Get Ready!

It's almost November and I have agreed to keep Auntie Best company in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) again this year! Every day in November, you can look forward to a new post. Pictures! News! Fun links! They're all coming your way!

"Special Day For Me!"

And so it is. The first day of kindergarten. A very special day for Darcy and she woke up chanting softly, "Special day for me! Special day for me!" I think she might have been a little excited about starting school today. Above, getting ready to climb into the truck to go to school. Below, outside her classroom itching to get inside and start being in elementary school. She knows at least one other person in her class AND in the after-school program, which she's also completely excited about. She is in a K/1 composite class and looks very, very small compared to the rest of the kids. We'll have a report about the first day later. Now I need to get started with a very busy week of work.

August Vacation Part I

It is September. Darcy is no longer a preschooler. Yesterday was her last day of preschool and she starts kindergarten on Tuesday. Our August vacation was wonderful and revived us all to enjoy the last bits of summer in Del Norte. I'll be posting some pictures over the next few days. Here is a taste of the joy that being cousins together can bring.

Darcy and Liana celebrate matching outfits sent by grandma (Kathy) ten minutes after arriving at the house from the airport.
They insist on wearing the matching outfits again the next day (and, I believe, the next day, too) while being a great cheering section for my swim in the triathlon.

While I wait for my team mates to finish the ride and run segments of the triathlon, the girls sport their skirts on the surfboard outside Ocean World, our local aquarium. They had a great time and then came to see me get medals -- and promptly claim one each to wear.
The skirts came off for sprinkler time in the yard. Michael was giving our lawn and fruit trees a good drink before we abandoned them for ten days in Bend. It's the dry time and now we have a carpet of redwood leaves from our unwatered redwood fairy ring.

Proudly showing off their wetness once the sprinklers went off.

This is the 200th post for this blog. Not bad, but I've definitely been less prolific about writing in the past few months. I'll try to do better because I know Darcy has a lot of fans out there who are missing out on seeing all the different stages she's passing through. I don't have anything profound to say today. Michael is off golfing, Darcy and I are about to go to the farmers market and we have vague plans to go enjoy the beauty of the Smith River this afternoon. Del Norte is entering what should be two months of glorious weather and I hope we're able to take advantage of a lot of it before the rains start again.

I've been reading one of my favorite blogs a lot recently (Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op) and thinking a lot about getting rid of a lot of the stuff that we've accumulated over the years. I have made some small starts, but I know there are many boxes lurking in the garage that we've barely opened. Life is too short to be taken over by stuff. I learned recently that books can be recycled in our mixed-stream bin, so I'll be tossing a lot of old editions of textbooks that absolutely nobody wants any more. It's going to feel good.

Enjoy the last days or weeks of summer wherever you live. We're busy treasuring every sunny morning.

A Good Beginning and End

Well, it hasn't been the best of days. I've been mad enough to spit nails at all the idiots in Congress who can't behave like adults and actually do their jobs. And my big plan to get some particular work done didn't happen quite as I'd hoped. BUT...there were some highlights. First, after many months of planning and hoping and waiting, the Little School of the Redwoods -- Del Norte's new preschool -- opened for business. Despite the fact that she'll start kindergarten in about a month, Darcy wanted to go, so go she did:

She's carrying the backpack she and Michael made from two bubble-wrap mailing envelopes and blue duct tape, and proud of it. It's loaded with some of the many books she has made recently. Many of you might receive a book or two in the mail soon because there are about a dozen sitting on the coffee table right now.

She did not want to pose under the sign outside the door, even though that was my plan for the picture of the day. I promise that it says "Small Avenue/Little School of the Redwoods".

Inside, there's no doubt where you are!

Dropping Darcy off at Little School was a morning highlight. The evening highlight was supervising Darcy in the bath with the bubble machine spitting bubbles at her non-stop. It was FUN. She had tricked me into taking her to the beach earlier and when I wouldn't let her swim (in her clothes), she suggested a "just play, no washing hair" bath and I was happy to oblige.

I just took her a glass of water in bed and she asked what I was doing. When I told her that I needed to finish the dishes, she told me that it's late and I should be going to sleep. I couldn't agree more. Good night!

Happy Fathers Day!

Well, it's Fathers Day! Michael slept in and is off playing golf right now after eating not-quite-what-I-meant-them-to-be breakfast burritos. I think I'm doing pretty well so far. In honor of Fathers Day, here are two pictures of my father, Dave, and many pictures of Michael and our girl. They are more or less chronological.

Michael and the brand new Darcy Jo.

Darcy and her daddy, sacked out in the recliner in King Salmon.

Still in King Salmon...learning how to stick out your tongue.

Darcy's first camping trip -- and first visit to Yosemite!

Rock-climbing on Teutonia Peak trail, Mojave National Preserve.

Darcy's first baseball game.

Sunset among the Granite Mountains, Mojave.

Town ball at Fort Humboldt State Park.

Camping!

Well, the rain is finally starting to taper off (although it rained yesterday morning for the opening day of our farmers' market, which I missed due to work), so it's camping season again! We went camping the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend after the weather turned out to be so much better than predicted. We had originally planned to camp the whole weekend, but then the weather folk predicted a full three days of rain, so we didn't. And so, of course, it was beautiful until Monday afternoon. Darcy was, as always, a big help in setting up camp in her somewhat interesting choice of outfit.

Due to our late start, we headed to the closest Oregon State Park, about thirty miles away. It's right on the beach, so we spent some very windy time playing in the water and sand. The campground has a great playground, so we spent some time there as well.

The morning was a bit chilly and Darcy was having none of it:

That's about as bundled as a small fairy-girl can get. She eventually thawed out enough to eat her pancakes before heading out on a wildflower expedition. The evening program the night before was a wildflower walk, which Darcy ended up loving. The guides let her keep a copy of the photocopied cheat sheet they used on the walk and Darcy walked around with it looking for some of the flowers she learned (or already knew):

She's styling in her PJs, vest, pink gloves, and pink-and-green knit hat (thanks again to Missy for our favorite hat!). On the way home, her flower chart got "scrunchled" so she had to draw her own. She drew a series of many boxes, just like on the chart. Hers are a variety of greens with a blob of color in the middle of some of them, but she did it so seriously and it came out as a pretty stunning piece of art even if it wouldn't help you identify a single flower.

Art is a major focus of Darcy's life these days. She made a leap a few months ago into representational art and will now draw very complex pictures that really do tell the story she wanted them to tell. Based on our earlier "Darcy Goes Camping" book that was the tale of her first camping trip illustrated with black and white photos, we made a "Darcy Goes Camping in Oregon" version for this trip. This time, though, we wrote the words -- mostly hers -- on the pages and then she illustrated it herself. The picture of the wildflower walk is amazing, with very recognizable foxglove, which is in peak bloom right now. My favorite might be the "hicycle". Darcy coined the phrase to describe a bicycle that rode around the campground. The seat and handlebars had been raised a few feet into the air so it was a high bicycle = hicycle. Without any guidance, she figured out how to draw that, along with the ice cream truck featured on the same "Darcy saw some cool things" page. We did not visit the ice cream truck due to the s'mores and popcorn that had already been consumed.

Maybe next time. Ice cream while camping does sound like a pretty good treat.

Happy Mother's Day Weekend!

In honor of Mother's Day, here's the earliest picture I have of me and my mom, Kathy. And in honor of the great weekend I had with the small beast who brings me mother-status, I'll add some pictures of Darcy at play in Fort Humboldt.

Fort Humboldt is in Eureka and was the site of, you guessed it, a fort! Not-yet President Grant served as quartermaster, which gives it an extra claim to fame. For the second year in a row, Michael spent three days at the fort playing "town ball", an old-timey version of baseball. It requires you to hit a player with the ball to get them out. Michael got Darcy out a couple times.


The surgeon gave a demonstration of field medical techniques.

Surprise! They wanted a very small patient to carry around in the stretcher and Darcy was perfectly happy to play the part. For long after they put her down.

Ah, town ball! Two batters, one pitcher, and a very short pitching distance. Maybe not always, but that's how our girl plays it -- and she got a hit! You can just barely see the ball coming off the bat.

Darcy played in the grass and rolled down hills after her last round of town ball while we were waiting for Michael to change back into modern clothes. She was a very happy and smile-filled girl.