spring forward...

it's been a long time, friends. this winter has been most dreary and i've been mostly hibernating. when it came time to change the clocks, (which we forgot about, again) i was so disoriented when i woke up, over which clock was right and what time it really was, that in my morning grog i thought we were at fall back. no joke! i had to google it to see where we were. (looking out the window does no good: my brain just tells my body it is winter.)

i literally cannot believe it is june, that May slipped by right under my nose; i've been meaning to write for ages. in anticipation of summer, (i am reminded it is indeed summer, everywhere else but here. yes, it is currently raining and 57 degrees, still) i feel the need for a catch-up, before i am once again gone for a stretch. so apologies for the length, and the newsletter feel, but these are just things i meant to jot down but never managed to do so previously, and things i want to remember. so grab yourself of cup of tea, (or iced! i forget, it's hot over there) and if you have the time, enjoy the read...

january was february was march, and our april roses never bloomed. but we've been, as usual, busy with family life. we've even managed to get out of town for a few trips. (which we must do next year! breaking up the seattle winter is a key to survival, i've discovered.) and i'm become aware that i am surrounded by two northwest boys who suffer the lack of sun much less than i. i joked i was getting my sunshine vicariously on-line as i spent a better part of the winterly spring researching and planning our 3rd family summer trip, again to florida. it would seem it is becoming a habit, but we take each year individually and see what we can do. and so far, each spring has found me so desperate for sunshine and heat, that come july, florida is where we happily find ourselves. but enough about the weather...

(here's a sneak-peak of where we'll be staying beach-side for 4 days, before we head to walt disney world for 3: the kid is getting a bit old, and this just felt like the last chance to check this off the childhood list! i can't wait!)

january saw me jetting off to my parents for a mini-getaway, a long weekend with sisters. snow and babies, tea and talk; it was wonderful. contrary to some people's opinion, i do not mind the cold --in winter! i just like my seasons to be seasons, and besides, it was sunny!

my parent's house in winter:



nephew luke with his auntie rebekah, doing his new favorite thing: "becca bounce."



luke with his new wake-up call: baby brother evan!



peter and laura also joined up with us for a day at the baltimore aquarium.
family needs to see each-other more than once a year, a janurary trip is perfect.





that same weekend, greg and francis flew south to palm springs, for a guy's weekend: dirt bikes and desert, at the invite of our good friend chris bowden, who retreats often to his grandfather's old house in the desert, that the family has kept for getaways. the boys had a blast and greg put up a bunch of photos here. sadly, the wonderful trip ended with a scare: giving francis his first major injury: a concussion from an atv accident. he went for "one last ride" around the block an hour before they were to leave for the airport. he got going too fast, t-boned another rider and flipped the atv, which landed on top of him. it was so scary for greg, and we are immensely grateful to God that he was not hurt worse. (or the other rider either!) but it has not marred the great time they had, and they will have memories to last.

francis missed a week of school and spent the better part of february with headaches and -dr.'s orders- banned from gym, band, and basketball. his chin was banged up nice and good, which gave him some proof of injury! he got a lot of sympathy at school!



for him, it was a pretty boring february, except for the major event of turning 13!





it just so happened that on his birthday night, there was a special double-feature screening of the Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theatre, followed by Raiders of the Lost Ark: an Adaptation, a teen-filmed shot-for-shot remake of the movie, from the 80's, which was amazing, clever and funny!) so we took him and his best buds to a night out: dinner, movie, and a sleepover. which was promptly followed by winter break, where all his friends went out of town and we did not. that was rough. he actually said by the end of the (rainy! of course) week that he was tired of playing video games. we vowed we HAD to get out and do something for the next break, in spring. (which we did.)

march saw francis well enough to resume activities, thankfully, just in time for baseball season. he is now in juniors little league, with greg coaching again. he continues to surprise us, in the little things. like being so excited for his new helmet that he just could not wait to wear it...



here's a shot of francis in the outfield, which is right next to the woods of woodland park. there is a family of bunnies i have spied, that have no fear of hanging out in the outfield.



also in march, greg and i managed to get away for our (sometimes) annual march madness reunion weekend with friends in laguna beach. it was a nice dose of sun and friends.





which brings us to april: spring break! i took a break from summer vacation planning, and researched some places to go for a week long road trip, with the hopes of blue sky and sun. we looked at what was "in the area" via google earth, and decided on yellowstone. 2 days driving. 3 days there. 2 days driving back. i'm glad i did my research, because i discovered the park actually closes for winter, and had only just opened the week before, with only 2 roads in the park plowed and open for driving. we hemmed and hawed and read reviews, and in the end, decided to go anyways, and just see what we could see. it was wonderful to get out on the open road, and see new things. very exciting! also: thrilling-- apparently, there are many ways to die in yellowstone, or get seriously maimed: you can get gored by buffalo, mauled by bears, scalded by hot springs, fall into lakes of boiling water, drive off a cliff in a blizzard. there are warning signs everywhere! who could have forseen i would become such a fearful nag? i was seriously freaking out about surprising a bear any foray too far from our car. we were on trails, yes, but we were in the WILDERNESS! (oh yeah, and i was also scared of getting charged by a buffalo.) (oh yeah, and we got stuck driving in some seriously scary blizzards!) but it was amazingly beautiful, well worth the trip, and i would love to do it again. i've posted pictures of the trip up on facebook and flickr, but greg's are the really good ones. he got all the colors and wildlife that my cell-phone just can't get. i'll let you know when he posts them.











this april was our 14th anniversary. our gift that's been a year in the making was to once and for all, and finally, get a new bed. after 14 years of marriage, our first bed. we shopped for mattresses most of the fall. it seemed like every date we had while francis was at youth group, was to go lay on beds. it was not anything i want to do again. so stressful! i'm totally content sleeping on an old hand-me-down bed, but once you're going to commit thousands of dollars on something, how do you choose?? so we chose. and it was too soft. i mean, sinky like a couch soft. we were "required" to give it the 3 month test, so we slept/sunk on this bed for most of winter. then we returned it and had to start the process all over again. and chose. and it was too hard. and we could not return it. aahhh! we went back in to talk to the salespeople after a few months, knowing we couldn't return it, but asking for some advice. the lady there suggested buying a foam topper, which we did. and to march around on the bed every day, to break it in. (that was a sight!) and to do this: for 6 months!! i've been a little ashamed that my mind has been so occupied with bed woes, while the world has been going thru so many devastating events, but it's the truth. our bed is just now getting comfortable, which is good news. but the main reason i wanted to write about the bed, was to share that our friend nathan haase built our bed frame, out of old reclaimed barn-floor fir, and if you're looking for some locally sourced and hand-crafted furniture, check him out! it's gorgeous and we love it. thanks, nathan! (cell-phone pics just don't do it justice.)













so with may sweeping by, june is proving to be even busier. my to-do list that's been neglected for so long is now rearing it's head urgently. why do i always wait til the last minute? i have a goal of so many things to get checked off by the time francis is out of school on the 23rd. and after that, it's just a short time til we fly east for vacation for a month! another week at wildwood, nj with my whole family this time, sibs and spouses and babies all! i can't wait and i've been counting down as a general rule of survival. also: a girls-getaway to nyc with 3 dear friends: we haven't all been in the same place at the same time since my wedding i think! and of course, the nyssen adventure to florida in the july heat. it's all coming up, and i'll try to write and post some while it's occurring and not make you wait til december! i've been on a bit of a health kick, too, in preparation for summer. i call it my pre-detox. (i couldn't commit to a full detox before trying it out first, in waves, so that's where i still am.) (danajill has been helping keep me accountable, she serves me green smoothies!)



so if you made it this far, cheers!
and i wish you all a wonderful summer! xo

waking up looking down...

not often does the song i hear on the radio send me scrambling to find it once i get home.

but last friday, i got a call from greg, could we pick him up from work? it was pouring outside, already dark out, and he wouldn't get home til after 8pm at this rate, so francis and i hopped in the car, with francis choosing his new privilege: riding shotgun.

there was crazy traffic. moving slow, we hopscotched around on the radio, he didn't want to listen to classic rock, i didn't want to listen to christmas music (already??!!), so when i finally heard the beastie boys, i breathed a sigh of relief and turned it up. LOUD. i looked over at francis and his little shoulders were already groovin' to the beat, and i asked him: do you know this song? he said no. i said -- THIS is the rap music of MY school-days. i think he was a little surprised that he could like something that was so old. it didn't sound old. it sounded, well, awesome.

and then, while we were sitting there stop-n-go in the rain, in the dark, music loud, with the red tail-lights glowing off the windshield, the song morphed into a song HE knew. arcade fire. i said: you know this song? he said yes. everybody knows this song. and then he was really groovin'...

sometimes, randomly, forces come together to make a moment truly memorable. i don't know if he realizes how special it was, but for me, we have -lately- few moments of true togetherness, where i'm not buggin' him, or he's not buggin' me, where we are just chill, enjoying one another's company. to be honest, those moments come more easily and often when we travel, when we can be surprised, and curious, and discover things together. when we are far from the grind of daily life. at home, it's trickier, but sometimes those moments can still slip in.

we've been singing the song for days...

p.s.
after my foray down the rabbit-hole of the world wide web, i was able to find no information on where to buy it, but i've put an inquiry into kexp. the song was a mash-up of beastie boys: looking down the barrel of a gun, and arcade fire: wake up. it was credited as: arcade boys: waking up looking down the barrel. if you play them side by side on youtube, you can almost hear it.

let's go to the movies (see the movies!) let's go see the stars...

when i was growing up, we used to have Friday Night Movie Night. i was little; this was the era before vhs. i have tried to explain to francis, but we have media-saturated youth, tech-savvy kids: he does not really understand. the simplicity. the painstaking effort. it truly seems like we're telling him the stories our parents used to tell us, about walking to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways. how, exactly, did one have movie night before dvd's, (before vhs even) without actually going to the movies?

enter the film projector.

remember those? francis does not even know what this is, but in my youth this was the device that let the living-room become the cinema, (and, among other things, allowed us to see a whole 'nother side of my dad, the side which was usually reserved for fix-it-time in the garage, where we were not allowed to go when he was "working". hahaha) this was the age of super8, and the movies we watched were movies of us. the white sheet would be hung, the popcorn made, the lights dimmed, and we would all sit around and laugh at each other. we could do this for hours. my dad was the family photographer, movie-maker, engineer. laughter, then a jam, then silence. (dang nabbit!) then lights, splice, ok -we're rolling... and back for more.

sometimes, for a real treat, my dad would come home with movie shorts that he rented from his work. these were segments of a movie, about 10 minutes long. not a trailer, but a popular scene. i'm not really sure how available this was to the general public; he worked for Kodak at the time, so we all felt like this was really special. and it was.

the evening's entertainment might include:
the just a spoonful of sugar scene from mary poppins.
the soccer game sequence from bedknobs and broomsticks.
the archery contest and the rumble in the marketplace sequences from disney's robin hood. (Long Live King Richard!)
penny's escape, from the rescuers.

we watched these so many times, had them memorized. eventually, the super8 lost momentum, but we didn't lose movie night. vhs was introduced, we started compiling movies taped from the tv. we had a whole closet-full of choices. we grew up on the tv versions of a lot of good movies. also, movies that we would not normally have been able to watch. i am entering that dilemma now with francis, which is why it is on my mind. he is at the age (12) where he's ready for action movies, and sadly, many of them just have too much language. even the older movies. he has been begging to see the Terminator movies, and so greg and i re-watched them with him in mind. the first terminator? no way. the 2nd one? well, it's not too bad, except for all the f-bombs dropped. so, again, no way. i finally remembered to search for it on the tv, and we finally recorded a tv version for him. we had a movie night and he loved it! we've been big on the Family Night Movie Night, too, trying to keep it special. now it's making me wish i had a closet-full of movies for him to choose from, but even vhs doesn't work now. do i start burning movies onto dvd? (next up: ghostbusters!)

it's too hard to keep up, but one thing is certain: we do not have enough times where we sit around as a family, watch the movies of ourselves, and have a good laugh. we used to do that a lot when francis was little. this past christmas, greg converted a whole slew of francis' childhood from vhs to dvd. it took days and was the backdrop for most of our christmas break. so we got a good dose of little francis-isms then. fun memories! but i've been recording tons of stuff, so has greg, and it just sits on our computer. gathering dust. hard to find. what to do with it??

so: i've finally bit the bullet, grabbed a brief moment of inspiration, and created my very own vimeo site. (i've added it to my blog.) i've uploaded my first dose of family memories. these are, so far, only my cellphone videos from this summer, but it's a start. most people, unless they were there, won't really find them funny, or even care to watch. it's a public site, i don't care who watches it, but really, it's for us. (and you, if you were there!) i'm hoping to stay on task adding to it, and maybe even re-introduce the "home movie night." we may have traded in the large white sheet for a small white screen, but the memories shown are just as real and produce the same laughs. i'm hoping for more...

we've reached ten years! (ten-ure?)

dear friends...
many of you were around to witness a bold and moody tomboy move from pennsylvania farmland into seattle's infamous House of Funk over ten years ago, back in the spring of '95. i had always wondered whatever possessed my parents to allow that in the first place, given that "boys", and many of them, lived there, but looking back, i wonder if my mother had secretly been hoping i would find myself a husband (as mothers are often wont to do...) well, as provincial timing would have it, i actually did meet the boy who would become my future husband IN the house of funk. he didn't live there, he crashed there. regularly. i remember ed saying i was going to get to meet his friend "greg from portland" and that he was "so funny" i was gonna love him. well, the first time i met him: he had a closely-buzzed head, horn-rimmed glasses, and sported a matching track suit and a purposeful girl-repellent thin mustache. and i remember thinking: what was so funny about this greg person? funny looking? sure, ok. (greg protests: he says, we were all watching a movie...what did i expect him to do?)
he crashed at the house for over a week, and i remember writing to melissa, on a paper bag, pages and pages of how much this boy was driving me nuts. we bickered endlessly. he pushed my buttons. he was brazen. but we hung out alot. when he left for the summer without saying
goodbye (i thought), i decided he was "on my list" and i vowed to not talk to him anymore. i saw him later that summer at tom fest; didn't talk to him. it was rather nose-in-air, anne-of-green-gables of me, i know. that september, i went on a 9-mile overnight hike with lisa snyder, her brother matt, a lisa-smitten brian glenney, and greg; and i still didn't talk to him. i know i know: pathetic, childish and extreme. but strangely,(or, looking back, not so strangely,) i was thinking about him all the time.
i moved into the Stone Way House, to bunk with danajill, and then greg moved to seattle, and moved there too. i said: what are you, following me? but our schedules collided more often than not...( i would come home from work at 1am, and he'd be still up, in the kitchen, just "happening" to have a bowl of cereal, and we would talk late into the night, into morning...) and soon i regarded him as friend. and then as good friend. and then i secretly couldn't wait to get home to talk with him. and then i finally admitted to myself that i really really liked him. and then i was in love with him. we were so inseperable that josh teased me incessantly that we were going to get married. i always scoffed: "no way". but i was in love with him so much, that in classic rachel-wisdom, i decided to move back home.
i went home that winter, catching a ride with josh, and drove thru the worst weather i have ever driven in: idaho black ice, colorado blizzards, kansas wind-storms, and ohio deep snow . we got home in a record 3 days/ 3 nights. josh drove for about...mmm... 10 minutes. and then he slept.
and slept. and slept. i think angels had my back, because i was just frantic...frantic to get home, frantic in my heart; my brain just hurt.
well, needless to say, greg was hurt and confused and depressed that his best friend left town so suddenly (did he just call me his best friend? yippee!) we started writing letters, long, almost daily letters for the next eight months we were apart. greg is, to this day, the only person who
has ever matched me page for page in the novellas-masquerading-as-letters i could write. i would write him 26 pages, he would send me 28. with bits of flowers, drawings, stamps...when he went to uganda in the spring, i quickly moved back to seattle and he was a little dismayed that he had "just missed" me. but he didn't know i had been waiting for him to leave...
greg continued to write, and i continued to be vague ("signed, your friend, rachel") i was so resolute in not giving my feelings away, that greg was convinced i had no feelings for him, he thought i had a heart of stone and that he didn't stand a chance with me. and so, he bitterly went elsewhere for love...
when he returned from uganda, i met him at the airport in portland. he came off the plane bearded and tan and muscular; i was so in love with him i thought i would faint, but managed to feign nonchalance. which was good, because that weekend, he told me he was with some one else and it was serious. however, he was testing my reaction, needed me to be disappointed, give some sign that i cared--because he was torn... but i didn't give him that. i immediately thought what an idiot i was for ever thinking greg could possibly like me, hugged him and told him how happy i was that he had found true love. and then i went to my room and bawled my eyes out.
what ensued was a month of nose-bleed stress: greg deciding he really did want to be with me, calling it off with the other girl, and then setting himself into wooing me. i think i gave him a
hard time. i didn't want to give in if it wasn't really gonna be IT. but he persisted, daily, for three weeks...then he wrote his last love letter, i call it his last because it was the final one that broke me, with a bunch of sobs,...and i finally confessed i loved him back.

and that is how our long bumpy road together started. all that drama, and that was just the beginning! ( don't even get me started on our honeymoon! that 3-month long road-trip that was supposed to be heaven? well, we joke that greg was ready to leave me by the time we reached
Denver; just who was this cry-baby pyscho-freak he had just been tricked into marrying? well, you can guess we were pretty relieved, albeit understandably dismayed, when we discovered i was pregnant--and that's a whole 'nother story--but, we have the Francis now, and we've decided to keep him.)

my father has recently offered something pretty close to an apology, over how cheap our wedding was. he said he is surprised i let him get away with it. that's ok, i forgive him; he was pretty new at it: i was his first child to get married, and now that he's on the fourth, he's finally realizing how expensive weddings really are. our barefoot/DIY/potluck wedding was just fine-for-the-times, i assured him, and looking back, there's really not much i would have changed (well, except for my frightful fountain hair. seriously. you should see the pictures...oh wait, greg says: his hair too. he would change his giant poofy hair. see? case in point: why spend all that money on weddings, when, in ten years, all you're going to think is: were you satisfied with your hair?...)

we've had a harder road than we thought it would be, and i'm so glad that we're still together. and that we still love each other. it's really crazy to ponder that it's been ten years, and if i ever really doubt it, i have a nine-year-old ready to remind me just by his very presence...loudly.
and with star wars sound effects...

xo