First Day Of School 2012!

It's a misty first day of school today, but here's our girl, all ready to take on first grade at Klamath River Early College of the Redwoods! She's wearing her newest Converse sneakers, which will partially replace the ones purchased during her spring break just a few short months ago. They're showing a little wear and tear:

The ones on the right used to be a vibrant purple with pink tongues. All the running and hiking and playing and jumping our girl does takes a toll on shoes. It's slightly better now that she'll accept more than one pair in rotation so they don't get worn every single day, but...

Return Of The Book Quest

Ok. So about three years ago, I saw this list of 100 books that people were passing around Facebook to see how many they'd read. I consider myself reasonably well-read and was surprised by how many I had NOT read from the list, so I started to remedy that problem. You can read about the beginning of that quest here. It includes the list.


I have strayed from my quest, but decided to return to it this week. The reason? Our library isn't all that great. I'm trying hard to use it and love it this summer, but loving it is not always easy to do. They often (maybe even usually) don't have the books I'm looking for, so I decided that I should think about looking for different books. Books on the list. You see where this is going?


I finished Atonement, by Ian McEwan, this morning. It took me a little while to get into the story when I started it, but the ending is incredibly powerful, as is a lot of the middle. It is a story from the lead up to and very beginning of World War II in England. The central conflict is a lie that changes the paths of everyone enmeshed in it forever. I definitely recommend it and it illustrates perfectly the benefits of going through this list. I can't imagine picking up Atonement without the list. It has none of the characteristics that make me pick up completely random books and read them with no prior connection or recommendation. I'm usually drawn to a quirky title or book jacket (yes, I know I shouldn't judge, but I do!) and then find something on the leaf description that seals the deal.


I was debating between a few other books on the list, but then saw Neal Stephenson's Anathem on the shelf and felt compelled to reread it. Amazing book, truly. 


I know this post doesn't include the requisite picture of Darcy. We're stay-cationing at the house of friends this week and I don't have the card reader. Otherwise, I'd share a great picture of Darcy with a giant banana slug outside our house. But while searching for the original book-quest post, I came across this post with Darcy still in full curly-hair mode, so take a walk down memory lane and remember the younger, dinosaur-obsessed Darcy Jo.

An Old-Fashioned Fourth of July!

I'm not sure why, but it bugs Michael that Crescent City's independence celebrations are always billed as "old fashioned". Maybe he thinks that bounce houses and portable climbing walls weren't part of early 20th century Independence Days. He's probably right, but they no doubt had their equivalent.


Old fashioned or not, we had a great Fourth of July. Darcy and a couple of her troop mates marched in the Girl Scout contingent -- I was very proud of them all. They may be young, new scouts, but they kept up with the float in front of us over the whole course of the parade!

It was a smallish GS group that marched, but they got lots of cheers and the girls loved seeing their friends in the parade crowd. And what a crowd! Block after block of people five or six deep. The main viewing stretch is about eight or ten blocks, with another five or six blocks with fewer spectators. We were in the first third of the parade, so Darcy got to watch a fair bit of the parade, too. Then it was off to sample the afternoon fun.


Darcy hit the bounce houses before lunch and then waited -- reasonably patiently -- on line for quite a while to get to climb the wall:

She got to climb twice and did a good job! There was more fun in the park before we headed home, stopped by our neighbor's party, and then attempted some rest so we could make it to the fireworks with some remaining energy. We needn't have worried. Darcy still managed to run circles around everyone and every thing. Michael turned around for a minute and turned back to discover her at the other end of the beach watching "the pelican show", seven pelicans repeatedly diving for some kind of dinner. We set up right by the Pastels in the Park, part of the old-fashioned Fourth. They had been walked on a bit by this time of night, but still beautiful. This was my favorite:

The fireworks were wonderful, as always. Crescent City really does them well. It doesn't hurt that there are private fireworks shows (legal and illegal) all around you for an hour leading up the the real thing. Some of the illegal shows rival lesser municipal shows. Not ours, of course, because it goes on forever and includes many different kinds of fireworks. I suspect the whole thing is an environmental nightmare, but it is at least a beautiful one. Hard to get good photos of them, of course, so I'll leave you instead with a picture of our girl dancing around someone's sand castle while waiting for fireworks to begin:

Pictures Of Camp Tall Trees

Here are the promised pictures:

 Darcy in her newly-presented camp t-shirt at the fire ring. She got to work on starting a fire with a flint and steel and dryer lint. I believe she got a small fire going, but it wasn't entirely clear to me.

 With her cabin-mates before taking off from camp.

 Showing me around the main building. This is Bucky.

We stopped at Michael's office on our way home and he was a little happy to see her! It was a good reunion, with Darcy showing off her camp creations and the pictures they sent of her on their rock climbing wall.

Photos To Follow

Darcy is home from camp, safe and sound, and resuming the summer life. She had a great time -- everyone agrees on that score! The camp director assured me that he saw "not one second of miserable" and all the other adults said she was happy and engaged the whole time.


Darcy also agrees. When asked by the camp director if she had missed me, she said no. Last night, at bedtime, she told me that she and Mika, her stuffed-animal pika, wished they were still at camp. (The camp director also told me that she had asked him earlier in the day why she had to go home. Older scouts get to stay longer -- the girls next step up from Brownies stay four days and the middle school girls stay for seven.)


I've got a few pictures from the closing ceremony and Darcy's tour of the camp, but those will have to wait. Darcy and I have a busy day to get ready for now.

Darcy At Camp

Mama's anxious, but I think all of Darcy's claims that, "I'm a little bit nervous" were just for our benefit. She stormed the cabin. Helped me (?) make her bed. Shrugged off my attempt to show her what we packed for her. Asked, "Can we go play now?" (We being her and her troop mate K, not her and me.) Gave me a kiss good-bye on request and turned her back on me. I guess she'll be ok at camp for the next 48 hours.

Three Wild Days Of Summer

So Thursday was the last day of kindergarten for this clan and we have started the summer vacation off with a bang. On the last day of spring break this year, Darcy was in crisis because she thought spring break "lasted all spring" and was devastated to find out she had to go back to school on Monday. We've had many conversations about how summer vacation compares to spring break and have decided that it's an 80-day weekend. Here's Darcy starting the first day:

Anyhow. The first three days of this extra-long weekend have been spent extremely well. On Friday, Darcy and I prepared for Saturday by doing some birthday present shopping along with some grocery shopping in Brookings. On the way back, we stopped at the mouth of the Smith River for some water, seals, snacks, and sunshine:

Seals kept popping their heads up to check us out 15 or 20 feet off-shore. Darcy was digging it. When we got home, we planted a bunch of stuff in the garden before lunch. After lunch, we did some errands, spent time at the library, and then joined two of Darcy's troop-mates to check out the camp they're about to attend. Long day!


On Saturday, Darcy had been invited to two birthday parties AND had her end-of-tee-ball-season party. It was too much. We declined the birthday party that coincided with tee-ball. If you could find space out of the wind, Saturday was a day of glorious weather. It turned out that Endert's Beach was pretty much wind-free and therefore approaching what we call hot on the north coast. The low tide wasn't very low, so the tide pools were thin on the ground, but Darcy had fun holding back the ocean:

...and learning how to use her new camera...

It's a $20, 2.1 megapixel point and shoot, but she's doing pretty well holding the camera still:

She might need to work on holding it straight, but it will add a little avant garde feel to the camp pictures she'll be taking!

Today, the adventure continued, but without pictures. Michael went with another dad friend to float part of the Smith River in the morning. Part of the goal was scouting for a good section to take the kids floating in the afternoon. They chose the wrong section. By far. Michael came out of it alive and only slightly banged up, but minus his glasses (only pair with current prescription) and his wedding ring. Oh, and also minus the boat. He insists (like right now, as I'm typing) that the BOAT is not lost. He knows exactly which boulder it is currently wrapped around. The glasses and the wedding ring are gone forever.

After a lunch rendezvous, both families ventured back to the river -- a different section of the river -- and had a good time. Dads took kids floating downstream to where the car was still waiting for someone to float by. I swam briefly, but mostly found rocks for the toddler to throw in the water. We came home, had a good dad's day dinner, and packed for the next adventure: sleep away camp!! 

Yes, Darcy goes to camp tomorrow for two nights and three days of fun with her fellow Girl Scouts. We are very much hoping this is a good experience with not too much homesickness. Her camp day will start at 10 tomorrow, so by the time bedtime comes, I think she'll be too exhausted to worry about it. As long as she is having a good time during the day, I think it'll all be ok.

Our day should be long, too, so hopefully we'll survive sleep away camp, too! Anyone know of any good movies in the theater right now??