knees and elbows

It's been awhile

I know. I KNOW. I am a baaad bloggess. There is no excuse. Well, there were a few weeks when I thought I'd lost my camera, but then found it in Anna's backpack. Otherwise, um, laziness? I'm sorry.

Autumn was lovely.

 

 

 

Winter is looking good, too. 

That blurry picture of David on a bike? That's an everyday occurrence. We sold his car (!) and he's a daily bike commuter, 60 minutes roundtrip. He looks amazing. Think about him when it's 15 degrees and snowing. 

Anna moved straight from soccer to basketball, with a little violin and piano thrown in for good measure. She aspires to a duet with cousin Liz next summer. She is 10. I know. She has two best friends in Ohio: Katherine (the cellist) and Sadia, her standmate. These best friends are not to be confused with her ultimate best friend, Maddie, in Portland. She knows how lucky she is to have friends from all over.

Jack reads one Magic Treehouse book a day. He can tell you the Latin names of various sea monsters. Art, piano, race tracks and Legos are a regular part of his day. He has many good friends, and loves his teacher. She reminds me of Joanne, so I love her, too.

I have become a domestic goddess. Sewing, baking, decorating...my days are full. But I fear I'm getting stupider. Kind of like the Seinfeld episode where Elaine stops having sex with her boyfriend while he studies for his medical exams and gets progressively stupid. Columbus seems to be having the same effect on me.

We spent a lovely Thanksgiving at my dad's in Indianapolis, and my mom will be here for Christmas. Our guest suite is open for business...you are always welcome. xoxo

Whew, summer

Hello! It was so great seeing you last month. Mmmmwah! We had the best time. It felt great to slip right back into our community, be with our people again. Thank you for not changing too much. 

School started yesterday, though we're still shaking our heads over the whole August-start date. Both kids love their teachers (whew) and I've been busy baking, organizing, biking short errands and catching up with friends. Anna started club soccer a couple of weeks ago, and it's quite a bit more competitive than past leagues. Her teammates are still getting to know one another, so hopefully in a few months they'll jell. (We are indeed missing the fun and familiarity of the awesome Incredibles soccer team.) Jack received a chess set for his birthday, as requested, and has spent many an evening humiliating my king. David rode in the Pelotonia bike ride for cancer research (thank you) last weekend, and is working on a way to bike commute to work. All is well here. Some pics from our NW trip...

Camping at Lost Lake on Mt. Hood with some of my favorite people in the world:

Timbers!

Best friends:

Orcas Island with more of my favorite people:

(William, aka Yum-Yum, might just be the best baby in the world. Just sayin'.)

(With the exception of Jack's awkward hand placement, actually getting a decent shot of this crew was nothing short of a miracle.)

While I don't have photos of our joyful reunions with the Hawkins gang, Greg & Chris, Ken, Susan & Steve, Reagan, Scott, Ian and Will, Wendy, Mark and Ike, it was great to spend time with you all.

xoxo,
Heather 

spring

Spring brought some good things to us.

A visit from G-ma.

A first jump off the high dive.

Toothlessness.

A new skatepark (and a new board for Anna tricked out by a former pro skateboarder).

A trip through rolling, lovely Holmes County, home of the Amish.

We are mostly unpacked (thanks to Mom), school's been out for a few days and we are enjoying some fine weather out on our screened-in porch. We rode our bikes to dinner tonight where we ran into two families we know, and it felt pretty darn good. However. ONLY 25 DAYS UNTIL WE"RE BACK IN PORTLAND!

home sweet home (well, almost)

We moved! And I finally found my camera cord! Yes, after six months of renting in rather close quarters, the Hawkins family landed in a new nest. A 1930 Tudor with room for everyone. (Even guests.) Within these lathe and plaster walls are five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, including a guest suite (hint, hint) in the finished attic. Haven't you always yearned to visit Columbus, Ohio? Isn't it number 17 on your bucket list? Here's your chance.

The house is still a ghetto of boxes and stacks of stuff that we don't really need. So the photos are somewhat limited. More to come.

Yes, the light on the iron arch does work, and no, I can't see a reason to ever close those gates. That's a mad thicket of wisteria there on the right. And just how do you shovel snow off a brick paver driveway?

 

The previous owners, who lived here for 20 years, were avid gardeners and delightfully landscaped the yard in perennials, small shrubs and trees and just the right amount of hardscape.

Yes, the floor is blue. We think it's original to the house, as are the leaded glass cabinets. Good to see the beer made it into the photo. The window on the left there is actually a pass-through into the family room:

Note: I took these photos on day 3, so everything looks like crap. Oh who are we kidding, it will probably always look like this!

The screened porch off of the living room was a big selling point for me. Swoon.

Leaded glass windows throughout the house. Charming, oui. Totally inefficient, mais oui. It is a great house on a beautiful, quiet street. Lots of kids on this street, hurrah! Anna and Jack are happy to have a big finished basement in which to play, and sidewalks and a low-traffic street for biking. In fact it just might be the perfect house save for one minor detail. It's in the wrong state. :)

charleston, south carolina

For the first Spring Break ever, the Hawkins family went on vacation. And what a vacation! A ten-hour drive and BAM! -- another world. The South. We felt it coming on as we rolled through the Appalachian mountains, lovely and thick with bare-branched-but-almost-budding deciduous trees, white church steeples peeking out of ramshackle West Virginian towns. Bits of red and pink greeted us in North Carolina until, finally, we hit the bright green haze of South Carolina and the sun and pastel hues of a proper southern town. Charleston was everything I'd hoped for: fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, beignets, oh wait, and the architecture and history of one of the oldest cities in America. Moss dripping from 300-year old oaks, gardens peeking out from behind black iron scrolls, cannons in the park, war monuments, brilliant sunshine, it was amazing. To all fifteen of you who read this blog, I cannot recommend Charleston as a vacation destination enough. Hopefully we can return one day.

We stayed at the Wild Dunes Resort on the Isle of Palms, about 20 minutes outside of Charleston. Beach and pool were daily visits, and bikes were rented. Oh, glorious sunshine!

Hello, freckles!

Boone Hall Plantation and slave quarters

Scenes along Church Street, Charleston

Before we left Charleston, Jack asked if we could 'go home to Oregon.' Despite the grown-ups' best efforts these past few months, our hearts remain firmly in Portland and we miss all of you all of the time. We'll be back July 10 through 22nd, and look forward to a very happy reunion. 

jean reeves, july 15, 1915 - march 3, 2011

Dave and Grandma, 2009

I can picture her elegant hands, always manicured, tapping out the ash of her cigarette. She's sitting in her chair, the one that provides a perfect view of both the lake and the television. The crossword puzzle long finished, the flowers on the deck watered, the bird feeders replenished, the grandchildren licking their wounds from being trounced in gin rummy once again. (How does she always win?) It doesn't matter what year it is, be it 1979 or 2009, those images remain constant.

 

 2005

Independent, that woman. Oh, she did not like giving up her driver's license a couple of years ago at age 93. She knew it was time, but she hated having to depend on others to get to the store. She lived in her house right up to the end. That white house on the lake, its bookshelves once filled with Reader's Digest Condensed Books, which I would read during our summer visits. I could always count on a new Dick Francis horse mystery in those books. 

The Reeves family, 2009

Very little ever changed from year to year. We always knew exactly what to expect, from the potato chips and lunch meat at noon, to the shrimp cocktail and cheese and crackers at five. There was so much comfort in knowing how our days would unfold: the men out golfing in the morning, then us kids water skiing in the hot, humid afternoon, with cards in the spaces in-between, and at least one dinner at the 78 Club where the waitresses knew us from the summer before.

It's so familiar to me. I can feel it, smell it, see it. Those hands, that wry grin. She was so proud of us, always. I'm glad my kids knew her. She was a wonderful grandmother.

about that piano

I grew up taking piano lessons. Six years, in fact, under the tutelage of Mrs. Perry in the back room of her grandmotherly home. I'll never forget one Christmas recital when I was eleven or twelve. I was nervous, as usual, but had slaved over The Hallelujah Chorus, and I knew that piece. I loved that piece. On the day of the recital I took my place on the bench in front of many pairs of eyes and dove in. Mere seconds later, around the third measure, I was startled to hear the scraping back of chairs and the rustling of bodies. No one had warned me that, traditionally, people stand during The Hallelujah Chorus. I was so jarred by this unexpected turn that I could not remember the music. I started over, but I was shaking and sweating so badly that I couldn't find the rhythm. Mrs. Perry brought me the music and I stumbled through the rest, but it was devastating. I can still feel that disappointment.

Despite recital-induced humiliation, I'm grateful to have had a piano in my life. No prodigy I, but merely a lover of music. The romance of music. Throughout my adult years I've often wished to have one just to tinker around on. And to introduce my children to.

I never expected a piano to come into our life through the saddest of circumstances, but sometimes out of sadness and grief a seed of joy is planted. This piano, our piano, was Judi's piano from her girlhood. When Sam and Joanne offered it to us, we were overwhelmed. We are still a bit overwhelmed, and once again grateful. I never heard Judi play the piano, but it's easy to imagine the spirit she embodied when she did. Judi had a lot of spirit, and you couldn't help but get swept up into it. I think that's why Anna and Jack loved her so much...why we all did.

So now we play Judi's piano. The kids are taking lessons from a lovely woman from Russia. Back straight, arms aligned, fingers curled. And while they're off at school, I pull back the bench and let my fingers remember Fur Elise, The Well-Tempered Clavichord and The Entertainer. (And I've got The Sound of Music songbook on order, hurray!) It's good to have a piano again.

did i mention that anna got a video camera for christmas?

One Friday after walking home from school, we found a package on our stoop addressed to Anna. It was full of cards from her former classmates and a class photo of everyone making silly faces. The photo was mounted, and all the kids had signed their names on the mat. It made my girl very happy. So this is what she sent back to Mr. Plein's class: (actually it's clipped off here, so watch it on YouTube.)

 

good things

We drove to Cincinnati one weekend, our first car trip since we've arrived, and watched this new landscape roll by. Stark, hazy, bleak with pops of color, open, rolling and full of history. Beautiful in a way that's very different from the beauty we left behind.

 

The remains of a Sunday morning. It's not pretty, and it doesn't smell great either, but for three hours and two pots of coffee this is a scene of pure contentment. Anna, nestled in the corner of the couch, her head buried in a Judy Blume classic. Blankets tangled around her legs and mine, and morning breath hovering between us. I, covered in ink from The Times, periodically sigh and share. "Here. Listen to this. This is great." David, on the other side of me rustles down the local paper and patiently hears about the daily routine of a New York City orthodontist, or what is currently showing at MOMA. Jack, stretched out on the floor chuckles over the antics of a boy and his stuffed tiger. At some point David peels himself off and makes waffles, children leaving one by one until it's just me and the crossword. And then the remains.

 

Another tooth bites the dust. Jack, who starts every other sentence with, "And guess what?" has grown up so much in the past two months. There's a confidence and determination that's starting to bloom. He will sit with Kanoodle for an hour, steadfastly working on challenging puzzles that the average bear would give up in frustration. He wants to do math flash cards. He wants to go outside in 30 degree weather and play in the snow or ride his bike. (Yep.) And so he will. Yet, he's still my #1 cuddler.

Eating Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream at the North Market (which is kind of like Pike Market in Seattle, but smaller). Anna, who misses her Portland pals, is finding she has more time for creative pursuits. Her company, Dining Room Comix, Inc. has introduced several new superheroes to the genre, though my favorite is still her very first: Kiddney Pie, a superhero in the shape of a pie. One of Anna's biggest challenges is the cold weather, which forces most recesses indoors. She doesn't feel she's getting enough exercise, which makes her cranky. But all in all, she's doing great.

 

Mayflower Snow Pilgrims (from left to right): Priscilla Mullins, Myles Standish and John Alden (Jack's namesake). I could have used hand puppets to teach the kids about our ancestors, but where's the fun in that? The reason Myles looks so pissed off is because John Alden was supposed to persuade Prissy to marry Myles, but instead she fell for John. And 13 generations later, here we are.

into the snowy woods

With the skies blue and the sun bright the kids and I headed to Blendon Woods in Westerville, about 25 minutes away. As we entered the park, a huge buck dashed across the road, which immediately reset the general mood dial to ANTICIPATION. And at the nature center, the friendly volunteer nudged it further when she gave the kids a scavenger hunt list: could we spot squirrel snow diggings? nuts? animal tracks? I could have hugged her.

What is it about walking in the snow in the woods? The crunch underfoot, the warm sun on my bare head, the twittering and tapping of eastern birds. Sudden quiet when you stop to listen, a flash of blue, and a spot of red. We were treated to a sighting of two beefy pilated woodpeckers, their crested red-heads bobbing in the bare branches. Cardinals, blue birds and many unknowns flitted about. (Note to self: time for the eastern edition of the bird book!)

We finished our hike at the duck blind, spying on hundreds of Canada geese, mallards and one white swan. We left the park much happier than we arrived.