Happy Birthday Mom. You would have turned 82 today, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of you or our many trips we had taken to Maine, Canada, Florida, and other wonderful places. In every adventure, we seized the day, didn’t we? We lived every minute to the fullest, savored the sunsets, revered the rainstorms, and cherished the winds that breathed a new life in us.You taught me the meaning of Carpe Diem, of patience, and of love. You gave me wondrous gifts that I shall give selflessly to my own children as you so selflessly gave to me.

But most importantly, Mom, you gave me strength to wait out the storms. Suns really do return, Rainbows really do happen, and new days are always just on the other side of the moon.

I talked to the kids today about you and shared stories. Braeden still wonders when you are going to wake up. All I keep telling him is that you are alive and well in his little heart, where you shall always remain with all of your children and grandchildren, helping us get through those moonlit nights to the brand new day that awaits.

I love you, Mom. Happy Birthday. :)

I will contend, to the very end of my existence, that the best trips I have ever taken have been unplanned, spontaneous, with little thought given to much more than choosing a destination.

Yesterday was one of those trips.

We decided at about 9 a.m. to head to Assateague Island, south of our beloved Ocean City. If you’ve ever read Misty of Chincoteague, you know about Assateague and the wild horses. On these sandy dunes that line the Atlantic Ocean, wild horses and silka deer own the land. Campers set up primitive sites on the west side of the dunes, and day-trippers like ourselves park-and-hoof it to spend a day on the beach.

When I started teaching 20 years ago, we would take our ninth graders to Assateague or Cape Henelopen for an extended weekend camping trip. Once they became accustomed to what the word “primitive” meant (the first night they stood in front of us, hair dryers in hand, repeating “you have got to be kidding me” like it was some practical joke), they went with the flow of the weekend and had a pretty good time.

Yesterday, there was no time for getting accustomed to anything. We didn’t even let on to the kids where we were going until we pulled into Assateague’s national park. Immediately, they reacted with unbridled excitement. They wasted no time acclimating to the beach and the strong currents (this was their first time along the ocean’s shores). Braeden, however, was not as keen on the whole water idea. He preferred to build sand castles around him, not to mention on top of him.

We also spent a good amount of time watching the horses and the deer. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pictures of the deer this time; that’ll be on my list next time we go down (which we hope will be before summer ends).

As we were leaving, we were privileged to see one of the older horses leave the grassy dunes and take to the road, right toward us. Much like Boxer from Animal Farm, he seemed to have many years of hard work and experience under those hooves, and he knew this was his island. We stopped the car to let him cross the road, but he chose to take the road instead.

A car behind me was not patient and swerved around us, blowing by old Boxer as if he had been greatly inconvenienced. Boxer paid no attention to the rude human, though. He kept his slow pace, knowing his destination.

At last, he turned and made his way into the forest.

I didn’t realize it until after he had disappeared, but everyone in the car, for the one and only time during the entire trip, was silent. Was it reverence? Maybe for some of us. Perhaps the kids were just wondering what he would do. Still, Boxer’s presence made an impact on all of us, and it reminded me of the courage it takes at times to walk your own path, regardless of what everybody else is doing.

Hope your Sunday was a good one!

We spent the day yesterday at Six Flags America, which is remarkably close to our home in Baltimore (about a 45-minute drive. My oldest daughter, HG, wanted to celebrate her birthday (rather belatedly) at the park with one of her best friends, AJ (HG’s on the left).

We would never think to leave our younger two kids, MP and BC, behind, so they joined us as well for the fun.

HG and AJ were daredevils the whole day, with every roller coaster–no matter how ridiculously daredevilish each was–on their definite to-do list. The first major roller coaster they rode was the Wild One, built originally in 1917 (which I don’t understand completely, as I doubt seriously that this park even existed 20 years ago, let alone 90).

(They’re somewhere in this picture…I am nearly sure of it).

Unfortunately, most of the roller coasters were down for maintenance at different times during the day (some during the entire day!), so the older girls were a little more than disappointed that their master to-do list would go unfulfilled by the end of the day. :(

MP and BC enjoyed the lighter side of the park as well.

It was an awesome trip! They had a place called Hurricane Harbor that was a huge water park….we could have spent the entire day there. In fact, we’re seriously considering getting season passes to the park for next year. I could see us easily going at least once a week to enjoy the water park alone…That way, as well, we’d be there frequently enough to catch the roller coasters when they *were* running, as opposed to taking a shot in the dark on some random day that, magically, everything will be running as it should be.

We had a phenomenal time…but boy am I beat this morning!

First attempt at bringing my blog back to life with pictures. Maddie joins us below as she works on a very important project at school…

To get this photo in the blog entry, I simply uploaded it from my desktop…something I can do on my PC laptop but not from my Mac, for some reason.

Maybe my life will be much easier blogging from the PC…..

off to school now, but plenty of play time ahead this weekend!

[image deleted]

I couldn’t resist sharing one last summer pic of B enjoying his King Cone…May we all go into the weekend in such a happy way!

Ah, yes. The best of plans often lead to tough decisions. We were faced with such an opportunity this weekend when we traveled north for our annual blueberry-picking ritual. The temps were nearly 20 degrees lower than they were when we went picking last year, so we were all excited at the prospect of spending hours in the blueberry fields, picking the juicy blues as long as the kids held up.

That was, of course, before we pulled into the orchard to learn that they were closed on Sundays. So, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, We had never heard of a farm closed on a sunday, a day of givin’, and so we drove off into the mid-day sun, lookin’ for another place to pick the blueberries. We didn’t find one….

Till we came to a welcome center and happened upon a big book of farms in the entire state, what they offered, when, and whether you could go a’ pickin’. We decided on a place called Brown’s Orchard, and boy were we surprised by the outcome of the day.

When we got there, we were immediately drawn into the Orchard Retreat area, where a large pavillion filled with families reading, playing Sorry!, and eating ice cream were relaxing and enjoying the acoustic sounds of Me and Some Guy (that’s the actual name of the duo, and boy were they good). When I walked into the covered pavillion, they were playing Norwegian Wood, and it felt like it was a very good thing indeed that the other orchard had snubbed their nose at us (closed on Sunday, puh-lease). But Brown’s had everything we could have asked for, except…..

That’s right. No blueberry pickin’. It seems as if we missed the season by a good two weeks, and there wasn’t going to be any more picking blueberries till next summer.

The kids were disappointed, as were we, and so we took a little adventurous walk down an old dirt road that led us to the apple orchards. Now, we were nearly sure that this was not a featured attraction to Brown’s Orchards, as we didn’t see another soul around us the entire time we meandered through the apple trees, each picking a single favorite fruit from the trees and eating it along the way. We got to the end of the orchard when we figured it was time to head back, and we felt as if we were in an apple labyrinth, where the trees would come alive at any moment just like in the Wizard of Oz….The kids’ imaginations, not to mention our own, were fully engaged midway through our return, and we were certain that snakes and bees and wild animals (oh, my!) were going to decend upon us at any moment.

They didn’t, of course, but what we did get was a nice adventure out of what could have been a disappointing day.

Turn around and go home? Never! The fun is in the journey, my friends, not always reaching the intended destination!

MP tossed a seed into a mug one day, said a little wish, and hoped to witness the birth of a flower. Yesterday, her seed matured and a beautiful sunflower introduced herself to the world.

MP believes. She has faith in a seed, and now a whole lot more.

I had the great fortune to take MP, my younger daughter, to school with me a few months ago….Not only were my students wonderful with her, I think it was probably one of the happiest days of her life.
Hard to tell, isn’t it?