Tag Archives: vacation

Chocolate Marshmallow Fudge Delight

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This kid most definitely comes from my side of the family.  At least in so far as it relates to food.  Gryffin likes to eat.  A lot.  He’s known far and wide as an eater, always talking, planning and dreaming about food, it seems.   He’s always thinking ahead to his next meal, his next snack, his next treat.  The way to his heart is most definitely through food.  And especially dessert.   This describes so many people in my family (my sister -big time, my uncle can pound an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream in one sitting, my entire dad’s side of the family, it seems – hello, scotch kisses) that it just seems to be natural fit.

It’s strange because Isaiah is by FAR the larger of our two boys.   We’re talking 110th percentile for a 12-month-old @ his 6-month checkup.  That guy threw my back out when I was Bjorning him at 3 months.  Seriously.  Maybe it’s because Isaiah was such a huuuge baby and took to nursing immediately.  He never had to fight for it.  Never had to go hungry.  Unlike G, who was only 6 pounds soaking wet as a babe, couldn’t nurse at first and just seemed to be hungry from day 1.     Whatever it is, kid’s a Lundin/Myers through and through.

When we discovered that our vacation house had a fire pit and that Gryffin wasn’t afraid of the fire like he was last year, it seemed only fitting that we introduce the boys to s’mores.   I thought Gryffin’s head might explode with the excitement.  It was almost too much for him.   He referred to them as chocolate marshmallow fudge delights, after a line from The Rattletrap Car and he was absolutely over the moon about them.

We usually go around as a family each evening and discuss our favorite parts of the day.  Gryffin, of course, declared the chocolate marshmallow fudge delights his most favorite part and woke up talking about them.

Isaiah, on the other hand, was just kind of… meh about them.  They were neither here nor there for him and tonight he barely even looked at his.

Besides eating copious amounts of dessert, we also hit the Children’s Museum, KidiMu, this morning and the boys had a blast.  Jason spent the afternoon mountain biking again and trying out his new favorite sport of paddle boarding.  He fell in, maybe just 15 times today?  He claims that two of the times he jumped in of his own accord but I’m not sure I believe him.  We also managed to go out to a nice dinner with the fellas.  It was nothing short of miraculous.  The boys were incredibly well-behaved, patient while waiting for their food and they both ate without complaint.   And the food was brilliant to bout. Wonders never cease.

Up next?  Bloedel Garden Reserve in the morning.

Jason after his mountain biking this afternoon.  Just a tad muddy.

Isaiah was so sad after his nap to discover that J had left without him on the bike ride.

He just sat outside and kept calling “Papa!  I go bike ride too!” every few minutes.


Still waiting

Jason trying to look like he’s got this paddle boarding thing down.

Not even remotely excited about the marshmallow

And… me.  I was thinking about dinner and whether or not I could convince Jason into stopping at Mora’s again.  Apple doesn’t fall far, that’s for sure.

Bainbridge Vacay, Day 1

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This is technically day 2 of our summer vacation but I had to head back into Seattle yesterday to work (that’s what professionals do, right La V?) so today is the official start of my vacation anyway.  Jason and the boys hit the ground running yesterday, hiking, harvesting huckleberries and canoeing while I caught the morning ferry back to Seattle and headed to Swedish First Hill.    I came home in the evening exhausted and weary but I somehow managed to grab some take-out and swing by Mora’s Iced Creamery before heading back to our vacation house on Manzanita Bay.    It’s a rough life.

Our vacation house basically has everything we look for when we’re away from home.    We are right on the water, surrounded by trees, tons of exploring and fun to be had without driving anywhere.  There’s a hot tub (of course), small kitchen, and we’re only about 8 minutes to “downtown” Bainbridge.

After hitting the hot tub this morning, we decided to head out and explore Fort Ward State Park.  It was beautiful in typical PNW style but the weather was cold and Gryffin was kind of grumpy so we packed it in after exploring for about an hour.   Both boys seem pretty tired today, despite sleeping really well the past 2 nights.  Maybe the 3-mile hike with J yesterday wore them out?    Who knows.  We ate lunch at a deli on Winslow and headed back to the house for nap time.  So the boys are sleeping now (or “sleeping” in Gryffin’s case) and I’m sitting here on the couch, gazing out the window at the trees, relaxing and going over some the pictures I took this morning, while Jason is out on a bike ride.

I am feeling happy.  I’ve got a good book, some creative projects brewing in my head for this summer (among other things, I’m thinking about trying to make a picnic table- is that too ambitious?), and my little fam nestled in around me for a couple days.  I’ve often talked with friends about how vacations with kids are kind of… well, a lot of work!  Not really vacation at all.  And in some ways, that is still true for us.  We still have to take care of the boys after all.  No vacation exists for that.  But it’s the other things.  The meals.  We eat out a lot when we’re on vacay.  The nap times.  We don’t work or cook or clean or do laundry during nap times.   And after the boys are in bed for the night, we just hang out.  No entertaining, no cleaning (seriously, this house is already totally trashed – friends, you would be shocked!  it’s very un-Nance-like up in here), no “to do” lists.    It’s great and about all I could ask for at this stage of my life.

For the past few days, when Gryffin wakes up in the morning, instead of waking up Isaiah, which is his usual MO, he’s been sneaking into our room without waking his brother and snuggling into bed with us.  I think he’s actually awake long before his light turns green (how he knows he’s allowed to get out of bed – best invention in the world, by the way) but is keeping quiet so that he can have that time with us on his own.  Such a sweet time with our boy and Isaiah gets some additional zzz’s.  A win win.   This morning, though, Gryffin sidled up to Jason first and the two of them decided to get some books and come down stairs.  I thought about getting up with them.  I really did.  But someone needed to stay upstairs with Isaiah, right?  So I decided to re-fluff my pillows and nestle back under the covers.  People, I have not slept in for almost 4 years.  I’m not exaggerating.  I got to sleep until 8:15 when Isaiah finally woke up and toddled in to see what was what.   If that ain’t a good start to vacation, I don’t know what is.


At the start of the trail @ Fort Ward


This was the highlight of the park for the boys.  Seriously.  As you can see, there was a drinking fountain and then this spigot which we told the boys was for dogs to get a drink.  They found this just hilarious.


Isaiah, after he informed us that he wanted to “drink like puppy dog.”
Kid has been cracking us up lately with the random things he says

Love that belly.  Getting smaller every day.
I’ve been working on some basic photography skills the past few weeks.
I really like having a camera on days like today.It’s fun to play around with different shots and camera angles while we explore and we’ve been trying to remember to take more photos, instead of always relying on our talented friends to take them for us!

After loading Gryffin in the car, I turned around to find Isaiah like this.
“I take nap.”   Whatever floats your boat, kid.

What Gives?

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Remember my vacation post?  Our grand trip to Portland a few weeks ago?  We had nearly everything on our must-have vacay list.  The boys slept well.  Good food.  Great house.  Incredible views.  Friends to share it with.  I think we got big headed after that trip.  Thought we had it all together.  Knew how to take a trip with our kids and really rock it.   But then… then we just had to get all full of ourselves.  Just had to take a last-minute trip to Santa Barbara.  Jason was going down again for work and I decided to tag along with the boys.    This was going to be great.  Totally fantastic.  Jason would be working so I’d be on my own with the boys every day.  But I had friends to catch up with, bathing suits packed and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf right near our rental house.  And hey, even if it was a little rough with the boys, nothing, absolutely nothing could be worse than last year’s work trip to Santa Barbara.  Right?  Right???

Let’s quickly revisit last year’s week in Santa Barbara.  I had been looking forward to the trip for months.  We hadn’t been back for a visit in 4 years.  We were going to stay with a good friend and her family, every day was lined up for seeing all our various friends and eating out at all our old haunts, several of my college friends were in town for a wedding so we’d be able to catch up, and hellllloooo sunshine!   But then… then my grandmother died.   Down in Northern California for the funeral, I was due to fly home to Seattle the day before our Santa Barbara flight.  And about 10 minutes before leaving for the airport, I stubbed my toe (hard) on my dad’s desk, breaking my toe and tearing some ligaments.  My dad found my old crutches from high school in the garage so I still flew home, spent 4 hours in the ER upon arrival, and we headed out to Santa Barbara the next morning with me on crutches.  For some reason, I was still completely optimistic.  I hadn’t thought through the implications of my injury.  Didn’t realize that not being able to walk was the very least of my problems.  I couldn’t pick up the boys.  I couldn’t drive a car.  I couldn’t carry Isaiah in the Moby while pushing Gryffin in a stroller, which was my plan for getting around as we strolled along the beach-front soaking up all that sun.  So with Jason working every day, I was housebound for the week.    Unable to go out.  Unable to get meals pulled together for Gryffin, unable to get Isaiah out of his bed, and unable to remain terribly cheerful because I was grieving for my grandmother.  Pretty rough way to spend your vacation.

Wait, though!  Wait for it.  There’s more.  On our second-to-last day there, I convinced Jason that I would be able to drive and informed him that I was going out to visit a friend.  Freedom!  I made it to my friend’s house and was there for about 15 minutes when I slipped and fell.  Trying to protect my broken toe, I clocked my other foot on the coffee table, breaking the EXACT SAME TOE in the EXACT SAME PLACE on my way down.   Unbelievable, right?  What are the odds?   I couldn’t even call Jason.  It was just too bizarre.  I texted him instead.  He had to come get me.  Carry me out of the house and we went home the next day with me in a wheelchair.  Nice.   Real nice.   And looking back, that trip, starting with my grandmother’s funeral really, kicked off what ended up being a very difficult and sad season of my life, culminating in the death of my grandfather about 5 months later.

So this year felt like it would be a do-over.  Vindication, if you will.  NOTHING could be as bad as last year.   And this year’s trip would kick off a season of joy.   It all just seemed so fitting.  But then… then I got the flu the day before we left.   Again, though, I still felt optimistic.  At least I could walk, right?   I’d be better in no time.   The flight was easy-peasy.  The boys were brilliant.  Everything was looking good.  But by evening, Isaiah had a fever and things just went downhill from there.   The boys slept dreadfully.  We were up multiple times each night with them.   We were sick as dogs all week.  Couldn’t see my friends because even if I’d been able to Day-Quil my symptoms to oblivion, I couldn’t take my sick kids near their little ones.  My friends were troopers – meeting me so we could walk with our kids in their strollers, and tried to carry on conversations with me despite the fact that I’d lost my voice entirely.   But there were so many difficulties, so much angst.  We were just generally miserable all week.**

What gives?

Seriously.  What are the odds?  That’s what everyone said last year when I came home with my two identical broken toes.  Who does that?   And now I’ve returned from my second botched Santa Barbara vacation and everyone is saying it again.  What are the odds?  How could this year be so dreadful as last year?   Who has a bad vacation two years in a row?  To the same destination?   It’s weird.  As my friend, Kel, said, “you just can’t catch a break, Nance.”

Z, in a happier moment

Kid really liked to roll about and wallow in the sand

Gryffin playing chase @ the Courthouse Sunken Gardens

So what’s the take away?  What did I learn?  Where is the glorious insight to wrap up this post?  I really don’t know.  It was discouraging and disheartening on so many levels.   Jason has this remarkable… uhhh, gift?… to conveniently forget the hard stuff from a vacation like this one and to be able to sum it up afterwards with a eh, it wasn’t so bad.  Me?  Not so much.  Here are a few things that I remember from the trip that were life-giving for me, blessed few though they were.

  • My friends, Sarah & Stacy.  Even though our times together are so different with 5 kids between us now (and another little guy on the way!), and very little time for actual talking and connecting, what with all the diapers and time outs and lunches and refereeing and what not, it was still great to catch up and spend time with them.  It really felt like old times, in some ways.  I miss those two!
  • Seeing my college roommate, Kristy, one evening.   It was so good to catch up a little and hear more about her life now.  I always feel like Maj and I are able to pick up right where we left off.  I miss being part of her day-to-day life, that’s for sure.
  • Taking the boys over to swim with our friends, Kelly & Ruth.  They are both so instantly charming with our kids and such kindred spirits to J and me.  Kelly even let Gryffin sit on her Vespa and pretend to drive it.  That was a highlight for sure!
  • Visiting Westmont where Jason and  I went to school ten years ago.  I also got to visit with my friend, Deanne, who is working there this year.  It was wonderful to stroll around and see how much the campus has changed since I was a student and to catch up with Dee.
In Deanne’s office – I was exhausted that morning, can you tell?
We managed to make it to the pumpkin patch with Stacy, Jane & Wesley on Wednesday morning.
Gryffin’s most favorite part was, of course, the water well.
  • Breakfast @ Tupelo Junction.  We didn’t go much when we lived there but that breakfast was epic.  The best meal of the week, hands down.
  • On our last afternoon, we had about 5 hours to kill between check-out and heading to the airport.  We were pretty beat and just wanted to relax somewhere and hopefully get the boys to nap.   So we headed over to our friends, Greg & Kim’s house, and spent the afternoon there.  Kim was gone for the day but Greg was home with their three girls.  The boys napped so well there and I felt so at peace sitting in their house, enjoying their incredible yard with all of Greg’s projects, from beehives and woodworking to rope swings and chicken coops.  I remember the exact same feeling from our trip last year.   Sitting in their living room with my two sad toes propped up.  Something just feels…good at their house.  Jason and I were trying to pinpoint the feeling when we got home.  We both feel completely at our ease there, totally relaxed and able to let our guard down.   I guess that’s pretty rare.  And it got me thinking.  I hope that is what folks feel when they come to our house.  That they would feel that same sense of ease and peacefulness surrounding them.   That the love in our family would somehow permeate the actual house, like it seems to at Greg & Kim’s.   So there you go.  Maybe that’s the take away from our Santa Barbara trips, both past and present.  Still, though.  I think I could have figured that one out without a complete trash heap of a week.  Just sayin’.
J bouncing Stella, Greg & Kim’s youngest

 

** Unlike the rest of the us, Jason had a great week.  He worked, had lunch with friends every day, outings for beer in the evenings, and capped the week off with a sunrise mountain biking adventure.  I tried hard not to be bitter about his good fortune all week, while I was in the depths.  

Vacation

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Over the years Jason and I have had to define and redefine what it means to take a vacation.  We grew up in very different families and our definitions of vacation were not exactly compatible.  His mom took him and his sister on a trip around the world when they were 10 & 7, which included a near kidnapping of his sister in Vietnam over a disputed cab fare and subsisting on a loaf of bread a day, whilst my family soaked in the sun and snorkeled in Hawaii for a couple weeks each year.  So after many squabbles and disagreements over how to spend our time on a “vacation”  we finally determined that for us there is vacation and there is traveling.  These are not the same thing.   Traveling means heading out and seeing the sights, exploring all the amazing things that a certain city or location has to offer.  Museums, churches, gardens, self-guided walking tours, historical sites, must-sees, and so on until we crash back in to bed and start afresh in the morning.  Vacation, on the other hand, means slowing down.  Usually in the form of camping.  Spending our days on a river.  Or our bikes.  Walking in the woods.  Cooking food over the fire.  Perfecting our s’mores-making capabilities.  And lots and lots of reading.

But all that was before we had kids.  Now we’ve had to redefine yet again.  Traveling is out for the time being.  A bazillion hour flight to, say, Hong Kong, sounds masochistic with two toddlers.  So we have put our traveling aspirations and dreams on hold for a few years.  But we still want to vacation as a family.  And we’ve been trying for the last few years to figure out exactly how to do that.  What makes a vacation a vacation now?   We still have to get up at 7am (or 4:45am, like I had to do with Gryffin last weekend at our annual church retreat – I guess I’m still a little bitter about that one).  We still have to schedule around naps.  Still have to get them in bed by 7pm.    Still have to figure out their breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.   Sometimes it feels like we have just moved our daily operations to a new location and we haven’t been able to rest at all.   We’ve admittedly forfeited money on more than one occasion in order to come home early from a “vacation” which turned out to be anything but.  But we’re getting the hang of it.  Honing our vacation skills.  Here’s our list of must-haves for vacation these days…

  1. No camping for another year or two
  2. A house with a view and a few other amenities (ie hot tub!) so that while the boys sleep, we can actually relax and read in a peaceful setting, rather than sitting in the bathroom of a dark hotel room
  3. Walkability, if possible.  It’s great if we don’t have to jump in the car every day if we want to go explore with the boys
  4. Eating out.  One of the more tedious aspects of daily life is preparing food for little people who won’t always (ok, rarely) eat what you’ve prepared and so you spend the entire meal getting up and down from the table to satisfy their desire for “granola!  yogurt!  cheese!  bananas!”  So we eat out for several meals when we are on vacation, if only to break that cycle of make a meal, clean up a meal, start making another meal…
  5. No work of any kind (duh) so that we can truly let go all those things that stress us out and weigh us down

In a few years I’m sure we’ll be out with our tents and skewers but until then, this is how we roll.   Today is day 1 of the Rust 2011 Portland Vacation and so far, it’s been exactly what we were hoping for.   We’ve lined up all of our must-haves, minus number 3, but we’re on a river (literally) so we aren’t complaining.  The ride down yesterday afternoon could have been a lot worse, the floating house is incredible, the boys slept great last night (score) while we ate out on the deck and watched an episode of Mad Men, and the hot tub is hot. It’s shaping up to be a good week.

Here’s the view from the main room.  And there’s a huge firepit so we can even make some s’mores.

Gryff found this little antique bike and spent the whole morning pushing it around the living room (and attempting to ride it once)…

Isaiah was very busy with his blocks this morning while J made us all pancakes…

We headed into Portland and walked along the waterfront this morning.  That’s J and his mom with Z in the backpack

We stopped to get some coffee and this is how I found the fellas when I returned with my latte.   Isaiah was somehow able to reach the crayons and color a little even though he was still in the backpack.  Kid’s got skills.

Some ponds along the waterfront…

Watching a crane at work on a barge…

Isaiah finally free of the backpack and ready to explore

Things admittedly got a little harried as we grabbed lunch from a couple of the food trucks famous in Portland’s downtown.   

I was in charge of entertaining the boys in the backseat as we headed home for naptime.  Resources were limited but I made do with what I had.  

Gryffin really likes to do things “too-ge-der” these days and I hope that’s what we’ll bask in the most this vacation week.  No rushing here and there, no Jason working, no rushing off to a birth at 3am, no follow up emails with clients, no preparing for our Community Groups, no men’s group, no book club, no figuring out babysitters for a night out… as good and as fulfilling as all those things are.  Just hanging out together, resting together.     For a few days at least.   And on Saturday, about 16 friends (mostly from our community group) are going to descend upon our floating vacation house and spend Labor Day weekend with us.  Some will be racing in a half-marathon on Sunday (J included).  But mostly we’ll just be doing more of the same.    Enjoying long, lingering meals (after the boys are in bed anyway).  Laughing.  Talking.  Resting.  Too-ge-der.