Life Back in Seattle

We have been enjoying returning to our usual lives after a two week hiatus. Two weeks is a long time to be away. We all treasured the time with Dad and Philia and other family and friends. Another gift of such a long time away is that we really appreciate our everyday lives that we'd left behind. For Rob and me, a favorite aspect of our lives is doing yoga every morning. Usually we're able to do yoga together, but sometimes separately, like this morning, when Jasper and I slept in an hour and a half beyond Rob's 5:30 am wakeup. Jasper is almost always with us for the yoga, sometimes laying on top of one of us or doing a pose of his own, but most frequently just playing or looking at a book in the general vicinity. For the first 6 and 1/2 years of parenthood, I would have told you that my kid/s kept me from doing yoga. What I see now is that once we established a true routine of doing yoga first thing, the kids were actually quite adaptive. Little nibbly snacks help... Lucy is usually asleep, but when she's awake, she just sits on the couch reading or playing with Jasper. Of course, the most challenging pose for them is the relaxation at the end - poetically and aptly named after a corpse, where we lay like dead people before getting up and getting on with our day. Of course, you can see how this is both unsettling and just too tempting, especially for Jasper . He just has to get on top of us and snuggle. And that might be my favorite part...

Alabamy

Here are a few pictures from our time at one of our ancestral homelands, Lookout Mountain, Alabama. This is the Edna Hill church, named for a relative of ours.


These are the falls that might have killed Edna Hill, and thus leading to naming a church after her.

This is me and my cousin Will, who I enjoyed getting to know better (previously, I'd mostly known Will through his mom's blog).

Bridge named after my great grandfather, who cruised around Lookout Mountain almost every day of his 90 + years in his pick-up truck, and who was the original planner for many of the roads that now traverse the mountain (which is actually a plateau some miles in length).

My Dad, who shares his Grandfather's love of the mountain, with Grandson Jasper.

Five cousins in a little house.

I found myself falling for the rocky scrubby landscape up there as well...

Cousins Rob and Owen (father and brother of Will, husband/son of Annie for those of you tracking on all this).

A summarizing photo of our roadtrip from Little Rock, Arkansas to Fort Payne, Alabama:

Arkansas Vacation

We're home from a two week odyssey in the South.  Here is a first installment of pictures from the Arkansas portion of the trip.  Lucy and Jasper were eager and excited travellers.  We were all quite happy to see Grandmomma and Granddaddy in their native habitat.  Stay tuned for a few pics of the Alabama portion of our trip.

Goodbye Mount Rainier, and hello Pinnacle Mountain.

Even taking the time to study the airplane safety guidelines...

Visiting

We're on a two-week vacation in Arkansas with my dad and stepmom (Granddaddy and Grandmomma). We probably won't download pictures until we get home, but we took a side trip to meet with my cousin Annie and her family in Alabama and she blogged about our time together at Desoto State Park. We had a great time on Lookout Mountain, especially relishing our time in the woods with Annie, Rob, Will and Owen. More on that when we return. Love from The Natural State.

Lucy is Seven!

We celebrated Lucy's birthday all week with special treats like a shopping trip to Hanna Andersson, having a movie night after Jasper went to bed, and a trip to the Mountlake Terrace Pool with Rob. Her actual birthday began as many days do: cuddling with Jasper in her bed.

Rob and I gave her a lap loom which literally occupied her the entire morning. Then we had our Dutch friends, Sebastian and Juliette with us for the afternoon which was super fun for both Lucy and Jasper. Then family dinner time but with the added bonus of Juliette staying for a birthday sleepover.

Then Lucy celebrated with friends on Sunday. The day gave us an unexpected gift of warmth and sun. Lucy's friends gave her the sweetest gifts: Lucy commented later that her friends really know what she likes!