On the Blog Again...

So last summer I took an unexpected break from blogging for a couple overwhelmingly busy months (as if I have any other kind).

After the summer was over and the fall routine settled in again, I sat down to write my "sorry I was MIA all summer" post. Then it dawned on me: no one - not friends, family, or distant readers - had commented about the fact that I disappeared for months. I thought about this for a while and realized that Facebook was sufficient for keeping loved ones up to date and my blogging life had probably reached its natural end. I decided to write a final post and call it good, but that post just wouldn't come.

For some reason, people have recently started asking me what happened to the blog and it got me thinking about why I started it in the first place. Certainly not for the fame and glory and money (although if anyone wants to offer me that, I won't refuse). Mainly it's a diary of our life. I realized that so much of the boys' first few years were documented, while Miren's first year will soon be fuzzied by mommy amnesia.

So I'm back - even if it's just to satisfy my own navel-gazing and family journaling needs.

With that in mind, here are a few of the most important moments of our last year...

We got the world's coolest bike. And despite my tricycle past, I can actually ride it:

Took a trip to Mackinac Island with my parents:

In front of the Mackinac Bridge.

Held Miren's Dedication:

Celebrated Robbie's 30th Birthday:

Had one family reunion or family party after another:

Celebrating Grandma Marion's 80th Birthday

We remodeled our only (and incredibly tiny) bathroom, forcing us to travel to our neighbor's empty bathroom (they were in Europe) every night for bathtime for months. Our children decided that most of the trips needed to be done naked, which our neighbors doubtless appreciated:

The crappy "Before" picture.

The equally crappy "After" picture.

Fionn started his first year of preschool:

  

 

Emerson made huge gains in all areas and got a wonderful kindergarten placement for next year. I pushed for more testing in the fall and - as I suspected all along - he qualified for autism spectrum services. More on that later:

The handsome man himself.

Miren learned how to do all the important baby things:

Miren also learned that her smile could help her get away with pretty much anything:

Once mobile, she quickly dispelled the myth that at least one out of three kids is bound to be easy:

Miren enjoys her first Popsicle.

I celebrated my 30th Birthday. It was not quite as exciting as Robbie's :) :

We lost our beloved "Mama:"

Mama meets newborn Emerson for the first time.

Fionn earned the title "World's Best Big Brother:"

Fionn shares his Valentine's sucker.

We enjoyed visiting friends and drinking good beer in Wisconsin:

Fionn enjoys the view of Milwaukee from his "bubble" in Discovery World.

We decided to rip up our entire yard and fill it full of edible plants and perennial flowers (pics coming).

The boys got to go on their first fishing trip thanks to dad and papa:

I continued to slog through grad school classes and finally decided the focus of my ministry will be the environment:

I started a Michigan chapter of Kidical Mass (kidicalmass.org):

The kids help me run the booth at "Bike Bash."

Families setting off on our first ride.

And in general we had some crazy fun:

Miren's first Easter egg hunt.

April Fool's Parade

Robbie brought the boys some wrestling masks from Mexico.

Christmas chaos.

Feel more caught up than you ever needed to be? Good. Now hopefully I'll write again before next year.

News From the Garden

I feel like I should smoke a corn husk pipe and sit in a rocking chair while I write this, but for those fellow gardeners out there, here is an update on ours:

We've been pulling in a lot of tomatoes lately, which is good because I heard a story on NPR yesterday about a tomato blight that is threatening to destroy most people's crops. I guess the blight was spread by people buying infected plants from box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot, so I'm hoping we'll be spared for buying from a small organic farmer.

Robbie is convinced he created a yellow pepper/tomato hybrid because our heritage variety of "yellow perfection" looks exactly like a small yellow pepper but has the taste and seeds of a tomato. It's one of his new favorite hobbies to show them to people and make them taste a bite.

The greens and herbs are heading into the home stretch but keep on giving. Things that normally go nuts like beans and peas and zucchini are slow (anyone else having this problem?), while we've been able to pull in plenty of beets, carrots, a small head of broccoli, and even a couple of giant spaghetti squash.

I suppose we still have plenty of time for more things to truly explode, including a melon plant and some tomatoes the size of volley-balls, but the darkness and crisp air are slowly and steadily creeping into our late summer days - a reminder that 6 months of winter hibernation are coming. Yuck. In exchange for this unbearable dreariness, Michigan at least rewards us with spectacular color and the endless apple orchards of Fall. But I can't help but wonder, where did the summer go?

The Long-Promised Garden Pictures

These probably don't do Robbie's creation justice, but I had a squirming baby in my arms. C'est la vie.

The main garden


Annual bed turned into bountiful greens.


First strawberries


The melons and even more tomatoes


Eating our first harvest


Peonies finally explode


Backyard


Our new compost tumbler


Our new rain barrel


Our little white house

School's out for summer!!

My final paper is floating around in cyberspace somewhere and I officially have two months off school! That time is already spoken for by too many things to list, but right now I am focused on a 3-week trip to see my family in Utah. Besides the obvious benefit of seeing my friends and family, there is the added benefit that Robbie gets all that time to work on the house uninterrupted!

Since I leave Friday (send positive thoughts that I will survive a plane ride alone with two babies. Or send some strong tranquilizers), Robbie and I have been working feverishly to finish the garden. I will post pics tomorrow, but I am pretty proud of all we've done so far. And Robbie is especially proud that all the neighbors stop and comment on his artful bed-making skills. I thought two rectangles would be good enough, but apparently not for him.

Speaking of gardening, we recently went to a local farm to get heirloom starters and it turned into quite the adventure.

When we pulled up to "Destiny Farms," we saw a large house that had so many strange additions it was almost Escher-esque. We finally found the owners in a maze of gardens, greenhouses, several chicken coops and a couple of ponds. The husband, Mike, his twin sons and the customer he was currently serving immediately swarmed us as we walked up the garden path. I'm used to questions and comments about the boys' albinism, but these people wasted no time in bombarding us with every question in the book. Besides feeling overwhelmed, I was cringing at one boy who kept jumping up and down screaming, "Their eyes are so cool...I want a baby with white hair! I want one of those!" I knew he meant well, so I didn't say anything, but situations like these always make we wonder how I will react when the boys are old enough to understand. Which for Emerson is coming soon.

Anyway, Mike was exactly the kind of guy I picture when I think of small farmers - missing several teeth, smells like grease and manure, wears faded jeans with holes in the knees, has an easy-going manner and of course, has a look in his eye that suggests he's just a touch crazy. In fact, Mike reminded me of a younger version of my late Grandpa - who once owned his own mish-mash of a house and gardens. That's why, despite his lack of tact, I instantly liked him.

He took Robbie around to see the plants and offered him a wealth of information while I struggled to placate the kids. After we loaded up on plants, his wife took us around to see the chickens, including some amazingly beautiful exotic breeds and a few pheasants.

As we drove home in the milky pink dusk, we talked over our adventures that night:

Robbie: Mike told me that he spent a year in a coma when he was younger.

Cassi: How did that come up?

Robbie: I don't know.

Cassi: Did you ask him why he was in a coma?

Robbie: Yes. His response was, "Well, have YOU ever known anyone whose pituitary was crushed?!"

- pause -

Cassi: That's a very strange response. What are you supposed to say to that?

Robbie: I don't know.


That exchange left me laughing and puzzled at the same time. I'm not sure why, but that story seems to explain a lot about Farmer Mike.

In any case, we'll definitely be back next year.

Ahh Spring

The first seedlings in our "Freedom Garden" - one week old



The view from our bedroom of our yard and the old orchard across the street:


The elderly couple that lived in our house before us were excellent gardeners who planted lots of blooming trees, bushes and bulbs, so I'll have to take more pictures when it hits its full glory



Of course, Spring is the season for rain storms and thus galoshes. But according to Emerson, galoshes are appropriate every day - rain or shine: