getaway

The girls managed to sneak off for a few days to celebrate Miss Christy's birthday.  The weather was cool and cloudy but the fireplace was cozy and the pool was open until midnight and the only item on the agenda was to make one special auntie feel loved.

 Sending us off with a group shot

 Carbo loading at the Otis cafe

 It didn't take mom long to find her happy place

 Hunting for treasure at low tide

 love... 

 times two

classic

 hot tub laugh track while playing truth or dare

Ava: Dare

Mama: Oh I've got a good one.  You have to go potty in the boys bathroom.

Ava:  No! I would get in trouble.

Mama:  No you wouldn't.  It would just be embarrassing.

Ava:  Yeah...they would think I couldn't read.

 sun break selfie

Cutie and the kite

I think I took over fifty pictures of kites.  Oh don't worry there will be a post devoted just to their beautiful colors.  Somewhere between slow fresh food cooking and lounging in the porch swing, random pics have topped my list of summer favorites. 

Here's to birthdays and beach days and awesome sisters!  

*Clink*

Sunday Showcase

It is completely beyond me that we are a whole week into summer vacation already.  Maybe because mama had to wrap up a few loose ends at work and has only officially been off for one day.  Or maybe because it's been generally cloudy and the she beast of all viruses has slowly taken us one victim at a time.  For whatever reason our summer has come upon us like a slow whimper.  Not that we haven't rallied with every sun break, fever break, and work free moment.  I'd say that given all that's been stacked against us we've done pretty well for ourselves.  Deep down we probably all know how lucky we are to have been shaken free from any real demands and woven together, even if it's huddled up coughing under a blanket and cloudy skies.

Stopping for dinner after the Wednesday night farmers market.  I couldn't love this picture any more.

 Catching an ostrich ride on the Oaks Park carousel

 So happy Tia is here!

 Annual berry picking for my serious helper

 Make your own pizza /crazy outfit night?

 I don't know where he saw it but I-bear is obsessed with doing the sprinkler dance...in the bathtub...at the grocery store....out to dinner.  

 I'd like you to meet preacher Ken.  Preacher Ken shows up at mama's bedside whenever she is feeling sick.  His pulpit is always a soap dispenser and his sermon style is a mix of both conservative and pentecostal exhortation.  Sometimes preacher Ken calls us to love our neighbor or be "ba-a-a-a-pti-i-i-ized by the spirit!"  But then again sometimes he calls me to get out of bed and make chocolate chip waffles.  It's a little suspicious.

She has such a weird sense of humor.  I wonder where she could possibly get it from?

5 A Day Challenge - Day 4 (bedridden edition)

Once again our crazy day won't be reflected in this progression of photos but that's probably for the best since we would all like to pretend that's its just been a fantastic four day start to summer vacation.  On the up side, Tia arrived just in time for B to drive me to the ER as I accepted defeat in this latest battle of strep throat.  So with an armful of meds and a more than capable village surrounding me, hopefully I am on the road to recovery.

Ava got her first summer play date request and was beyond herself waiting for Sofia to show up.

Daddy organized a boys vs. girls soccer game and despite reckless cheating by both teams,

and a little trash talking,

the girls managed to pull off the victory goal.

I managed to snap this one with my phone while waiting for the doctor to release me.  Can I just talk for one minute about how Ben's favorite venue is the emergency room?  I don't know what it is but he simply can't help himself.  It all started back in 1997 while we were roller blading around Wheaton (obviously we were the cool kids.)   I careened down (what I remember to be a giant hill but turned out later to be a flat parking lot), and managed to slice open my chin.  Mr. Comedian drove me to the hospital for some stitches and while I was wearing a paper gown and bleeding through some towels Ben was fashioning together a costume of sorts with various disposables he could find in the drawers.  I'm pretty sure I didn't laugh given that I had lock jaw and traumatic injuries but that in no way diminished his efforts.  Since that time we've traveled the ER road for everything from food poisoning to child birth.  And EVERY SINGLE TIME there is a new set of jokes about rectal thermometers and birth control pills and the inevitable moment when the nurse walks in and he's hooked himself up to the blood pressure machine.  I'm telling you it is a bizarre world I live in.  Entertaining but bizarre.

5 A Day Challenge - Day 3 (sunrise edition)

Unfortunately the documentation for today (um yesterday) in no way reflects our actual day.  After an attempt at normalcy for mama (work, library, Costco, etc.) I eventually collapsed into bed with a 103 fever and faced the reality that this round of nasty virus is kicking my butt.  Also, our beloved Sabrina ran away and Ben and I were hoping the kids wouldn't notice until we had a chance to thoroughly search the neighborhood.  Luckily Ben found her in the bushes behind our fence and by the looks on the kids faces (and Ava's profuse crying at the THOUGHT of her being gone) I am so glad we didn't have to have the, your cat is lost, conversation.  In spite of all this I did manage to get a few random takes of the day.

 Oh the joy these two have for each other.

 Ava refuses to let me leave the house without the bracelet she made me since she's convinced it's going to make me feel better.   p.s. it kind of does

 I really should videotape the sheer joy these two express when I tell them we're going to the library.  I mean we go every single week but you would think I was taking them to Disneyland by the epic enthusiasm.

Sadly there isn't a photo of mama in the corner wearing a sweater and a coat pulled over her head while shaking and wondering why the room is spinning.  Next time.

5 A Day Challenge - Day 2

I'm calling bloggers perogative with a 6 photo cheat.  First day of summer vacation for the littles who woke up to rainy skies.  Fortunately it was a box of Froot Loops to the rescue.  

 Do other families have vacation cereals or is it just a weird Hsieh tradition?

 Please m'aam can you spare a few hours for two orphan children?

 "No we don't need to go home and take naps.  We're not tired!"

The upside to a flu/laryngitis outbreak is that I get a front row seat to the Sonny and Cher show.

Tickets are free and include a reading from Charlotte's Web, a booty dance and a fake fart-off.  You know you want in.

5 A Day Challenge- Day 1

Ok, maybe this will get me back in my blogging groove.  Five small slices of the everyday.  Easy enough right?

Today was the last day of 1st grade.  This girl is a firecracker of a reader and worked through many tears to get better at Spanish this year.  I am one super proud mama.

She absolutely loved her teacher Mr. Callero.  Luckily we found out he's moving up to third grade so she might get him in two years.

After picking up Ava from school we had to head over for my students graduation party.  Here's a classic take of one of my pensive kiddos.  

E:  "Teacher Rebekah, did you know that my new nickname is bluebird?"

Me:  "No, who calls you bluebird?"

E:  "nobody"

This gas station smoked chicken is so wrong it's right.

You're right honey.  Those jammies do fit you perfectly.

deep wells and watersheds

I'm not sure if it's by perception or reality but my days have always seemed defined by extremes.  As soon as a chapter is decided I am flooded by seemingly two alternatives:  freedom or constraint.  None of that was clearer than when I went back into the classroom.  Before the ink was dry on the contract my air seized up.  Adding to that my decision to pursue a rigorous teaching license and freedom was a thing of the past.  My tribe definitely rallied this year as mama's hours and energies were spent away on other mama's children who needed me more.  Out of the last hundred nights, less than ten were spent on the familiar corner of the couch my best friend and a pint of ice cream.  Some days love was a tired hug while loading the dishwasher.  I spent Sunday mornings singing through songs of hope and grace with blurred eyes. 

 I wish I could see the gray area in these seasons of life.  Do I have to re-frame my expectations every day?  Apparently yes.  I am just going to admit that I will never figure it out.  That there will always be sacrifice and joy and forgiveness and small acts of obedience followed by deep rebellion.  This is my life every day.  Reminding myself that worship is a task of surrender.  It is so tempting to hang all of my hopes onto long summer days but I don't want to be the girl who's joy is wrapped up in circumstances, even if they are laced in nap swings on a Tuesday afternoon and white sand beaches.  I want to receive the grace to be present in the messiness of angry kids crying in my lap and parents who are out of answers.  I want to be ok in the broken and not long for the easy way out.  

So I will breathe His name deeply each morning as I drive in and I will ask Him to do the work I feel so ill equipped to do.  I will continue to comb these days for beauty and strain for joy in the chaos.