Yearly Lupine Photographs

Every year I tell the kids that the lupine is my favorite flower and that I have to get their picture by it.  This is a small lie.  I like the lupine a lot.  The flowers are full and their color varies through the petal.  They can thrive in the most ruthless soil conditions.  Year after year they come up bigger and stronger than the year before.

Yes, I really love the lupines, but this is not why I feel the need to photograph my children with them. 



It is my hope that when the kids time in Alaska is done they will take these lupine qualities with them into their new lives.  Life will plant them in a gravel patch along side a road.  What will they do?

My brother, Mike is here with his kids.  On the day that I took these pictures our house had been consumed by a cloud and it rained the entire day.  After we made pizzas for dinner, the clouds started lifting and we all went on a field trip to Kilcher Road where we are breeding our silky white bantam hen with Charlotte's rooster. 

Magically, the sun came out!  After we saw the farm animals I took the opportunity to take the kids to the lupines to take our yearly pictures.  It is not easy to get cooperation from this group of independent thinkers, but I promised them that if they just gave me 5 minutes I would take them to the playground at the school.  Bingo!

Smiles!  Sunshine!  Drinking dew from the leaves to attract fairies to the scent!  It was wonderful! 

Then Zack got to do something that was made illegal in California years ago:  Play on a merry-go-round and a teeter-totter! 

Yes, what started in the gravel patch turned out to become a splendid day!

My Inability to Blog!

Vince and Willie see an amazingly cool rainbow



Marina getting ready for a swim in Halibut Cove Lagoon



 There was a time several years ago when I spent a lot of time sitting.  Some of this time was spent involved in creative endeavors.  This blog, for instance, was a great way to create!  In my overloaded, current life, I trick myself into thinking that all that sitting time was spent on creative endeavors.     In reality, quite a bit of this time, I would say 55%, was spent in an ADD/depression fueled mental eddy.  I mean really, how much time was I creating and how much was I shopping for plane tickets out of this dark and cold place on Orbitz?  Yes, people could call me and get information on flights out of Anchorage to nearly any tropical destination. I could quote prices...

 Now I look at this blog and fantasize that I had the kind of life where I had time to update it.  This is how JK Rowling must have felt as the Harry Potter series evolved.  Each blog entry as the children get older becomes more complex.  There is so much back story.  There is so much....life!  The days when I could write, "Bunny goes to Lunch" have been replaced with "Gloria is Here."  Who is Gloria?  Where did she come from?  Why have we not heard from her in all these years?  So much back story!  That first Harry Potter book was light and easy and exciting and manageable.  This year...this summer we are on book 5 and I don't know when I will find the time to fill in the back story AND keep up with my school and the housework and keeping the children fed!


Willie slept the entire day after a first shift, second shift, first shift rotation between Petro and McDonalds


Gloria, who is 18 and has just finished graduation from high school is one of Falcom's first sisters.  She lives in Honolulu and is figuring out her next moves in life.  I was painting her nails and we were talking one night and she said, "I remember when Ohnpei was in the hospital and my mom decided we should come and stay with you and Uncle Vince.  It seemed SO random at the time, like, why would the three of us stay with my teacher?  We have family..."

Sleeping otter in Seldovia Harbor

Good question.  What would be different in this life if Vince had said "No, we can't watch them.  Yea, I know that Ohnpei could die, but we're too busy."  How would every single aspect of the past 10 years have been altered?  

 It is remarkable the balance that a successful spiritual life requires.  Action must be happening.  If a person sits on the couch too long, it is impossible for the miracles that spirit intends for us to make their way into our realities.  However, if we are too busy, over booked, over worked, the miracles won't make their way in either. 

Falcom and Gloria at the International Rotary Club Meeting where Falcom performed

How do we do it?  How do I do everything that must be done, everything that I want to get done, all social maintenance kept up, and still have time to let the miracles in?

Willie has made a great new old friend in Gloria.  She understands him, where he comes from, the problems he faces that other American kids can't imagine. 

I am going to think about it while I am jogging.

Reflecting

Each summer of my childhood was spent going "home" to Illinois. These trips were amazing for me. No one there ever changed: No one moved. No one divorced. Besides my cousins getting older nothing radical ever happened in Illinois. Our family was alway happy to see us. The farm never became uninteresting My grandmother always cried at my coming and leaving. My aunt would always sit with me for hours.

Yesterday, I reexperianced this feeling, but from the other side. This time I am the weepy grandmother who is delighting in and grieving the passage of time. I am the auntie who will sit and drink tea and chat about anything. It is our home that has not changed much from those early memories that Gloria made. Mema came out to greet her. Valda invited her over and was anxious to see her. Falcom and Marina were sleeplessly anticipating her arrival.

Gloria spent the day looking around, reliving her memories. I spent the day joyful that I am still a part of her life.

Gloria is Here!

It has been 5 years since Gloria has been here with and and we are delighted to have her back. We are all exhausted from being up so early-and Gloria did not sleep on the flight. It should be a great couple of weeks!

Catching Up

 It is incredibly difficult to pick up blogging when the blog has been neglected for so long. I have been busy. I have been feeling a lack of creativity partially inspired by the cloudy grey days. 

My friend Jerami loaded up his life and headed out to worlds unknown.  I was a participant in this process and it took quite a bit of my time. 

I miss him already.

 We have been doing a little bit of boating.  It lifts my spirits amazingly!

 Beezer threw an amazing party for Piper's Birthday a week ago.  Bouncy house.  Face paining.  Scavenger hunt.  Big Fun!
Marina busted open the pinata.  Big fun.

 You would think my island boys were back on the islands.  They swam in the bay during our picnic lunch for almost an hour! 

And so I will not try to fill in the details of this past month.  Instead I am going to call this good and try again in earnest beginning next week.  We are excited that Gloria will be coming to stay with us for a couple of weeks and there will be great events to capture from there.