, although I was quite a bit older...He is 8 and I was probably 12.

I think there is one more recital before we break for summer. Stay tuned!

Getting Ready for the Trip....

NOTE TO SELF: Check your passport renewal date Several Months before your travel date.

Two days before we have to leave, I decide to get my binder of Important Papers to be sure I had everyone's passports. I do not know what made me open mine but I opened and looked and discovered, to my horror, that my passport had expired in JANUARY. This happened on Friday the 13th, two days before we were supposed to leave. I had wondered what Friday the 13th was going to drop on me and I found out at 6:00 AM. Fortunately, that was early enough to take action.

While I was panicking and berating myself for not having checked my passport earlier, Bill found the address of the State Dept passport office downtown. This information is well hidden because they want you do go to a post office or renew by mail but Bill found it anyway. I am so lucky that he is the calm collected one in the relationship. I RUSHED the kids to school and then went downtown to beg for passport renewal.

I had everything together but the photos. Due to my poor planning, I could not get passport photos at CVS for $7.99 and instead had to pay $25 at the the passport photo place conveniently located next to the passport agency (and open at 8:00 am). By the time I had my photo taken, the line at the passport agency was nearly out the door. A woman at the photo place told me I had to have an appointment to talk with anyone there. I had no appointment because the appointment system on the phone didn't work (and I am sure one was not available anyway). Then I notice the Passport Expediting sign.....

So for an extra $150, the photo place would take my passport application upstairs next door and would have them renew it THAT DAY. This was WAY cheaper than trying to change my flight so I paid up. I came back at 4:30 as instructed to pick up my passport and had to wait, double parked, for 90 minutes. At 6:00, much to my relief, I had my new passport in hand! And I did not get a parking ticket. So Friday the 13th didn't end so terribly.

But it was a dreadful way to spend my day. What if I hadn't checked my passport until Saturday? What if we'd gotten to the airport and I couldn't go? It is one thing to manage my own expectations and disappointment but the kids, even Lyra, are old enough to be mad at Mommy for screwing up the trip and I would not have wanted to try to manage THAT.

PHEW. I had a lucky break. So , go on, check your passport expiration date right now! Some places won't let you travel if it is going to expire within 6 months of your travel date so don't wait until the last minute. Surely Obama can create a job or two by requiring the State Department to remind you to renew your passport six months before it expires.

Belize Spring Break Vacation

This year we again traveled Belize for Will's and Eva's school break. This time we returned to Chaa Creek which we loved last year, and added four days at the beach in Placencia where we did some sailing, snorkeling and beach combing.

We were more adventurous this year, doing an all day cave tour at Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) and a day trip to explore the Maya ruins at Tikal in Guatemala.

Chaa Creek was as great as we remembered, and once again everyone wants to return again. If you look at the third map here (The Mountain Pine Ridge) you can see Chaa Creek toward the upper middle on the left side. The ATM cave is on the right side of the map, Barton Creek Cave where we went last year is shown, as is San Ignacio, the nearest town to Chaa Creek.

We have posted below photos of Chaa Creek, ATM, Tikal and our experiences in Placencia. Enjoy!

Cath - We stayed at Chaa Creek last year (see all posts tagged Belize) and we loved it so much that we came back. There are two sections to the resort: the palm thatched cottages and the river camp.

The cottages are beautiful and have all sorts of creature comforts. The river camp is more rustic (1 room, no a/c, no electricity, shared bath and showers) but very comfortable. The landscape is natural and wild, not so manicured as the cottage area. This is the part of the resort we love! At least I do....I do love a simple and plain vacation.At night, you go to sleep with all the jungle sounds around you and there is all kinds of wildlife to see most of the time. The camp manager, Dosio, built the camp and he and his extended family run the camp. They cook local food and bend over backward to make sure everyone has a good time and whatever they need.

It is like going to stay with family. There is enough to do at Chaa Creek just on the grounds that we didn't feel "trapped" on the resort. We alternated an adventure day with a pool and horseride backing day (to quote Lyra) to have the perfect mix of activity and relaxation. I want to go back!