Summer Days....

I thought it was time I posted a little about what I saw and did during the busy month of June. I didn't exactly relax, but I did have a good time. ;-) First, Deedee, my 17yo daughter, and I traveled from our small northern California town to the heart of NYC for an awards ceremony at Carnegie Hall. (Read previous posts for more info about the play she wrote.) For a week, we visited all the sites -- Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Central Park, Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc... -- and we spent a lot of time at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. It was a wonderful experience for both of us. We took tons of pictures and had great fun finding our way around on the Metro, walking a lot, seeing a wonderfully funny Broadway musical/mystery play, and enjoying real bagels!

Then we came home for a week, and that was great, too. The rest of the family had kept everything running smoothly while we were gone. Of course, we knew that already because we have cell phones now and had stayed in touch daily. ((I finally gave in to this technology just before the NY trip. I hold out on these kinds of things as long as I can -- pure stubbornness, I suppose...). So I wasn't surprised to see my tomatoes were actually alive and the laundry was caught up, but it was still a nice homecoming. Also very nice was the way my 2yo came running to hug me with open arms. ;-) "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" does work most of the time.

That week was quite busy, as the annual County Fair was taking place, and most of the kids had entered artwork and/or baked goods. We enjoyed our time looking at all the exhibits and munching our huge mustard corn dogs. In addition, it was also the big week of daily rehearsals leading up to the annual Dance Performance for the girls. Shannon and Ellie Rose were wonderful in their modern lyrical dances -- Ellie Rose did a fun dance to Tarzan's "Trashin' the Camp" song -- that's the scene where the gorillas come in and curiously "investigate" all the weird stuff at the "human" camp. The girls in her dance looked like they were really having FUN up there. Shannon's class did a gorgeous dance to Joni Mitchell's "Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night." Shannon then had two different large roles in the ballet ("The Red Shoes"), including a special duet dance. She continues to be more and more graceful every year. I have no idea how she manages to make dancing "en pointe" look so easy and beautiful, but she does. Ellie Rose did a great job in her ballet as well. As always, she was by far the tallest (and tannest!) girl in her group. ;-) Usually Deedee is involved with dance, too, but this year tap just didn't fit in her schedule. Anyway, the two shows went perfectly, and then Deedee and I left again in the middle of the night, right after the last dance performance, to drive down to the airport for our second adventure...

This time we flew to Washington, DC for the National History Day competition. (Again, see previous posts for info on that.) We had a great time during our week in DC. Deedee hadn't been there since she was about 3, so we tried to see as much as possible. Like all things in life, we had to prioritize our choices since it was obvious we couldn't begin to cover everything.

We toured all the monuments, of course, and we just "happened" to enter the Tidal Basin walkway between the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial as a very brief, light shower ended. As we stepped forth from the overhanging trees on to the sidewalk, we were greeted with a young man running crazily past us as a middle-aged woman a slight distance away shouted, "We can take 'em live! We can take 'em live!"

For a moment, we wondered.

Then we noticed the huge TV camera that was facing the water, and we realized they were talking about taking pictures "live" for the local news broadcast. As we looked to our left we were almost overwhelmed with the beauty and awe of a huge double rainbow that reached all the way from the Jefferson Memorial on the right side of the Basin to the Washington Monument on the left side. We started snapping pictures frantically ourselves, and though our little cameras couldn't take in the entire expanse, we did manage to get some spectacular shots. God's artistic ability truly is amazing!

The highlight of our DC trip was definitely the entire day we spent at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I cannot describe to you the impact this place had on us, despite the fact that we have studied that period in history extensively. Seeing and hearing firsthand the stories of those who were murdered and those who survived changed us deeply.

Since being back from these trips, I have enjoyed settling into our "summer" routine. The older kids are all working at their jobs -- Paul is Head Lifeguard at our community's pool/rec center. Deedee is a swimming instructor there. And Caiti is finishing up her year at a law office in town before heading off to grad school at Stanford this fall. Shannon keeps busy with summer dance lessons, babysitting jobs, and academics (algebra, chemistry, and literature...). The middle kids (Ben, Ellie Rose, and Jim) are all involved with the Jr. Giants baseball program. It only lasts about 8 weeks, and it emphasizes improving basic skills, real teamwork, and positive character traits. We are spending several afternoons at the pool every week so the kids can work on their swimming stamina and have fun relaxing in the high heat, and we are planning on going camping in August.

But things are certainly not "normal" around here in every way. We are surrounded by fires on all sides. None of them are endangering our own immediately local community -- some are within 15 miles, some are 25 miles away, and others are 120 miles from here. But all of them have flooded our valley with heavy smoke that blots out the sun almost constantly. Sometimes days go by where we have nothing but that ominous dark brown/grey fog everywhere. Sometimes it's just up in the sky; sometimes it's so thick we can't see more than 50 yards down the road. There are hundreds and hundreds of fires burning right now, most originally sparked by dry lightning storms a couple of weeks ago. Miraculously, I have heard of no one dying due to any of the fires. In this area, we owe a lot to our firefghters.

So the annual fireworks celebration for today has been canceled. Some of my kids usually play in the community's July 4th Band , but that, too, is not happening this year. Yet these changes don't mean we are not taking time to think about what this country and its freedoms mean to us -- as a family, as homeschoolers, as Christians, and as Americans. More so right now than ever before perhaps, as we look to the elections coming in November, as we consider all we saw in NYC and in DC recently, as we realize again what this country is to us today and what it has been to others in the past, we thank God for the blessing of America.

Happy 4th of July to all of you!

Kim