Gymnastics

River sitting

Ed goes for long bike rides, then comes over to get Mason to jump in the creek.

Mona

There's a very friendly camel named Mona on the island of San Juan.

a racket

Grandpa’s shop

Bob and Cindy built a workshop in the garage. Mason “helped.”

 

Sylvia Lake

We spent a day in early June at Mike and Mary’s, and enjoyed most of the family down at the lake. Great day!

  

 

 

hard birthday lesson

Well, I’ve been very delinquent on updating the blog. I wanted to write about this but it’s a tough one. So, after almost a month, here goes.

MacKenzie and her friend Taylor had schemed a sleepover for Kenzie’s eighth birthday. She came home and told me that Taylor asked to stay over after the party, that it was fine with her mom, and it was just up to me. I asked Kenzie if Taylor’s mom knew that she has two moms. She said that she did and it was no big deal. I said it was fine and asked her to call and work out the details. Kenzie, who is normally very good on the telephone, looked struck after reaching Taylor’s dad. She shoved the phone off to me and I explained to the dad what had happened, and asked if he was okay with it. He was terse, but was at work, so we just ended after a short conversation and he agreed to bring Taylor’s stuff to the party.

He did tell me that he needed to pick Taylor up in time for 11:30 church. I said, no problem, we have church at 9:30 and could drop her off on our way.

The party started and soon thereafter the phone rang. It was Taylor’s dad again. Kenzie saw the caller ID and refused to answer, so I took it. He was quite upset, saying, “the map you drew is wrong. It makes it look like Clark is on Front street.” I apologized and tried to explain where we were. After a minute he cut me off and said, “I know where you are. I had to turn around to use the phone. Now if you let me go I can get back in the car and drive there.” Okay…whatever…I apologized for the misunderstanding and told him we’d look forward to seeing them soon.

They arrived a few minutes later. He lingered and I walked him to the front porch to chat a bit. In a period of about five minutes he complained about the economy, real estate market, traffic, and anything else the conversation meandered toward. I learned that he and Taylor’s mom were divorced.

The only time I saw him perk up was when he abruptly changed the topic and said, “so, you go to church? what church?” I told him that we go to a UCC church and started to explain, but saw his nose scrunch up and could tell it didn’t meet his approval, so I just stopped. He offered, “we go to an Assembly of God church. Do you know what that is?” I told him that I was very familiar with them as I went to an AOG school for four years. A different guy appeared. He smiled and warmed up.

Maybe it was my own prejudices, but I somehow didn’t get the feeling that this guy was very progressive. Before he could leave, and wanting to be honest with him, I said, “um…do you know that MacKenzie has two moms?” He looked up quickly and said, “No. I did not know that.” I said, “I’m sorry, I was assured you did. Is that a problem for Taylor spending the night?” He started walking away, quickly, and said, “no, it’s fine.” And he left.

The girls were so excited for the sleepover. They played through the whole party. Kenzie, especially, was thrilled at the thought of having her good friend spend the night. The party started to end, parents showed up to get their kids.

Taylor and Kenzie were giggly, running around in their swimsuits, and having a ton of fun. Then I heard the doorbell ring. Taylor’s dad stood at the door with his new wife. I said, “hi.” He replied, “actually we are going to take her.” So he told her to gather her things. She didn’t argue, just got very quiet as he grabbed her to the side and said, “I will tell you when we get in the car.” Kenzie encouraged Taylor to “just ask why,” which she did once, and he repeated “when we get in the car.”

She obediently got her stuff and they left. Kenzie was crushed. She fell into the floor. She couldn’t understand. As much as we had prepared her that not everyone in the world is accepting of our family, it still shocked her when it happened. She sobbed and we tried to console her, but she was crushed.

Our fabulous neighbors came to the rescue. Ed arrived, unknowingly, and—as only Ed can do—got her caught up in a silly story that brought a smile to her face. Then Heidi, Jasper’s mom (her buddy up the hill), showed up to get Jasper. She got tears in her eyes when we told her what happened. She loaned us Jasper for the rest of the night so we could have a bon fire, play Wii games, and let Kenzie enjoy the evening with a friend.

A few days later I reached out to Taylor’s mom to make sure she had perspective on what Taylor may have shared. I found her to be very kind and of a generous spirit. She was horrified at her ex husband’s behavior, but not surprised. She then arranged a play date and sleepover at their house for Kenzie the next weekend. Taylor and Kenzie talked at school and have a closer friendship because of it. It was a tough lesson, for sure, but has turned out to not be so bad.

Okay, I’ll keep up on the blog now…

Hawaiian boy

 

Our vacation

We are in the car after a very long wait for the ferry. We thought we would share what we did on our vacation to the San Juans.

Mason says, "we rode our bikes. We went swimming. We ate yummy food. We saw a blue heron. Ok. We are on the ferry right now. Now we are just getting off of it. I fell off my bike. That is all done."

Kenzie says, "I think I want to do it later."

We rented a house on the water in Garrison Bay. We traveled up with Grammy and her friend Debby. They spent the first couple of days with us, most of the time we spent hanging on the beach and at the house. Kenzie and Debby painted and Mason captured every rock crab under every rock in the bay at least once. We took our little inflatable boat out and were delighted to meet the resident sea otter, whom we saw many subsequent times.

When Liz, Casey, Josh and Luke arrived we had homemade clam chowder from freshly-dug clams. We also rented a little electric boat that maxed out at 6 knots. It was a blast as we toured around the east side of the island and over to Shaw island. We found a rock with a sun-bathing seal and just really loved being on the water. The three boys each fell asleep at some point during the three hour trip.

We also went whale watching out of Roche Harbor.The 24 passenger vessel had just the eight of us, two other tourists, the captain and a naturalist on board. When we left we understood our chances of seeing whales was slim. None were seen the day before. But just after we left the captain announced that two pods had been spotted together! So we took off and spent well over an hour watching countless orcas jump and roll out of the water. It was truly amazing.

She's Eight!!

Kenzie got to choose attendees and theme for her birthday party, the first time she has had near complete control. We helped her with the invitations and then she handed them out at school. We had no idea if we would have 1 person or 15, but we lucked out with good weather and a good group of kids.

 

The kids did a scavenger hunt and then had a massive water balloon fight. My fingers were raw as I think I tied about 200 balloons.

Talent show

At the Clark Elementary talent show, Kenzie sang another rendition of Carrie Underwood's So Small.

finally, a day of sunshine

Wallaby

We went with Mason's Campfire to a wallaby ranch in Fall City. The kids got to play with the kangaroos, the wallaroos and the wallabies. One of them thought her hair was a toy and grabbed and held her head. She cried for a minute, but got back into it. Although if she has an adult fear of kangaroos I'll secretly know where it came from. This video shows one of the baby wallabies in its mama's pouch.