{a view of the mosquito jungle aka my backyard “paradise”}

I’m done with texas. DONE.

The reentry (from vacation), as someone in my comments aptly named it, has totally blown chunks. I can count on one hand the number of times I have left my home since I’ve come home from vacation. Ok I can count on two fingers - gymnastics and grocery shopping. Hardly “fresh air”.  I’m tired, not showered, overwhelmed, overworked and stressed so I stay in. But mostly becuase it is hotter than shit so what is there to inspire me to leave?  And looks like we have quite a bit of hurricane weather heading this way, to boot. What’s worse than hotter than hot scorching days where the sun doesn’t ever peak into my windows but its too hot to go FIND the sun? I know! Rainy days! Because somehow, defying the odds, the rainy gloomy weather DOES find its way into my windows and everyone’s mood is shit while its rainy.

But staying home is not good for me. I feel like I am living in a freakin’ cave. On a whim I looked at houses available for rent in our area. Huge amazing McMansions. All of them? Like bear caves. Dark, closed off, no natural light. I am half considering moving BACK to one of those stripped naked neighborhoods were there are no trees for miles just because I am so desperate for sunlight. I find myself hiding out in my bedroom a LOT and finally realized it is because I am so desperate for revitalization and it is the only room with even a little sun in our whole house. Even when it is ridiculously texas-sky-blue sunny, we have to leave the lights on in every room of our house or we can’t see well. And our lighting totally SUCKS - it’s that orange save-the-environment crap that barely lights up anything. It is just depressing and I have had enough.

{lonely bud on my ‘pot bush’}

I miss grass. I miss being able to sit outside without freakin’ ants crawling EVERYWHERE. I miss having a kitchen bigger than a postage stamp. I miss having hardwood floors. I miss having real carpet instead of this cheapo crap we have here. I miss maple trees and oak trees and boulevards. And sidewalks.

So where can I move in the country that will not get snow, will not be 100 degrees from April - October, will not be too rainy, will not have fire ants or “palmetto bugs” (polite word for huge mother-f’ing cock roaches) and where we can swim for half the year? Also has to have good homeschool and vaccine laws, by the way.

It is going to be a LONG fall (aka extended summer).  I know the 50 degree nights and 65 degree days on vacation, the real grass that you can lay in without being devoured by carnivourous bugs and the trees and outdoor air for the last month have set me into a tailspin. Remind me NOT to go on vacation to more temperate areas of the country next August - it just makes reentry impossible. Unless I plan not to return until November!!

{funky light that is my backyard}

PS all this whining, courtesy of the swim break my husband took all the kids for in the backyard pool, made me feel guilty. So I went outside to take some pictures (posted here) and enjoy the fresh air. Except there were so many mosquitoes that I got bit up instantly. Addy can’t even swim back there without being bit at least once.  They don’t make waterproof bug spray. Sucks. SO.much.  And the yard was so yucky and unkempt and wild  and itchy that no one ever uses any of the awesome play equipment we own. And the light is so crappy - super bright in spots and totally dark in others - that all my pictures didn’t turn out. Blah. I gave blood for nothing at all.

{looking straight up - my crepe myrtles. When I moved here I thought “how quaint! Flowering trees!” but as it turns out I absolutely hate crepe myrtle!}

I’m slowly but surely figuring out this iPhone madness. I think I can do just about everything I need to do now on this thing so the computer will be almost obsolete. I should be able to save the computer just for photo editing, some blogging and catching up on some blogs (the feedreaders for Iphone totally suck so far but I can follow a few of my favorite blogs there, at least). I have downloaded every app known to mankind. So now my 1st grader to can do math, my baby can make and pop bubbles, we can watch podcasts of all their favorite shows including CNN student news for homeschooling the big kids. I can blog, take photos, send photos, microblog, send and receive text messages and emails, draw pictures, make to-do lists, the list goes on. I have got.it.covered.

And I’m not the only one. These things are totally made for two year olds. Addison can navigate my apps, start her games, play her games, restart her games, draw pictures, change color and size of the pens, navigate the podcasts, etc. Seriously it is almost scary how fast she picked it up. Whoever it was who said that it’s made for the 4-5 year old scene was NOT kidding! I know my problem now…I was WAY overthinking things!

Speaking of overthinking…Addy has been saying “poe poe poe please!” for awhile now and she giggles every time, so proud of herself. I absolutely did not get it. I assumed early on that she was just being cute and silly so I giggled along but wondered where this silly game came from. Then today I had a total “duh” moment and realized what she was saying all this time. Ready? Por favor! Hahaha. I’m so slow. But the look of pride on her face when I finally got it (after literally dozens upon dozens of times and weeks of her saying it) was priceless. Oh well, gotta appreciate her tenacity!!!

This has been the ultimate lazy hazy weekend. We’ve done NOTHING. We swam in the pool a bunch, made cookies, watched tv (Dirty Dancing, anyone?! ha) and grilled for dinner both nights. In between it all I organized all the new school supplies, labeled stuff, prepared school schedules, lectured the boys on how I expect NO whining this school year, reevaluated the chores my kids are expected to do and cut back a little and made new chore lists. Hey wait - I guess we did stuff after all!

I think we have a pretty good working schedule going on. The hard part will be upholding MY end of it. Tomorrow also starts my new and improved diet, exercise and household care schedule and my new no-more-computer lifestyle. Yikes. While I’ve gotten progressively better with our homeschool routine and kids chores over the years, I have consistently failed personally when it comes to meeting my own personal goals. So wish me luck.

A few pictures I’ve edited this weekend:

{my ballerina}

{downtown St. Augustine}

{sad and lonely rowboat}

{duotone moss - I love Mother Nature}

I managed to get several other pictures post-processed but I’ve already posted the pre-processed or flickr-processed versions so I’ll spare you those. Our trip to the beach was my first chance to use the 50mm at the beach and OMG I was absolutely floored at how well almost every picture I took came out. Sharp, in focus, great color balance and saturation, great lighting. The crappy parts were all my fault - bad composition, timing, angle, etc. I was sure I botched every photo because I couldn’t see ANY of them on the screen afterward to adjust settings because of the intense sun and glare. I just adore that lens! I have no idea what to do with pictures that don’t need any post-processing! ha.

Ok so back to the pictures that do. I had fun today playing with textures…..

{charelston}

{The Lulu}

{pittsburgh}

{treats}

{boo}

If you read Kelly’s blog you probably know we spent the last several days hanging out on Florida’s east coast with some really amazing mamas, their husbands and just beautiful children for our own little Heritage Camp, babystyle. I know I keep saying it but how lucky am I?!! Sooooo lucky, I know.

So back in the spring when I went to Denver, Kelly was also supposed to make that trip but it didn’t work out. In its place, Laurie graciously offered her family’s summer place as a hang out this summer if we were willing to make the trip. To add to the allure, as if that alone wasn’t enough, S. lives locally too. Somehow (I honestly can’t remember but am SO glad it worked out) Jena got brought into the mix and there you have it - the fabulous five! ha. All together we were actually 22 strong. Crazy, huh? It was seriously SO much fun and we are already conspiring and planning another MUCH LARGER blogger get together somewhere more centrally located because there were so many other bloggers and AP’s we would have loved to have in the mix. So look for details on that soon.

Kelly did a really awesome job summing everyone up. I think I only mixed up Addy and Lucy twice this time! haha. I know at laest one other person unrelated to either girl also mixed them up once, so I feel justified

These are an amazing group of women who are sooo smart and soooo freakin’ hilarious. I swear I have not ever laughed so much in my life. We had LOTS of hours of long chats long into the night which left us with like 2-4 hours of sleep a day. ROUGH! I’m so not a college kid anymore, apparently! But I would not do it differently because it was just so much fun.

The Dads are totally amazing husbands and fathers. they are smart, super-helpful, hands-on and just fun. I love them all and love seeing such good fatherhood and husbandhood (husbandry?!?!) in play. Case in point, Addison totally loves Travis (who she calls Tabitch - haha) like an Uncle. She just adores him and that’s something she reserves for VERY few people. We are one lucky group of women! We missed Kelly’s husband and S’s husband who both had to work but I am positive that they are just as awesome.

The kids….wow!!!! They are all so beautiful and radiant and amazing to me. It is so neat to me to see the products of the parenthood of some parents I truly admire. My kids really loved them all and had such a great time and so did I.

Highlights for me:

* tidepooling with my boys

* collecting sand dollars, starfish, crabs and shells with my kiddos

*hearing my kids excite over spotting tiny sandsharks in the waves and huge tortoises in the dunes.

* big huge waves, real white sand and clean ocean water

* watching the dolphins from the deck in the wee (for me) morning hours.

* long talks about politics, religion and boning the neighbors

* ruining the olympics into the wee hours (so sorry Kel!)

* insane games where the kids do nothing but run back and forth and crack up.

* seeing someone’s kiddo walking hand in hand with someone else’s parent

* being able to talk adoption and ethics endlessly without being intrusive, getting weird looks or boring people to death. Speical bonus for  me was talking adoption with Jena, who I work with at VVAI, live and in person. How cool is that?

*awesome fried shrimp

* babysitting finjin, cuddling her to sleep and hogging her as long as I could

* playing with lucy on the last day when it was quiet and she totally turned on her charm, jackson’s sweet loving on the last day, seeing samuel and noah playing in waves together (also on the last day! hmmm sensing a pattern here), getting bailey to talk to me about earrings and stuff (again, final day), khai’s hysterical camera poses, Shane’s awesome crawl straight into the ocean over his head without fear, S’s daughter M’s precious bonding with Addy during out trip into town, S’s daughter A’s hysterical laughing competition with Addy, S’s son L’s pure joy and energy that just makes you smile all the time. These are some totally AWESOME sweet, adorable, smart kids. I love them all!

* watching kelly’s natural parenting and strong connection with Lucy, seeing Laurie and Travis tag-team parent their 3 tinies without seemingly ever getting frazzled and just rolling with the punches, basking in the peace and love humor and patience that Jena and Sheldon parent with and finding inspiration in the patience, grace and joy that S seems to meet every day with despite some extremely challenging days that are hilarious to hear about and read about on her blog but would definitely bring out the worst in me as a Mother, I know! These paernts just inspire me in all the best ways to be a better, more connected, more joyful, more appreciative mother.

{Addy & M.}

Things I could have skipped:

* Dalton got pierced straight and entirely through his fingernail by a crab. Yeoch!

* Noah, Teegan and I all got colds (no, Em and Lee, this was not your doing!! It was much too soon and we had already begun to feel funky before we even left NC!)

* Dalton was out waveboarding on a higher-wave day and a shark swam up to Dalton. It was NOT a shark attack - haha. That would be the fish tale portion of this tale. But it was big enough (close to as big as he is!!) and close enough that he decided his waveboarding day was over. ha. Tony asked the life guard about it and he was all “Oh yeah, I saw that shark. Its no big deal”. haha. For landlocked midwesterners, however, its sort of a big deal!!!!

* the sunburns. oh the sun burns. The number of sunburns I personally have endured just this summer along is ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinkig but I imagine it was something like “I live in Houston, we have a pool, we are outside allll the time, i’ve already been suburnt several times so I should be safe”. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Thankfully this was by far not the worst sunburn I’ve had this summer and I felt pretty much fine within 24 hours. Noah, on the other hand, endured his first ever sunburn and I feel sooo bad about it. I took SUCH huge efforts to protect his lily-white skin and blond head for the first 6 years of his life and just totally screwed up. He did use sunscreen but not soon or often enough. Poor kid.

Despite those few minor things, this was the time of our lives. Thank you Laurie and Travis for opening your family’s home to us crazies!!!!

More pics:

{Khai}

{Miss Sassy Pants}

{Lucy loving on Finley}

{playing with Lucy - peekaboo!}

{Jack}

{Finley}

{Crazy Khai}

{Jena the Book Whisperer}

{Shane - wave-bound}

{chasing down the flying balloon}

{photographing the photographer}

{more balloon chasing}

{ring around the rosy}

There are sooooo many more! When I get home I’ll go through them and post-process and do another big picture post.