Monday, Monday

Wanted to blog quickly while Stone finishes up Shrek. (Halleluiah is playing right now, oh, I love that song!) Saylor and Sage are sleeping at present.

Anyway, we had a good weekend. Spent most of yesterday at an indoor water park here helping a friend celebrate his 7th birthday! Of course, when we do anything, we do it ALL THE WAY! We arrived at the party at 2'sh and kept on swimming until close to 9. We all left with smiles and fun stories to share with each other on the drive home. Sage fell asleep for about the last hour we were there, so I finally got to try some of the slides with the boys. I had lots of offers from friends to watch Sage while I went on the slides, but he wasn't about to have any of that in his conscious state!

We spent some time today with friends from the Mother's Collective; the hostess made scrumptious enchiladas with tofu. I really need to do more with tofu. I just feel intimidated by it, for some reason. Time to find my courage! After our gathering, we stopped at Albertson's to look for some different goggles for Stone. He's decided he needs the face goggles, the ones that cover your nose. He was doing some serious swimming yesterday, complete with underwater flips and everything! Cool!!! We also stopped at a couple of thrift shops to scout out some new toys. Stone picked up an Operation game, and Saylor chose a tiny 1qt. crock pot. Hmmm, wonder what he'll do with that! I'll let you know!

I think the rest of the week looks pretty slow and relaxing for us. That's a good thing, given our last week of driving and the excitement of returning home. I think it's taken a bit of a toll on Saylor. He's my sensitive one, and has found his way to tears quite easily the past few days. I know we're all tired and re-adjusting to "life in a house" after many months of "life in a bus". And, we all miss our daddy-o, of course.

I've been doing a little "Experiment in Messiness", mainly to see what I can learn about myself. I crave order and tidiness in our home. Not to the point of being anal, but I do like clear, open spaces. So, since we've returned, I have not been cleaning (much). Just doing the bare necessities, like keeping clean dishes so we can eat. I'm trying to be more mindful and present with the boys throughout the day. It's easy for me to start one little chore and then get distracted and onto something else, which leads to something else, and on and on and on! So, I'm practicing just walking on by. I've been doing a good job of it, too! We have toys all over the place and it's fine by me! Now, tonight, right before I got on here to blog, I had a few moments to spare and so I did a very quick 5 minute tidy. I'm realizing it's all about **Balance**. A happy medium. A messy house is fine, but I truly find joy in giving my family the gift of a clear space to start anew. So, the floor is empty and inviting...beckoning to the boys to come on down and play!

Home, Again...

We made it back Wednesday afternoon and stopped in to see Aunt Barbie and Grandma at their respective places of work. I slowly started pulling things out of the suburban, which was packed full while the boys were excitedly pulling out ALL their toys that they hadn't seen in nearly 5 months.

My sweet girlfriend, Pam, came by with a bottle of Merlot, a loaf of artisan bread and some pesto for a little 'welcome home' toast and snack. Another friend swung by yesterday with her 2 youngest (of 6!:) and presented the boys with a fun bubble blower. We also spent some time yesterday at Kendra's, with her and her 3 boys. They were all happy to see each other again, we all were! And Mama Kendra had cupcakes fresh outta the oven, so that was a bonus! The boys have been playing most of the day today with our neighbor boy, they adore Robert!

The weather has been beautiful, and on our first night back in the king-size bed, I was awakened by a spring thunderstorm, complete with thunder, a bit of lightning and some pretty heavy rain. I smiled in dark of our room. We've even fired up the fireplace a few times, and it's as wonderful as I remembered it to be. Not that it's been COLD, mind you, but hey, when the sun goes down and everyone is fresh out of the tub, is there a better time to sit in front of the fireplace?

I'm feeling inspired to show our yard a bit of loving kindness this spring. We certainly don't have a pristine yard, by any means! We have a yard that gets used all day long. Evidence of busy little bodies abound throughout! However...I would love to plant some things, and just do some sprucing up. The boys will still have their little area of mud to play in, gotta have that! I'm sure I won't do much, I just feel the need to get my hands dirty, I guess. Maybe a bit of Sue and Steve rubbed off on me, with all of their gardening genius!

Well, we've mostly been playing in and around the house since we've returned. Had to do a few errands (which I did without the two bigs, who went with G-pa to watch a cousin at a track meet) to pick up some essentials like another espresso machine! How I love my daily breve...
Oh, and the boys have taken about a thousand baths in 3 days! I kinda knew that was going to happen! We're going to a friends birthday party tomorrow, and then Monday we have our weekly Mother's Collective get-together. That's about it from this tribe for now. Sage is snoozing on my lap and beginning to stir, so until next time... Namaste...

I Know it's Late...

but I wanted to let everyone know the trip home to Rapid City is going great! We left Sacramento early Monday morning, the same time John was leaving for work. He helped me carry armloads of sleeping children to the car, gave everyone smooches, and we were on our way. Of course, the sleeping children all promptly woke up, but fell asleep again after about an hour.

We drove through the Sierra's at sunrise. It was so beautiful...reminded me a lot of our own beautiful forest, the Black Hills. The roads were all dry and clear, but there were some lingering snow piles here and there, and it was fun watching the thermometer on the mirror keep going down, down, down. It was in the low 30's. (oh, and I got a speeding ticket just inside of Nevada! Dang-it! I guess the air patrol clocked me...I didn't even see the air patrol, sneaky petes) We made it to Ogden, UT on Monday night, about 7'sh. Uncle George and Aunt Rita cooked up some grub and the boys had a great time playing with their new little puppy, Stags.

We left Ogden this morning (tuesday) around 9:30...no, correction...we said good-bye to Rita (who lovingly took the morning off to hang with us a bit longer, she's so sweet) at 9:30, then made a quick stop at Albertson's, because we had big plans to swim tonight at our hotel room, so we GOTTA have GOGGLES!! Saylor was pretty sure he'd seen some at Albertson's once upon a time. Well, he was right! The boys each got a pair of goggles and some glow sticks, then we gassed up (the car, that is), grabbed a sandwich at McD's and headed out of Utah at around 10:00.

We arrived in Casper around 5:30, checked in to our room, changed into our swimming clothes and played in the pool for a couple hours. Then, back to the room for some room service, a speaker phone conversation with Dad (who we miss already, of course) and a few minutes of the Discovery Channel before the boys could no longer resist the heavy weight of sleep. We'll get up in the morning, go swimming again, order some breakfast, hop in the car and be home by mid-afternoon.

I'm just tickled at how well this trip went. No one cried, there were a few disgruntled moments, like when Saylor had to help Sage find his snake/lizard/bear for the umpteenth time. But, overall, they did so great! Natural-born-travelers, they are! They were even good sports (albeit giggling sports) this morning when I felt the need to belt out the whole of Amy Steinberg's cd! Man, I love that girl!

So, all's well! We're happy, having fun, looking forward to our return home to see friends and spaces we've been missing. And when it's time again to head West, we'll know we can do it!

I am Soooo Behind!

playing in the little pool by the river, searching for tadpoles and minnows...

at Nimbus Fish Hatchery...

fun time digging in the sand...

at Fairy Tale Town

Aunt Megan sharing Easter gifts...
We have had some great stuff happenin' around here lately, so much so that I just haven't had the time (or more likely the ENERGY) to post about it. We're 5 days away from taking off on our cross country trip home, just me and the boys and the dog. Leaving our man behind, but it's all gonna work out just fine!
And, got the BEST BEST BEST news today! Y'know that pesky Sioux Falls house I'm always griping about? Well, it went back on the market last week, and today, we had 2 offers come in on it. So, now, each party is 'strengthening' their offers, because they were both very similar, and I'm waiting to hear back from our realtor in the morning, when we'll decide which way to go. This will be such a Blessing to bring closure to this deal. It's time.
Also, we had a very playful Tuesday and Wednesday with the SUN-Network folks! I found them when I googled 'unschoolers' and 'sacramento'. They are a fantastic group of people! We spent alllll day at the park yesterday, and then today at a game day (hosted at someones house). It's super cool when there are 13+ teenagers hanging out and mingling around with all the little (or littler) ones! Saylor has decided he "doesn't really want to go home now"! At least we have a group here ready and a waitin' for our return!
Gotta go now... John's getting grumpy at the sound of my clickety-clacking. He's gotta be up by 3 (a.m. that is, yikes!) Such is life lived in 35 feet...
good night..............

80 Degrees and Sunny

The weather has been warm and sunny here. The boys and I are doing lots of bike riding and playing in and around the river. It's snowing lightly at home right now, and I REEEEAAALLLY hope that Mother Nature reserves one big snow storm for us when we are tucked safely away in our cozy little house. We'll be arriving home around April 20 and I'm starting to feel very excited about it. For a while, I wasn't sure how I felt about going home and leaving John here, but now that he's working more like 6am until 6pm, it's feeling ok. His hours will only get longer from this point on, so it's sensible to me to go home to spend long days with friends and all the other summer activities that keep us so busy.

A bunch of us from The Mother's Collective are putting together some plans for a shared garden this summer. I would love to garden, but our yard is pure shade, so this will be so much fun to do with other moms and children! We're sure to find ourselves spending whole days at the Lake and others hiking our beautiful Black Hills. I'm feeling more drawn to spending lots of time outside, in nature, rather than the city pool. However, if the boys feel strongly about the pool, we'll do that, too. A good friend of mine has asked to be at her homebirth this summer, so that's always a huge thing to look forward to! I've put an offer out to our neighbor to hang out with the boys about 10 hours a week, so I can work out and otherwise re-charge my batteries for life-on-my-own with the boys.

Saylor has been making smoothies every day and is currently standing at the stove whipping up some eggs for himself. Gotta go get this gang ready for our day! Peace and Love....