“Why are there a lot of Berts now?”

- Emily, while watching Mary Poppins when all the chimney sweeps are on the rooftop.

“I love my sister Emily. She’s my best, most beautiful sister.”

- Erica, when we we were talking about Thanksgiving in the car.

“We don’t have any hippopotamus ingredients.”

-Erica, when Joel suggested that I was making hippopotamus pie the night before Thanksgiving.

“I want to eat marshmallows until I’m full all the way up to my headband.”

– Emily

“The only caterpillars we want to see are at the Caterpillar Park.”

– Emily, after Joel asked her if she wanted to go outside and look at the caterpillars that were crawling on the tent.

“I think I’ve had enough sugar.”

– Erica, after she’d eaten her fifth marshmallow.

Starting at Labor Day weekend, Joel had two weeks off. We went camping. We weren’t sure how it would work with the girls, but we wanted to give it a try. So we bought a big tent, loaded up the van, left town, and hoped for the best. We thought it might last for a couple nights at most, but it went well enough that we spent eight nights in the tent. The girls seemed to enjoy it, and they experienced many new things, such as swimming in a lake, lots of bugs and caterpillars, being around lots of trees, seeing how dark it gets at night, and eating marshmallows every day. The weather was perfect for camping, except for three nights that we spent in a hotel due to thunderstorms in the forecast.

We wanted to know if camping would really be a relaxing enough way to spend an away-from-home vacation. We found it to be a lot more work than just staying in a hotel, but it was worth it in so many ways. We learned a lot about each other and working together and communicating. . . imagine that. . . even after ten years of marriage. We made memories for our family that go way beyond what you could ever experience in a hotel vacation. . . even just getting the chance to be outside all day, cooking outside, enjoying campfires at night, and waking up inside a tent every morning.

I think our low-key approach helped make it work. . . if it’s going to thunderstorm, then we’ll stay in a hotel tonight. . . if this campground’s too noisy, we’ll move to a different one. I have to admit that Joel’s iPhone really helped us with our on-the-go trip-planning, mapping, laundromat and grocery store finding needs.

We also learned that all the New York State Parks have really great playgrounds, at least the ones we visited.

More to come.

The hippopotamuses were facing away from us, at the far end of their habitat. Erica was sitting high up on Joel’s shoulders, and she said, “Hippopotamus, come in the water.” Joel said, “If you want them to hear you, you’ll have to say it a little louder.”

“Hippopotamus, come in the water,” said Erica, her little voice a little louder.

“Hippopotamus, come in the water,” said Erica, louder still.

One hippopotamus, and then the other, turned around and made their way down to the water and went swimming, and we got to see them up close.

With the college girl friends, that is. This trip was truly wonderful, for a lot of reasons.

• It was the longest that I’ve been away from home by myself since I became a mom. It was a nice break from my normal routine, not that my routine’s all that normal.
• Spending time with some of my best life-long friends, who came together, literally, from around the world.
• I got to drive around in a ‘67 Camaro with one of those best friends, in an off-the-beaten-path adventure to surprise-visit another close friend, who I called up out of the blue after not keeping in touch for several years, praying that her phone number would still work. It was so great to catch-up, reminisce, and to see where God has taken us since them. So many ways he’s blessed us and worked things out. . . amazing. Thank you, Jane, for letting us use the car! I got to cross one item off my list of things to do someday. . . drive a classic muscle car.
• It was amazing that even though eleven years have passed since we got to spend this kind of time together, it didn’t feel like it had been that long. We’ve kept up, to varying degrees, through e-mail and quick visits for all the weddings since then, but there’s nothing like actually being together. Right away, I felt completely comfortable in my own skin, being exactly myself. There was no pretense. There is nothing like being loved and encouraged by other women, and being free to be exactly who I was made to be.
• I was kind of caught off-guard, as we shared our stories, about all the pain and hard things that we have collectively experienced in the last eleven years. I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I know that life includes both amazingly good and heart-breaking difficult times. It is what it is, but there’s so much more that we can’t see unless we are looking for it. Our lives are in God’s hands, his perfect and loving care, even through tough things that we don’t understand. I left Oregon with my heart burdened in ways that I didn’t expect, but I hope that this will motivate me to keep in closer contact with my friends, to encourage, pray and help each other along the way.
• I will always be an east coast girl at heart, but I did like Oregon, and I got to spend three days on the Oregon Coast, see Multnomah Falls, and drive down Klickitat Street.
• Clam chowder.
• Jane’s cooking.
• Oregon has little drive-up espresso places everywhere. Really, everywhere.
• Even though we got a flat tire on the way to the airport and I missed my flight, I made it home an hour earlier than my originally scheduled flight.
• I got to watch “Chuck” on my iPod on the plane.
• I got to use the bathroom all by myself for six whole days. Really.

We woke up to the sound of our patio door getting taken off. . . with crowbars and hammers. We were expecting this to happen, and even hoped it would happen today. We just didn’t know that it would happen at 7:30 a.m., without any warning. They’ve been doing a lot of work on our building for the last week or so. We’ve been waking up to lots of noise for the last few days. This morning, I tried to ignore it at first, burying my head deeper into the pillow. But then I found myself thinking thoughts like this. . . “man, that sounds really close, like, maybe right in our living room.” I walk out there, in my pajamas, and there is a gaping hole where the door used to be. We live on the second floor, and we have a balcony, and last week they took off the railing. So, there’s this big hole where the door used to be. There’s a balcony with no railing. It’s the second floor. And there are two three-year-olds just down the hall, wide awake and, thankfully, still in their beds. Nice.