Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride

(Sorry guys.  Let's try this again....)

Yo!  I took the time to learn a new skill and I made a 4 minute video!  AND I uploaded it to my blog!  ("Skill" might be the wrong term here.  E-mail subscribers, if the video doesn't show up, you may have to click on the title of this post and be directed to my blog, which will have the video.)  

Image quality is pretty crappy (I kept it small), so I'll post some stills at a later date, as well as some outtakes and bloopers from the land of aloha.  

The pictures flip through pretty quickly so be ready....and turn your volume up because the music is everything......... 

just a glimpse

So...most of you know we spent a couple of glorious weeks in Maui; our first (real? true? expensive?) family vacation.  A vacation without any real purpose other than to just be.  I've been s l o w l y sifting through photos.  Tonight I came across this candid moment, in a botanical garden, in a little thatched shelter, in a rattan chair.  (I do believe we were pretending to be Jungle King, Queen and Princesses.)

A little Hawaiian love on the blog tonight:

balance and peace

^Post-Christmas Elk Refuge sleigh ride (see below). ^ 

I wrote this a few days ago, and hadn't found the time and space to complete it and tack on some photos.  The last few months have been a whirl of new experiences, new interests, less time, and re-prioritizing.  Right now, I have a tasty cup of Aero-press coffee at my side, my man has the day off and both kids are sick--although you wouldn't know it based on energy levels (I'm attributing that to the Thieves oil I put on their feet last night).  

Even though I turned 39 less than two months ago, I can feel the weight of what this year, 2015, brings: my 40th year on this planet.  And with that comes a strong urge to get my shit together.  To find the balance of health, wealth, organization, creativity, vitality and life, and to do it with my monkeys at my side.

  ^Mid December: Mom and daughter Nutcracker date.  I don't know what's up with the basket.^

^Local dancers plus the very same ballet company I grew up with: the Eugene Ballet Company came to our little corner of Wyoming!  I was SO happy to have *this* as my kids' first Nutcracker experience.^

::  ::  ::

I've been noticing what little evidence is left that we once had babies in our home.  Crib, changing table, potty chair...it's all gone.  Cloth diapers have been relegated to the rag pile (too scrappy to pass on).  What little remains of babyhood is all boxed up in the attic, waiting to be passed on in 30 years to some future grandkid, or made into a memory quilt.  We have a 3 year old and a 5 year old now.  Two ferociously strong personalities circle our home.

Yesterday both kids were crawling under the Christmas tree, wagging their tails high in the air.  Bare, little feet stuck out--those soft, pink, padded toes.  I wanted to lock that moment in my brain, to remember this, always.

I have been tucking notes away on Hazel for the last year and a half.  All her little quirks, come and gone and on to the next.  (I have a long overdue letter to Hazel coming very, very soon.)

2014 was the first year I didn't have a kid sharing my bed.  Looking back, so much of my focus was trying to get my own projects done; to do some things for ME after four years of dedicating my life to these small humans.  I did that, but in my wake I left behind a frantic, disorganized mess.

I have dedicated 2015 to swinging the pendulum back to center.  When I stumbled into 2015, clutching a steaming cup of coffee, friends strewn about the house, we asked each other our resolutions and this was mine: This year, I want to find balance and peace.  There are lots of fineries and nuances wrapped into those two words, but for now, that will do.

::  ::  ::

^A few days after the Nutcracker, our own little dancer took the stage.^

^How much actual dancing she did is debatable, but her favorite part: "Being on stage!" and the cookies afterwards.^  

I like my holidays to be of the slow, dough-kneeding variety.  This year, we were far from it.  It was hectic, busy, too fast, not enough.  (As of today, I still have a stack of "New Year's" holiday cards to mail.)  It was December 15th by the time I got our advent calendar on the wall.  I read somewhere that you should take all your holiday traditions and activities and drop them.  ALL of them.  Then, slowly add the ones that have the most meaning for your family and skip the rest.  To some degree we did that (we had to), but I could do some more cutting and pasting.

We have been so lucky in that family has come to us for Christmas since we've lived in this house.  This year was no exception with my in-laws here for Christmas followed immediately by my husband's brother's family and out-of-town friends for New Year's.  For you: a shotgun photo montage of our holiday:      

:: We adopted a dog from the shelter.  She is 4 1/2 and was found running along the highway with badly infected puncture wounds in her rear end.  Turns out, the other dog in her home was attacking her; the owners relinquished her to the shelter.  They patched her up and we took her home.  Her name is Ladybug (original name was Lady).  She is a super sweetheart; she doesn't bat an eye at the kids' crazy antics.  She is mellow in the house, but is tightly wound with energy the second she gets outside.  She is loyal to us, but will bolt if off-leash.  We have some obedience training to do, but she is a little lover.

:: Christmas Eve: setting out carrots and lettuce for the reindeer and cookies for Santa (they were a little protective about Santa's goodies).

:: Christmas morning with Nana.

:: Elk Refuge sleigh ride with Nana and Papaw.

:: Sometimes I struggle to figure out what Juniper really loves.  It's a question that doesn't have a simple, one-word answer like "skiing" or "trucks" or "dolls" or "biking".  But since she has been old enough to do it, she's been putting on shows.  It used to be "pet shows" with stuffties, but has progressed to shows with smaller characters like matchbox cars and Playmobil.  Animals, still, are the center of the show with humans, occasionally, having a supporting roll (usually as a "butcher").  Here: she was tickled pink to have a captive audience.  

Playmobil show--holy heck she loves Playmobil; this animal-fairy set was a Christmas gift from Hazel:

The performance.  I told Juniper she is a playwright and director.  

Another show:

:: As for Hazel, she could have received nothing for Christmas but a bag of those egg-shaped lip balms.  She loves on them constantly, until they're gone.  A typical scene around these parts: Juniper putting on a show, Hazel applying lip balm:

:: Minus 2 degrees on the sled hill, Hazel and my man.

With my husband's brother, his wife and the cousins too.    

:: New Year's Eve.  Sushi, hard cider, campfire, sparklers, fireworks, friends and family.  Love!

^Our good friend T and Aunt D watching fireworks.^

^Hazel burned her mittens while I was taking this photo.  Oh, the sacrifices of getting a good shot.^  

That's all folks!  I'll see you here again, hopefully before another 2 months pass us by....

July Camping: Green River Lakes {a personal history}

I know you know we have a history with this place, Green River Lakes, Wyoming.  We were married there.  You knew that.  But also, we met there; in the Upper Green.  Fourteen years ago my man lived in a 1950's airstream trailer nicknamed "The Silver Bullet."  It was employee housing, parked on the Green.  He was a fisheries biologist.  I was a wilderness ranger.  It was a hot, dry summer and the west was on fire.  We fought forest fires together and as they say, the rest is history.

But there are so many more fingers to this story, all cradled in the palm of the Upper Green River.  Before I had even met my future husband, I was partnered with his brother's new bride to patrol the backcountry of Green River Lakes.  We hauled a pulaski and cross-cut saw on our ten-day packs, cut huge logs out of the trail and didn't see another soul for days.  We were wet, tired and driven.  By the end, my cheap government-issued jeans were held together with duct tape.

And then, a year or so later, my man and I found ourselves working together on the Green.  We were snowmobile patrol rangers.  We spent an entire winter in this drainage communicating largely by hand signals.  I have a pair of earrings made from the ivories we pulled off a wolf-killed elk that winter.  Off-duty, we lived together in a tiny attic apartment in a tiny town.  We married the following summer.

But even before that--long, long, long before that--my step-dad's parents owned a small cabin on the Green, just before you get to the Forest Service boundary.  They had sold it long ago, but my step-dad (a born and raised Wyomingite) always wanted to come back.  So when I was just a kid he traded a sculpture (he was an artist) and a little cash for some land about an hour away from that cabin on the Green.  Slowly, he scraped together a cabin of his own.  And slowly, he made it bigger.  He spent his teacher's summers at that cabin.  Off and on, one or another of his kids would live there and work or ski or marry and move on.  I moved there after graduating from college.  I stayed in that rustic, remote cabin for three years, until I met my future husband.  So I suppose you could say that if a long ago couple from Cheyenne, Wyoming had never owned a little Cabin on the Green, my husband and I would never have met.  Such is the fate of the world.  Such is the binding ties of a place.      

::  ::  ::

We hadn't been back since I was pregnant with Hazel.  My mom and her dog came for a July visit, and so we went camping.  We stayed in the campground, paddled our canoe across the lake, hiked and fished and paddled back.  We roasted corn over the fire and my mom made "hobo packs" (veggies and meat in tinfoil and cooked in the fire)--something she'd remembered eating over campfires long ago.  We found out mosquitoes love Hazel and she reacts strongly to them.  We had three days, two nights.  On our way home, we stopped at another, smaller lake along the Green River.  Paddled more, fished more.  

I am no poet, but I'd started a quick just-before-my-head-hits-the-pillow list of our camp experiences one night in the tent, and it turned into a silly, rhyming poem, which I'll share with you:

::  ::  ::                          

Sunscreen sticky,
sandy toes

Dirt-crusted sweat,
marshmallows

Paddling and
wooden oars

Blistered palms,
campfire s'mores

Quiet lake
smooth and still

Waterfalls roar
on a hill

Smokey fire,
burning eyes

Mosquitoes bring
a small demise

Fishing a high,
unspooled stream

My mother sits
in a dream

Restful (more sunscreen!)

Peaceful (more bug-spray!)

Wakeful (Hazel has to pee!)

Meditation.

These lakes.

This stream.

Life's dream.

::  ::  ::

By the way, a few days after we returned home, I found out Wyoming's Governor is currently taking public comment for two proposed dams on the Upper Green River.  I understand that water is precious, but damming this wild river, in this wild place, is abhorrent.  Click here to send a quick comment (takes 60 seconds).  Comments close Monday August 4th.  Pass it on.    

::  ::  ::  

And a few more outtakes for the hell of it.  Mentally, put this to the tune of "Let it Go," which is pretty much what Juniper and Hazel were singing (yelling?) every single time they stomped and splashed and tumbled along the lakeshore.  I love their go-juice.  Their "This is the Best Day EVER!" vibe.  It's contagious.  

^I also love Hazel's broken-arm toddler run.^  

^Grandma running!^

I know, we need a dog...  

Let it go.