At the Cabin

 These two marvelous people have carved out a little piece of heaven in a southeastern corner of Idaho, snuggled up to the banks of the Cub River.  They started with a piece of land lovingly referred to as "The Lot" and cultivated it into a spacious cabin, a two-story treehouse, wraparound decks everywhere you look, a s'more station and several trailers, not to mention the four-wheeler garage and all the fun things they provide for us to do.

We were excited to be invited up to The Cabin Formerly Known as The Lot this weekend.  The kids were counting down the minutes.  The drive is gorgeous, and once you turn that last bend, you're out of cell range and disconnected from the world.  You're ready to do nothing, eat everything and take it all in for as long as you're lucky enough to be there.

The best part about being at the cabin, and this is saying a lot, considering you're in heaven, is that cousins are there.  Come to think of it, the whole reason it does seem like heaven is because of the cousins.  The whole time we were at the cabin, we were missing Golda and Ruby.  I asked Bruce if we could come up again this summer after the girls get back.  I said, "They'll be sad they missed this."  Bruce said, "Well, they are in Europe."

I said, "Yeah, but Europe isn't this."  No matter where we go in the world, there will never be anyplace so close to our hearts as this little lot on the Cub River.

My caption:  "What strange creatures brothers are." - Jane Austen
In this case, I couldn't agree more.  :)

Dust-Free

 In church, I get to sit facing the Primary children when I'm not doing my music time with them.  I was watching Ptolemy when one of the teachers were talking to the children about parents and how much they love their little ones.  She said, "Does your mom take care of you?"  Ptolemy's face got this quizzical expression.  "Does you mom comfort you when you're sick?" Ptolemy looked at his friend like "Huh?"  "Does your mom feed you and fix you good food?"

Ptolemy shrugged, bounced off his chair and said loudly, "NUFFIN!"  Yes, I give him nuffin to eat and I don't comfort him when he's sick.

Apparently Freestone feels the same way.  Today, he said, "Mom, I have a big appetite.  Why don't you feed me more?"  I don't know what he's talking about.  We had TWO kinds of pizza for dinner, and we had it early!  Mostly because I never fed them lunch and they were starving, but that's not the point.

The point is, I do have some good qualities.  As malnourished as my kids are physically and emotionally, at least they get to do art projects.  And as Picasso or somebody said, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."  So at least their hungry little souls aren't dusty.

This week, we had a GREAT group of kids for Art Camp.  We had fun.  Here are some of the things we did:

 Glued shells and sand on card stock.

 Prepared bottles of water, colored it, added mineral oil and seashells to make "waves" inside, glued the lids on and made nametags.

 Oh, and I painted my front door "slightly sapphire" to surprise Scott.  He likes it, and I absolutely love it!

 Here's another thing I absolutely love.  Ptolemy took this picture with my phone and edited it like this on Instagram.  He loves to make the pictures green.  He hadn't published it when I got ahold of my phone, so I did the honors.  I think it's wonderful.  I love the NY mug, the perspective, the color, Tizzy on the computer screen, the fact that Ptolemy did it all himself, the whole thing.  It makes me happy.

 Back to Art Camp...we chose shells, found sticks and glued them on with very few hot glue gun accidents.  Then we cut out sails from music and glued those on.  Later, some of the kids made miniature boats with small shells and shishkabob sticks.

 In lieu of coming up with a really great project, I stole a grocery bag full of sand from a local park and had the kids shovel it into tupperwares.  Then they got to choose all the shells they wanted from our extensive collection, to put in their "Beach in a Box."  They decorated and glued labels for it, then I drilled a hole in the Tupperware for the little umbrellas.  Drilling the hole was Freestone's idea, and it was brilliant.  The whole thing would have turned out much better if I hadn't turned the kids loose with several different types of glue, some of it very hot.  But that's not really the point, right?  Kids and glue blobs belong together.

 Failed attempt at a group shot.  We had about 25 kids.

Oh, and these are the handprints we did, which we cut out and glued onto the beach background.  Then the kids decorated the handprints like fish.  Or tried.  The thing I love about kids and art is that nothing has to be any certain way.  If you let them create, once in awhile you get something that is stunning, special, genius, or just hits you in the heart.  And a lot of times, you get glue blobs and weird handprint fish.

Even if your art project turns out soggier than you planned, most of the kids got to go home to a nice lunch.  Except mine.  They got to clean up Art Camp, then practice, then go to Cherry Hill with a mom who forgot to feed them, but who found a bag of grapes from yesterday in the car.  Oh well.  Dust-free souls.

nyc

Here are some pictures from Scott's trip with the girls.  He had the best time.  He just loved spending all that time with his girls.  It was one of the neatest trips ever, and I'm so glad it worked out like it did.  It was originally just going to be Scott and Golda, for her 16th birthday.  Then, with the Europe trip tacked on, it made more sense for Ruby to go so that Scott could take both of them to the airport together.  Golda was a good sport about sharing her 16-year-old trip with Ruby.  Well, sortof a good sport.  In the end, I bet she wouldn't have had it any other way.

There are a lot of details that I'm leaving out here, since I wasn't there.  Scott will have to fill them in.  When I picked up Scott at the airport coming home from New York, he kept getting all teary-eyed about how wonderful the trip was and how hard it was to send the girls off alone.

As I was leaving to pick up Scott at the airport, I got a text from Ruby:  "In Paris!"  When I was almost at the airport, another text:  "We found them."  Good, the girls had found their host family.  When Scott checked his messages, the girls had texted, "Made it to Iceland.  We needed to use the letter.  Waiting to board."

That about made my heart stop.  Our friend in Spain, Juan Altieri, had told me that the girls would need a "permission to travel abroad without parents" letter of consent for him, since he was picking up the girls in Portugal and had to bring them across the border into Spain.  I looked into it and didn't really find anything that said that that was a thing, so I blew it off.  A couple of weeks later, he asked me again if I had taken care of that.  I thought we might as well do it, so Scott found an official-looking "permission to travel" document on the Canadian government website, printed off several copies, filled them out, got them notarized and put them in the girls' travel dossiers.

And they needed them in Iceland!  I shudder to think what might have happened if they had not had those documents in Iceland.  It might have been fine.  Or they might have been detained in Iceland.  I get chills thinking about what could have happened.  Tender mercy, that Juan mentioned that to me twice, and that Scott found the right document, and that we had the foresight to include those letters, even though Golda and even Ruby are not considered minors on any of the airlines they fly on.  The only person I have ever heard of such a thing from is our friend in Spain.  What a blessing!

Anyway, before Iceland came Brooklyn and the greatest Daddy-Daughter trip of our lives thus far...

After saying good-bye to Mom and Freestone at the airport, flying to New York

Seeing Wicked!  They also saw Cinderella on Broadway. Both were amazing!

I love graffiti

So does Scott, apparently, because he took lots of pictures of it.

Brooklyn Smorgasbord

The Met for Golda's birthday.  Did you know, even though the suggested price for admission is $25, you can pay whatever you want?  Little-known fact that saved Scott about $65.00

"Look, Ruby, square shoes!   They'd fit you!"

Egyptian exhibit

Baltic Strad

I love this picture because it's the expression Golda has when she's relaxing with friends.  Dad is a great friend

 I can only imagine!

 High Line

 Lindt chocolate

 We will be using this picture in the future, I'm guessing at a wedding reception. :)

 Tradition...crawling across the Brooklyn Bridge

 Beautiful Ruby

 Near their apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

 Pizza crawl...the last night they were there, they went to three different pizza places in Brooklyn

 Leaving for the airport, going to France

 Scott was sooooo sad!

 There they go!

And five hours later, Scott left to come home.