Michael's HOME!

That's pretty much the whole story today. Michael rolled into town this morning. We all got to sit down to dinner together tonight and he is singing Darcy's bedtime songs right now.

Life is good.

The iPhone's Connected To The...Other iPhone?

Look! I managed to add a recent photo. This is our small cowgirl on Halloween. I'm still not exactly sure why she wanted to be a cowgirl, but she was insistent for a few weeks and there she is in her hat and boots.

This picture is brought to you by the wonders of modern technology. A friend took this picture with her phone, sent it to Michael on his phone. He posted it to Facebook by request, and I was able to grab it from there and post it to the blog. Ain't science and social media great?

Our Girl!

It's a rainy day out there this morning and I thought I'd get my blogging done for the day before even getting out of bed. I have no idea how I'm going to entertain the girl today and I'm sad because my rain coat is out in the car, which is not helpful.

A few weeks ago was California Indian Day. Darcy had it off from school, but the day before, they had a great day learning about Yurok and Tolowa traditions. The newspaper gave it some nice coverage, including a great picture of Darcy on the front page. It was how a few people learned we were back in town! 

As I said last night, Michael's getting closer and closer with himself and access to cameras and such. Maybe tomorrow, definitely early Monday! So you won't have to make do with links to interesting things for much longer.

Oh, Why Not?

So I was not planning to do NaBloPoMo this year. I was toying with the possibility of trying to write a novel or even doing the academic version of writing every day for a month, which apparently now exists. But both of those things seem to require more preparation and thought than I've given them, while blogging can be done a bit more on the fly.

This is my lame entry for the first day, just so there's something here.

Michael is currently driving across this beautiful country so he, too, can rejoin the ranks of the westerners. I will have more time AND access to photographs when he gets here, so I'll try to post lots of pictures of our ever-growing girl.

In the meantime, here's some of what I've been doing recently:

We had a great four days of Food Day celebrations last week, ending with this day of DIY Food Workshops, which were a big hit. You can read about the bigger plans and see the great coverage our local newspaper gave us here and here. The first article started on the front page and the second was the front page, above the fold of the B section. It was a whirlwind to put this together in the first seven and a half weeks on the job, but we did it and did it successfully!

Rainy Places Should Have Something Like This

This is a very purposeful blog post. At the north end of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (our current park) is the town of Milford, PA. There's a place there called Have a Hoot Family Fun Center and the times we've taken Darcy there, I am always overwhelmed by how much a place like Crescent City needs one of these. So I took a lot of pictures to show this point.

There are many elements at Have a Hoot. I spent one visit searching out manufacturers tags on some of them because, well, they're awesome. Most come from a company called Prime Play and, in fact, Have a Hoot is the featured photo on their Family Fun Center page. It's a better picture than any of mine for showing the overall set-up and a raised view of the high ropes course. But here's Darcy on the ropes course, too:

And a picture showing a few more of the high ropes elements from the ground:

There's a climbing wall in one corner that can be seen clearly in the linked picture, and then, on three walls of the building, is a multi-story human habitrail of fun. (If you don't know what a habitrail is, check one out here.) It's hard to show how completely amazing this is (I don't even have a picture of the trampoline part, for example), but here are some images:

Fun!! There's also a laser tag area (seen in the last picture; the top of it has more habitrail (or Ballocity, as it's properly called, I believe) and lots of arcade games, although they're definitely secondary attractions. Overall, it's an amazing, active, indoor play space that is even affordable! I think it's six dollars for a two hour session. This place also has a concession stand and a party area, so a lot of people have kids' birthdays here. For a place as rainy as the North Coast, it would make a world of difference!

The Missing Picture

Michael claims the picture was on the computer all the time. I still have my doubts. Either way, here is Darcy reading at the library on Monday afternoon:

And here's a picture from the hike Michael and I took a few hours before the library trip:

It's a little washed out, but that's a cute red eft hanging out on the moss. We took a "hike" a few weeks ago that ended up being a tiptoe through the over-200 efts on the trail. This time, we saw a dozen or so. Very nice amphibians they are.

Better Late Than Never? And Better Random Than Not At All?

So, yeah. I've been a little lazy with the ol' blog recently. Sorry about that. Moving to Pennsylvania and job-searching for months on end apparently does that to me. I know that pictures are the easiest path to forgiveness in this situation, so here are some recent stories and pictures.

Our small beast (feline variety) was recently ill. Last week, she was listless and stopped eating, and when I took her to the vet, her temperature was more than four degrees above kitty-normal. We didn't get an actual diagnosis, but the vet said that it happens frequently to cats and they DO know how to fix it. Paige got a shot of antibiotics and a shot to bring down the fever. It took many more days than I'd like, but she is finally back to normal, as judged by my 4:30am wake-up kitty snuggle today. In better times, Paige is very fond of bags:

Darcy, in the meantime, has turned into a full-time bookworm. She reads constantly and FAST. In truth, many of her chapter books aren't very long, but she often finishes one on the drive home from the library. Or in the library, as seen here:
(Well, you would see that here if Michael had sent it to the computer from his phone, but since he didn't, you'll have to wait patiently while I get him to do that for a future post.)

In the meantime, you can have this picture of Darcy at her bridging ceremony. She is moving from Daisies to Brownies next year and these transitions are celebrated in style. Each girl walked over the bridge and then shook hands with all the Brownies, who welcomed them into that level. It was very hot (third floor of an Elks Lodge with over a hundred people), but very cute.

Many weeks ago, all of us volunteered at a Hands-on-History event at historic Millbrook Village, on the New Jersey side of the park. I told visiting students all about food preservation methods, Michael worked in the mill, and Darcy helped churn butter. Sort of. Mostly, she wandered wherever she wanted and harassed teenagers who happened to put on Beatles t-shirts that morning. But in theory, she helped churn quite a lot of butter. We were all in costume (mine was of the oversized-flour-sack variety, with an apron to give it some sort of shape) and had a family portrait taken:

A good time was had by all. I warned students about the dangers of scurvy on long sea voyages and explained that one way to keep bad bacteria OUT was by letting good bacteria eat your food first. I'm not sure they all bought it, but they paid attention. Except the kindergartners who were on their sixth station; they paid attention to the spider crawling on the sauerkraut. It was pretty.

And there is a very random blog post that gives small glimpses into our lives. In other random news: Darcy has hit the first pitch in both of her last t-ball games (they pitch to them in late innings, but go back to the T after five or six pitches); I picked 3.5 pounds of beets from our community garden plot today and many pounds of potatoes are not far behind; we had a full house with grandparents, aunt, cousin, and friends for my sister's birthday weekend; Darcy has become friends with both cicadas and fireflies this summer; we are having insane amounts of rain here, including some thunder now; Michael is brewing beer at a steadily increasing pace this summer; and if you haven't tried the game Qwirkle, you should.