As most people who read this know, I'm married to a man almost twice my age. One of the funny quirks about this relationship is that he has two children who are older than me. Stepmom? I don't think so! More like little sister. (You hear about Phil's gorgeous daughter fairly often, since she's awesome and she lives right here in Homer.) Even funnier (in terms of imponderable relationship titles), Phil's son has kids! So, our first set of visitors are Phil's son (on the left), his wife (on the far right) and their four kids!
The center of activities is up at their mom/'real' grandma's (much bigger) house: most people who read this also know that Phil's first wife also lives in town and is one of our very favorite people, and that her house is the center for many activities in our life.
This is about the most fun, good natured, positive, cheerful crowd of visitors one could wish for. They've gone fishing, and maintained interest and engagement all the way through the process. We've hiked the beach picking up rocks, collecting the most beautiful ones and practicing skipping the rest, or throwing them down hard to try and break out geodes. We've hiked around in woods and meadows gathering wild flowers, bird egg shells, and even a road-killed baby snipe, flattened in the dust like a pressed flower.
She wasn't really going to eat that jellyfish we found on the beach! But she's such a good sport, she posed as if she would.
I'm finding ways to take a few hours out of the melee here and there in order to get some work done and have some quiet time and space, which allows me to be fully present the rest of the time. It feels good. Some of those 'time outs' have gotten engulfed by food-prep and garden projects rather than reading/writing/working, however.
And what that chocolate-orange raw not-cheesecake has to do with all that beautiful freshly harvested kale will have to wait for my next check-in!
I hope you're having a beautiful weekend.
What's growing in your garden?
