My Day in Quotes

Lots and lots of laundry before and after lunch. I asked each of the kids to bring me their hampers and Nolan was the first to obey, dropping it at my feet in the laundry room.
"Here's the green container of the wearable fabric we call clothes."

For lunch, the kids wanted Mac and Cheese. Nolan was in charge of cooking it but was unsure if it was quite finished so Jubal called me over to the stove.
"Mom, you're going to have to check it because you're the cooking expert in this house unfortunately."

I had kids in and out if my room all day while I folded and hung clothes and filled a couple Goodwill bags. All but Jubal came down several times, plopping themselves on the bed and chatting for a minute or two. It was rather nice. In Tell's case he always had his latest Lego project in his hands. On one occasion I was asked, "Mom, What's a kissabob?" I was stumped. "A kissabob?"



As he showed me two Lego mini figs connected by a rod and held vertically, he proudly announced "Yeah, because I made a Lego mini fig kissabob." Ahhhhh. The visual was the key for me. "You mean 'shish kebab'! "

At bedtime, as we neared the end of Dr. Suess' 'Mr.Brown Can Moo, Can You?' Tell and I read the line:
...he can even make a noise like a goldfish kiss!
Well, Tell is "not much of a kisser." as he often reminds me so I was not surprised at his response. "Why would they put the word kiss in a kids book? I mean, seriously!"








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A Day Out In The Deluge

My day with Atira in the deluge went like this:

The Dentist-
This was Atira's monthly progress check for her retainer. Teeth are moving!

The Discovering of Bargains-
This was Atira and I shopping at Kohl's and getting everything she needs for summer. I appreciate having a daughter to comb through the clearance racks with.

The Dining-
This was Atira's introduction to one of my favorite places to eat, Panera Bread. I knew it would be her kind of place and it was! There's nothing like chicken noodle soup on a rainy day.





The Drowsiness-
This was Atira falling asleep on the way home from Portland on a full stomach. It's best that she doesn't know about this photo. Shhh...





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How to Find Your Wife in Wal-Mart

In the past two weeks, I have been located by Jim in two different ways while shopping in Wal-Mart. On the first occasion he heard the distinctive snapping and popping of my ever present 3-piece minimum gum wad, three aisles over. That surprised me. I hadn't thought gum snapping could be so individually recognized. The second occasion was not surprising to me, nor will it be very surprising to most of you. I had coincidentally and pleasantly run into Aunt Suci in the egg aisle and as often happens when I am conversing, a rather loud laugh escaped my lips. Those of you who know me well, try not to be shocked when I tell you that he heard it halfway across the store and used it as a guiding beacon to where I was......


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Tell's Creatures

Some are small and fragile like the wounded butterfly that fluttered from foot to foot at Katie's party....




Some are used in expressions from Tell, such as, "I'm so hot I feel like a cooked chicken!" This was said while Jim and I chatted, in the very warm sun, with Charlene (Tracy) whom I had met again after 20 years. Not long after that, we headed home, encountering the last two creatures of the day.




Some seem out of place like the flock of seagulls sitting in a Yarmouth open field nowhere near the ocean. As Tell noted as we drove past them, "Now there's something you don't see everyday."


And finally, some just make us scream in fright. That's what happened at about ten o'clock this evening when Tell came up the stairs and encountered a baby northern ring-neck snake on the second step.



Jubal picked it up for us and it's currently sitting in a plastic container on our counter so the others can see it in the morning before we let it go. This is the third time in four years that we've had one of those baby snakes on the upper level of our house. (I blogged about the first time in a post called 'The Visitor")The other two times we found them in the bathroom which is a few feet from the stairs. I'd like to know the "why" of that.
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Friday Fog

The last day of Adventure Camp for Atira was also the last day of CYIA for Jubal and Nolan so after eating Lear's ice cream in the fog by the Wiscasset Bridge, Atira, Tell and I headed up to camp and met Jim there for the CYIA Commissioning Service.



Listening to 110 young people recite Philippians 2 and sing with the rain pounding on the camp chapel roof is a pretty enjoyable experience.



It's also enjoyable to catch up with all the people that you only see once or twice a year at camp. With the visiting finished and the hour getting late we headed back home. Emily Hodgdon, who had successfully trekked up earlier on her own despite bad GPS directions, followed us home and as a new driver successfully completed her first solo trip through pea soup fog on the Maine Coast. Looking outside this morning it appears it will be another foggy drive to Raymond for Katie Knights graduation party today.

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Mohawk Walk

One of the Adventure Camp activities for some of the kids yesterday was the "Mohawk Walk", a rope challenge that requires the group to work together in order to get everyone across the rope which, in this case, spanned three trees.









(I thought blog reader Nicole Viele would appreciate her daughter Cara's classic expression in the last photo)
The name of the activity piqued my interest so I researched a bit to find out why it might be named Mohawk Walk and found that there is a tradition of Mohawks working on high-rise buildings and bridges dating back to the late 1800's when Mohawks from
near Montreal were hired as laborers in exchange for the use of their land while building a bridge across the St. Lawrence River. Joseph Mitchell, who wrote "Mohawks In High Steel" said..

"The Indians were given jobs as common laborers, which didn't interest them. What they liked to do was to climb out on the bridge. "It was quite impossible to keep them off," a bridge executive wrote years later. They walked the narrow beams high above the river as calmly as they walked the streets of their village.

At the time, most bridge workers were veterans of great sailing ships, comfortable with working aloft. But the Mohawks pestered the bridge foreman until they were given some training in riveting and put to work. They immediately proved themselves to be what a company executive called "natural born bridgemen."

Soon, the Mohawks were working on high bridges and buildings across Canada, and then in the United States. Even the collapse of the massive Quebec Bridge in 1907 that killed some three dozen of the Indians didn't dissuade them. To the contrary, the thrill of the danger of the work drew more Mohawks than before."

I'm glad I wondered about the origin of the name. It was an interesting bit of reading.

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Angry, Wet Birds

Down pouring rain made the first day of Adventure Camp a soggy one but only detracted slightly from the fun. The biggest victim was the giant Angry Birds game which had been set up in the church park. It had to be relocated under cover. Four drenched leaders and several saturated boxes later, Sue, Greg, Nicole and I had the game set up under the cavernous striped tent.



While chilly leaders watched, the game commenced...





Ready,


Set,



Launch!



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