Day +849: Safe at home

The family finally rolled back into town late tonight. They started from Roseburg, Oregon and had a loooong day to get to the Bay Area. Keri said they slept for an hour or so in the car south of Medford, but were awake the rest of the way. They were trying so hard to stay awake to get home, but they finally went down about half an hour outside of town. After being short on sleep for weeks, they didn't stir when we carried them upstairs. They're going to be so excited in the morning when they wake up in their own house.

Not that they were anxious to leave Uncle Bill and Auntie Kristi's house. Zane and Zoe were there all week with Grandma Lyn. Mina and Zoe were inseparable the first few days, but Keri said after four or five days, Zoe started playing with Isaac some and Mina would play with Zane. Zane is 7 and quite a bit bigger than Mina, but Keri said they got along really well. Grandma Lyn sold her house in Everett and moved in a few months ago, so she's living there full time now. And Uncle Bill and Auntie Kristi's house is a veritable paradise for little kids. They have horses, a goat, a barn with lots of hay to play in, and a trampoline. And for Isaac, the main attraction was the big, giant digger that was working at the house digging a foundation for Grandma Lyn's mother-in-law unit. Isaac got to go sit in the cab his first day there, and was totally enthralled. They also have two tractors. I remember last year Isaac kept telling everyone "Big tractor too loud. Little tractor not too loud!" I'll be curious to hear what he's saying now. And for Mina, they had ... kittens! Little ones, I think about 9 weeks old. Mina just loved the kittens to death. Keri said the first thing she did every day was go check on the kittens. She would pick them up and pet them and hold them and talk to them. It was pretty much her first experience with kittens, but something tells me it probably won't be her last. She loved the kittens so much, Keri said she cried and cried when it came time to leave because she didn't want to leave the kittens behind. She was so distraught, that Zane got upset too and Keri said he cried hard for half an hour as Grandma Lyn held him. He apparently just didn't understand why Mina couldn't take one of the kittens with her. They were all tired, of course, from lack of sleep and all of the activity all week, and a bit said about it all coming to an end. But Zane is a sensitive boy and it's sweet how much he was empathizing with MIna.

And they did lots of fun activities, from just moving the hay around in the barn to going on a hike around a lake to going to the Kootenai County Fair. They had a great time at the fair, seeing all the animals and lots of tractors. They had a really scary moment though, as Keri and Lyn took their eyes off Isaac for less than sixty seconds, and when they turned around he was gone. He had wandered off by himself all the way across the fairgrounds. They had just finished putting in an alert with the authorities, when they saw him coming back holding the hand of a stranger. Keri scolded him and tried to tell him how dangerous it was, but his only comment was "All these tractors are mine!"

On their way over to Idaho, they stopped to see Keri's Grandma and Grandpa Kaminsky, who live on a farm outside of Kittitas (near Ellensburg). They love Grandma and Grandpa K's house. Last year Isaac kept saying he wanted to go back to Grandma and Grandpa K's house. When we asked him why, he would say "Because I don't like this house." "Why?" "Because it doesn't have a fire truck." I thought he would go for the fire truck right away, but instead he asked Grandma K for the helicopter out of the toy box. I'd forgotten they even had a helicopter, but apparently Isaac hadn't. Keri said he played with it for a long time, flying it through the air and making engine noises. Grandma and Grandpa K don't have any cows of their own anymore, but they lease their property to a neighbor who has some cows out there, and Mina of course wanted to meet them.

They finally left Idaho Friday around noon and drove to Walla Walla where Keri's our friends Suzanne and Jason live with their son Jacob. Suzanne wasn't around, but they had a nice time with Jason and Jacob. Jacob is a little older than Mina -- he's either 6 now or will be 6 pretty soon. But Keri said the three of them played really well together. Jason is an amateur musician, so he had a guitar, banjo, tambourine, and some other musical instruments. Isaac was very interested, of course, so they sat together and played with the instruments for quite a while Saturday morning. Keri said it was kind of a relief to see that Isaac was still interested in the instruments after having done nothing but look at tractors for a while.

They stopped in Portland yesterday to see Keri's cousin Shannon and meet his baby Ava. Ava is 9 months old now, and Mina of course loved her. Then they hit the road again and made it to Roseburg by the middle of the evening. Now they are all sleeping soundly in the big bed. I can't wait to see them in the morning. It's been a bit lonely around here the last few weeks.

Things won't be quite back to normal around here, because school won't start for another couple of weeks. I'm sure it will take them a few days to settle in again, get used to the house, the weather, etc., and get a schedule going. I'd been scheduled to give a talk in Hermiston, Oregon on Tuesday, but that was cancelled late last week, which is perfect. I'll enjoy going up next month, but this way I'll get to stay in town, see the kids, and help Keri get situated.

Day +837: Cute phone conversations with the kids

I had a great telephone conversation with the kids the other night. Keri called down from Teri's house in the evening when she was about to put the kids into the bath. They had had a full day -- they'd gone to see Kari and Steve in the afternoon and had been busy busy at Teri's. Isaac didn't want to get on the phone at first. I heard him say something like "Daddy who?" in the background when Keri asked him if I wanted to talk to him. So Mina got on the phone first. She told me that she and Lily were getting ready to go to a party, and she told me all about it, in great detail. Seems the party was going to be at her friend Dora's house. Dora has a pool, so it was going to be a pool party and they were going to swim. She and Lily were going to put on dresses, and they had matching clothes. Mina was going to wear a purple dress, and Lily had matching purple underwear. Dora had very special towels for them when they got out of the pool, with flowers and sparkles on them. Then Dora had dresses that Mina and Lily were going to put on. They were about to take a bath because they were getting ready to go to the party, and they had salt water on them and salt water makes you itch. She really went on and on, with lots of detail about the pattern of the towels and what the dresses looked like. I was amazed at all the details she had worked out so firmly in her mind.

I thought I wasn't going to get to talk to Isaac, but he finally came on the phone and started telling me about the cat. He was looking out the window of Auntie Teri's house, and he saw the cat in the back yard. It was about to go under some bushes. It was looking for sharks. But the sharks were going to eat us up. There was some water under the bushes and that's where the sharks were. But they were not the kind of sharks that like to eat you up. They were nice sharks. He kept pushing a button on the phone and saying "Hello?" Then he would tell me the story about the cat and the sharks all over again. One time he told me he saw the horse, and there was a bear in the back yard too. But again, the bear wasn't going to eat us up. He probably really did see the cat and horse, but I doubt very much he saw a real bear. After not wanting to get on the phone at all at first, I ended up talking to Isaac for about a half hour. He just sort of got in the groove of talking me, and then he was telling me all kinds of stuff.

Very cute phone conversations that I just had to note down for posterity. It's fun that the kids are getting to the age where they can carry on a phone conversation now. It's nice to be able to connect that way, especially since it'll be a couple more weeks before I see them.

Day +832: Summer Vacation

Everyone is having a great time on our summer vacation. We left San Francisco on Wednesday the 25th, and made it to Lake Mayfield, Washington on Friday the 27th in time for the annual Kaminsky family camping weekend (Keri's mom's family). They did really great on the trip. We left about 4:00 in the afternoon and spent the first night in Redding. Thursday morning we spent an hour in the pool before putting the kids back in the car, and they slept solidly for almost three hours. We made it to Salem Thursday night, then stopped in Portland to visit Mina's school friend Anika, who is spending the summer there. We finally made it to the campground Friday at about 6:00 PM.

We spent the weekend camping at the state park right on the lake. Mina and Isaac both got to ride on Uncle Bill's boat, which they loved of course. But Isaac liked it better after Bill pulled the boat out of the water on Monday, because then he was allowed to climb up into the boat and pretend to drive it. He kept getting into and out of the boat and was having a ball. But Bill finally had to draw the line after Isaac kept collecting leaves and pine needles in a plastic bag and dumping them onto the boat, because the boat was the garbage truck. Mina spent practically the whole weekend hand in hand with cousin Zoë, who is a few months older. She's old enough to remember now, and she was just so excited to see Zoë. It's nice that they get along so well.

I took my nephew Nicholas on a hike that week, which was really great. I used to take him on hikes a lot when we still lived up there, but it's been hard to find the time the last few years with us living down here and with everything that has been going on with the kids. I had been planning it, but Nick asked me about it before I had a chance to bring it up, which is pretty gratifying. We hiked up to the lookout on Mt. Pilchuck, which we've done before but which is reallly a great hike. You can see from the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the west to Mt. Stuart in the east, from Mt. Baker in the north to Mt. Rainier in the south, and literally everything in between. I knew this day was going to come soon, but Nicholas is now 15 and a half, is 5 foot 11, and is training for sophomore football, so he kicked my butt going up the mountain. I had to stop and rest a few times, but we still made it 3 miles and 2000 feet up in about 2 hours, so I don't feel too embarrassed.

The next day we saw Kari and Carmen, which was great but too short. Carmen is always really excited to see the kids, but she's just not used to having younger kids around to mess up her games, so the reality doesn't quite live up to the hype. They did have a lot of fun though, and the love is genuine. Keri and the kids will see them again, and I think they're planning to come visit us some time in the fall, but it was definitely way too short for me. Mom and Dad are in Europe, so we won't see them until October, although they did spend a week with us in June.

Later that week Keri and I had our 10th wedding anniversary. We spent the day bumming around Seattle, just like in the old days. We started off at the Pike Place Market, then hiked down to Pioneer Square for coffee, stopping at the Elliott Bay Bookstore and an art show in Occidental Park. That night we went to a play and had a great dinner at Cafe Campagne back up near the Market. We spent the night at a hotel, and then met the family along with Tutu and Richard for lunch. We both love Seattle, and we had a great time reconnecting. It's not that we're necessarily ready to move back or anything, but it still does feel like home because we know it so well.

Then on Saturday we made our way up to Guemes Island to visit Zeedie and Russell. Zeedie is a really good high school friend of Keri's, and she was there for us in a big way while Mina was sick. Their daughters Emma Sky and Otter Moon are 8 and 6, respectively, and they also get along great with our kids. They live a rustic lifestyle, half inside and half outside with no running water, on the easternmost San Juan Island. It's really a beautiful location, and also one that is very quintessentially Northwest. My last day on the island I found myself on an incredibly beautiful gravel beach, with crystal clear and very cold water, staring across at the uninhabited Cypress Island and watching the fishing boats going back and forth from Bellingham to the Strait. It felt kind of like our old beach house in Olympia, except about 5 times as beautiful. I literally did not want to leave that spot. The next day was time for me to head home, but Keri and the kids were going to San Juan Island to see Katy, Emma and Dylan, who are staying there for the summer. So we all caught the 10-minute ferry from Guemes to Anacortes, then the hour-and-10-minute ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor. I only got to spend a couple of hours there, mostly chasing down overtired kids, before I had to get on a little 8-passenger plane to Boeing Field, where I caught a shuttle to SeaTac and from there a regular flight to San Francisco. It wasn't exactly Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but it was car-boat-small plane-bus-jet plane, and it could have been included heavy rail and light rail if I'd just thought about BART and Muni home. But I was too tired, so I just caught a cab instead.

Keri and the kids stayed on Guemes for a couple more days. I think they were planning to head back to Lake Stevens today. The kids were really enjoying themselves. Zeedie and Russell's property is like a kids' paradise. Russell has built not one but two play houses for the girls, but Isaac's favorite activity was playing with Russell's tools in the back of his pickup truck. I think Russell kind of liked having a boy around; he mentioned how his girls have never asked him about his tools.

I'm back at work this week, but will head back up in a couple of weeks to pick up the family and drive them back down. But I'll fly in to Spokane and spend a few days at Bill and Kristi's house before we head down. Keri and the kids will be on the westside for another week or so before heading over. The kids are doing great. Sleep deprived, but having a great time.