Late Summer gone so fast...

Wow - this Summer just seemed warp speed! I can't remember the exact order of some events, but I'll try to recap them anyhow :)

In August I had the idea to have campers at our house. Whenever I have moved somewhere I have often camped until I could find a place to live. When I moved to Asheville, I camped at the downtown hostel and got to use their kitchen and bathroom. That was such a great resource to have, I wanted to share with others! I have such a nice level yard, and close to downtown, so I put an ad on Craigslist that folks could tent camp or camp in a small vehicle for a very inexpensive daily fee or in trade for help around the house or childcare. I had LOADS of responses - much more than I expected. It was great to have so many I had the opportunity to really weed through them all :)

Then I got an email from a family who had just moved here from New York and were camping in a pop-up camper while looking for a house. They homeschooled and had boys the same ages as Clay & Reed. They came that night and ended up staying 2 weeks - it was the MOST fun! Then when they left, I chose a young couple who was also moving here, they were from Philidelphia, and also really great! Both groups did work around the house, fixing things, as well as traded for childcare (so great to have a break!). I decided to put the house on the market after that couple stayed, so didn't have anymore guests, but am SO glad we did it - we made great friends, and hopefully we'll get to do it again in another house!





All the kids playing with paint one warm day~




Around that same time we started having campers (I think this was August), we decided to foster a pregnant cat. Our beloved Spotty & Ace wandered off one day and never returned :( But through a great cat rescue organization, we found Roselia. Right after the last campers left (beginning of September), she had her kittens. There were 6, and 2 died within the first few days. The other 4 are strong and healthy! As of this writing, they are 8 weeks old. We'll send the mother cat back for adoption as soon as she weans (probably very soon!), and keep the kittens until they're old enough for adoption (and spaying/neutering), which will be in about another month. They are SO fun, we all just love to watch them and play with them, but I'll be glad not to have to clean their messes anymore :)


Clay with his favorite (the one he named Quigon) and Reed covered in kittens!



To make all this more complicated - the kittens were born on the first Saturday in September... on the previous Thursday, my Dad died. it was a quick and peaceful death, and I got to talk to him on the phone just minutes before he passed. We're so grateful we got to go visit him earlier in the Summer!! We went down to Jacksonville a week later for his memorial service - it was HUGE! He was such an influence in the running community - there were over 300 people there. There were stories about him in the newpaper and on the news - if I can figure out how to upload the video, I will :)

So, my Dad died on Thursday, and then I had our dog Scarlet put down on Friday (this was already scheduled, not spur of the moment). She was 15 and it was just her time, she was terribly uncomfortable and had lost much control over her body. So, I was very glad to have the birth of the kittens the next day on Saturday! Felt good to have a little bit of new life after all the death.

July 2008!

July started off with my lil' Reed turning 5! yikes!! He wanted a very small party with swimming and a lion cake - so easy to please :) We had the adults work on churning vegan coconut ice cream that was SO yummy! Reed had a great time...









Then near the end of July, the boys and I went down to visit my dad in Jacksonville, Florida. He is fighting a tough fight against bone cancer. He's hanging in there through all the treatments and meds and we were glad to get to visit, and hopefully he didn't mind our noisy crew for a few days :)







One day we all went to the Jax Zoo - they've made HUGE improvements to the zoo and areas for the animals. It was really nice!











Of course we went to the beach one day!









The boys wanted to spend every free moment in the hotel swimming pool. Reed learned to swim underwater this Summer at a neighbor's above-ground pool - so he was eager to try out his skills in a deeper pool.

Very Cultured Flat Stanley goes to Netherlands and Rome!

This Stanley's trip was SO cool - I am seriously considering smooshing myself with a bulliten board and being sent through the mail to the Netherlands and Rome!! This *wonderful* family took SO many great photos - I'm sorry not to have space to share them all! I'll try to share the best ones - (at least by the boys' votes ;)

The letter:
Dear Boys,
Your FLAT STANLEY came all the way to my city, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

While he was here, these are some of the exciting things he saw and did:
went on vacation to Rome, zoo, windmill, park, played with playmobile, got the chickenpox.

The distance between North Carolina and Netherlands is approximately 6548 km or 3535 miles.

If FLAT STANLEY should come back to visit, he should wear jacket and hat and rainboots, because the climate here is cold, wet and cloudy.

Some other interesting facts about my city include:
The people speak Dutch. They like to eat french fries with mayonnaise, and Loempias or bitterballen. We celebrate SinterKlaas day on Dec 5 and not Christmas.

First some good play time:


These are just a few of the amazing photos from Rome:









Then back to the Netherlands and the zoo (with possibly the coolest playground I have ever seen!):




THANK YOU so much to our Netherlands hosts - you guys were wonderful - we all thoroughly enjoyed each and every picture, and your trip and hometown are just amazing!!

Early Summer

The Florida gal I am just can't get enough of Summer... our yard is really starting to beautify, with much blood sweat and tears on my part!
Here's some sweet little cardinals we just found that hatched this morning! We've been spying on their eggs for a little while now. We're also waiting on some eggs from a little wren in the shed who's made her nest in an old snowboarding boot.

We also have a couple adorable babies for our own. Ace and Spotty were adopted from Freecycle and now are holding their own quite well around daycare kids and over-bearing dogs!

Even furball, dreadlocked Mountain Laurel got a new haircut for the season :) (photo credit to Clay!)

We found a great old ice cream maker at a yardsale. After a couple times of telling "The Little Red Hen" story, the boys decided that they didn't want to miss out on any ice cream goodness, so got to work!

Clay turned 8 this year - time is going seriously fast these days! He had a ninja party complete with ninja obstactle course, water balloon stealth match, and finished off with a gigantic ninja throwing star cake - - - He had a crazy number of guests - all really good friends, so it was understandably hard to *not* invite friends! We had many other friends we also wanted to come, but hey, I had to draw the line at some point! There were about 30 guests, mostly friends from the unschool group. I thought it would be completely overwhelming, but turned out to be great to reconnect with friends and quite joyful to have so many kids enjoying the yard!


The garden is looking better every day! I found a great clearance sale of plants for 50 cents - $2 each and stocked up! We got lots of herbs and veggie starts, as well as the boys finally had the freedom to pick out whatever they wanted (and I didn't have to worry about the cost!). We got butterfly bush, hydrangea, bee balm, tons of annuals, iris, and kitchen herbs. The corn is coming up well, we've also been harvesting blackberries and strawberries. The raspberries are such a tease with their pink nearly-ripeness! We've been getting tons of greens, carrots and peas from the garden, too, yum!