a girl and her horse

Lucy's pretty obsessed with her horses. She's located every one of them here at Grandma's--a sum total of about six figurines that she needs to have surrounding her at every moment. Including bedtime. I lost track of one last night (much to both our chagrins). She kept waking up in cold sweats yelling out "my horsie!"

And that's the end of the story. Really, I just wanted an excuse to post this photo--taken with my sister's iphone in Instagram, a photo program my android phone greatly covets.

i should be doing homework

...but instead, I'll post pictures of Thanksgiving. Procrastination at its most productive! Dave flew in for the weekend, which was obviously the holiday highlight. I thought we'd snap a family photo while we had the chance:

Horseback riding...

some swinging...

more swinging...

cousins!

Uncle Brent (the Energizer Bunny uncle), bouncing the kiddos for upwards of an hour. I dare any related youngster not to peg him as their favorite. 

 The Allreds hosted in Willcox. (Thanks, Allreds!) Maren lent me The Hunger Games, which made for a fun and quick holiday read, but, as I've mentioned, I've got homework deadlines pressing down on me. Which is why I'm thankful for the internet--where I can read trilogy synopses until I'm at my leisure again to finish off the series :)

thankful

Although I think my mom only did this once, the memory so seared in my brain that I consider it a tradition: around Thanksgiving, she made a pie for each of her kids and then we chose someone we were thankful for as the recipient. I think I picked my Sunday school teacher. I still remember that delivery van ride, the surprise on that (now nameless and faceless) teacher's face. How, embarrassed, I scurried back to the van while my parents chatted with him. Or her. I really do have such a poor memory.

Anyway, I decided to carry it on this year with the girls. So I whipped up these chocolate cream beauties (recipe to come on the Humble Pie) and took our own "van" ride around the neighborhood. It's incredible what a couple of pies can do for the human spirit. Mostly my own.

Happy Thanksgiving!

cuteness for cuteness' sake

lacing

Something suddenly jogged my memory of the existence of lacing cards. So, I got some for the girls. Eric Carle, no less. I'm telling you, parents: this is a good solid hour of quiet *fun*

if soccer was a modern dance concert, penelope would be the star player

Until yesterday, Peeps had yet to make contact with the ball during a game. I told her if she kicked the ball just once we'd get ice cream afterward. Accordingly, she kicked the ball once, threw me a thumbs up, and checked out.

pep-talk twirling...

 standing aside, lest that pesky ball get anywhere near her.

Athletically, of course, she takes after me.  

the city of light

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."   --John Adams (as quoted in The Greater Journey. Have you not gone out and read it yet?? Even after all my droning on and on about it's virtues? Trust me. It will become part of your essential home cannon.) 

Paris was beautiful. A delight. An inspirational reprieve. 

 Some serious chocolat at a cafe called "The Editors"

 Morning walk through the Garden of the Tuelleries

Not to rub it in, but I also visited Paris when I was 19 with a school group from Ricks. One of my favorite professors then told me about San Chapelle (above)--a hidden cathedral across from Notre Dame. Significantly smaller, but much more beautiful, she claimed. She was right. Suz and I caught a concert of violinists performing Vivaldi's Four Seasons there. The venue was small and the violinists were captivating. It was the highlight of the trip. 

Luxembourg Palace & Gardens: 

life really does not get better than this

Eiffel Tower from our dinner cruise

Suzy in front of the Louvre

Notre Dame Cathedral

 The REAL reason I went to Paris...

Shakespeare & Company Bookstore is full of books in English. Upstairs is a library of books not for sale. You can pick one out and then lounge around on the couches up there, reading and listening to the live pianist playing in the corner.

Outside L'Hotel

                   Place Vendome                                          The Beaux-Arts district. My favorite area by far.

Sad to leave...

The thing that makes Paris so remarkably beautiful, I think, is that its people--every class of its people--have been caring about art and literature for centuries. And you just can't go wrong with a legacy like that.

pookah, we are going to paris!

This is me, seven years ago in Paris. 

Sigh. 

I'm headed back this week, riding once again on the airline coattails of Suzy. Am I excited? I'm pretty much wetting my pants.

A few months ago (after listening to a fantastic plug for it on the Diane Rehm Show) I downloaded David McCullough's latest book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, a historical volume about American artists/politicians/writers/medical students who went to Paris from 1830-1900. It may not sound very compelling, but it's basically been the most thrilling book of my life--driving me to the treadmill each morning just so I can get my daily listening dose. Seriously. I have a big-time crush on this book.

This trip coincides with my concluded reading (that's right: reading. I liked it so much, I went out and bought a copy so I could mark up the parts I liked as I listened. It's that amazing). And I plan on dragging Suzy around to all the sights I would never have known to care about before. McCullough even wrote an Op Ed for the New York Times on Bastille Day, which basically converted Dave to a newfound fondness for France. 

So, Vive la France! And Au Revoir!

preschool

Penelope started preschool this week!

She and I love it equally.

Lucy is not to be outdone. 

She insisted on wearing a backpack on Peeps' first day, too!

I can't think of anything more amusing than hearing her recount what happened each day. For example, tonight at the dinner table:

Penelope: My friend got hurt today.

Dave: Did one of the kids hurt her?

P: Yeah. She was crying.

D: What did you do?

P: Nothing.

D: You didn't help her?

P: No.

D: Why not?

P: Because I just wanted to do what I wanted to do.

Ahem. We'll have to work on that. 

a dad with good ideas

Dave came up with the fantastic idea of creating email accounts for the girls. It's kind of like creating bank accounts for them, except instead of money (which always seems in short supply), we put in memories! I put in advice, too. Because I can't help myself.

Then, when they get all mature and grown up (or, just to be morbid, Dave and I both die in some tragic accident), we can give them the handle and password and let them delight in nostalgia. Because that notebook I got just for recording the cute things they did...that thing hasn't been updated in like 8 months.

Pass it on, parents!

museum of the desert

Took the girls to the Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson today. They loved it: beetles, fossils, prairie dogs, pumas, turkeys. They even got to hold a meteorite.

Then, the coolest part of the day (perhaps the decade):

We watched a snake shed its skin. We came upon her glass case and I noticed that her face looked a little funky--maybe some kind of snake-battle scar? Upon closer inspection, I saw that she was beginning to shed. So, we stood there watching her rub up against items in her case, not unlike a kitten on a pant leg--yawning wide to get that skin off her head and then dragging the rest off through the rocks. It was awesome.

Admittedly, Penelope was a little bored. But I made her stay and watch for the 15 minutes it took to slink off that skin from tip to tail. That providential 15 minute window that we happened to be there for. It really was beautiful. Well, that and maybe my affinity for peeling skin had some influence on my awe.

Anyway, it reminded me of a passage I'd read the night before in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He talks about how all of history and myth--the collective unconscious--tutors humanity in the essentialness of our own death and rebirth cycles:

"We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."