weekend recap, august 26 edition

1. three boys | 2. dolphin display | 3. pink shandy | 4. my one and only | 5. summer skies and seas | 6. summer fare | 7. (not pictured: pineapple upside down cake) | 8. The Standard Four | 9. Where I live | 10. Sunday breakfast | 11. Play ball | 12. Boy of summer | 13. Bay day | 14. Paddle ball | 15. Summer's End

Isn't it funny that the house in Moonrise Kingdom is called "Summer's End." Farewell summer. We did our best to make every moment count. At times we were really, really successful. At times, well. It's hard to face going back to school. Several years ago when I worked at the school Callum attended, we'd get a letter laying out the schedule for faculty meetings for the week that led up to the start of school. One year I opened up that letter and stood in my dining room and cried (We have determined by now that I'm a weeper, haven't we?).  

What I'm trying to say is that transitions are hard on everyone. And saying good-bye to the carefree lazy days of summer is especially hard. Even if you're excited. Even if it's time. Especially if it's time.

Two worlds colliding. 

So on Friday we grabbed two of Callum's buds and headed to the beach. It was a gorgeous day. The ocean was lake-like, which meant little boogie boarding, but there was much football throwing and general messing around. We're so lucky where we live to be on the migration route of the Atlantic Bottlenose dolphin and they swim to just about the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to gestate and have their babies every year. It's rare that we go to the beach and not see some swimming. More often than not we see dozens and they swim quite close to shore. Friday was no exception. I tried again and again to capture them with my camera phone, but no luck. Until the very end of the day when a quite active pod swam not 20 yards from where the boys were swimming. Still not the best shots, but oh! I could watch them forever.

Our movie night was rained out, but that gave Cal more time to hang with his friends. I tried a new drink (#3) and and here's the yucky thing that happened on Saturday. When I went to our car to make a quick grocery store run, I found it unlocked and napkins strewn about the front seat. Suspicious. I had Neel come and look and all our detritus was still intact (including the sand and half a spilled bag of Doritos from yesterday's beach trip). All our parking meter change was missing. Guys, my camera was sitting on the floor of the passenger seat. I'd had a migraine on Friday and was in a bit of a fog when we got home, (plus we'd thought we were going out again) so we think I forgot to lock the car. Neel slept restlessly that night and thought he heard the dogs fussing, and we think they scared whoever it was off. Good doggies.

And still. I feel equal parts sick at what happened and mad at myself. Not a great start to our weekend. 

So we went back to the beach. Strong winds coming from the north made for super choppy seas and a strong current. Totally different from our lake-like Friday. I love the many moods the ocean gives us. And the twizzlers? That's a beach bag staple for us from way back. Way, way back. I can't even tell you how long we've been putting a ginormous bag of twizzlers in our bag to take to the beach. Callum and I finished off the bag on Saturday. How fitting is that?

Neel and I snuck out to hear some friends of his who are in a jazz quartet Saturday night, which was lovely. These are the things we should do more of, I think. My kind of music. Music I grew up to.

Sunday was Callum day. Maple bacon waffles. (Hello!) Hitting some balls, and a trip to the bay for some more water time. The beaches at the ocean front were closed because the surf and the currents were even rougher, if you can believe it.  

Ever since Christine said she needed to get out a map to see the lay of the land of where we live, I've been meaning to pop one on here so you all could have an idea. If you travel due north from the red pin on that map, you're in the heart of the Chesapeake Bay and due east is the Atlantic. So, as you see, we truly surrounded by water. When we took the ferry last weekend, we crossed the river from north to south, almost exactly at the red pin. (maybe just a bit west). That's part of the Elizabeth River, which travels west and north from the pin toward the Chesapeake. When we go to the oceanfront (which Callum prefers, because: waves) we go slightly north of the "V" in Virginia (the photo cuts off Beach in in the words Virginia Beach), away from the resort area to a quiet residential community. When we go to the Bay (which I like, although I dearly love the Atlantic), we go near to where that blue dot on the map is. Neel prefers neither. Both are equally lovely in their own right, and we're lucky to live near such natural beauty in these great bodies of water coupled with the tidal rivers and marshes.

I try to remind myself of that every day.  

five things, august 23 edition

1. I think I can't thank you enough for all of your kind words and comments on yesterday's post. I have been beat down this summer, no lie. Some of it is situational, and some of it lies within my heart. And these are simply the things we have to work out for ourselves, I suppose. And I did want to clarify that it's not really fall and winter that I dread. I love fall, and I could easily crawl into Erin's Swedish winter. It's not the season change, exactly. It's here, right now, these present weeks with school starting and Callum's birthday looming and Neel's schedule at it's crazy peak. This right now is the time of year that asks the most of me, and I feel like I'm not going into it with my A-Game. And yet I can only go into it with hope that the changing of the seasons will bring me a fresh start and a new perspective.

2. I think  Neel and Callum had an absolutely amazing time on their little getaway at the beginning of the week this week. Shot up to Philly for a quick trip to a Phillies game (and Praise Jesus, they won! It was the first time Cal got to see his beloved team win, and one of the game attendants told my guys it was the best game she'd seen all year) and on the way home they took a detour for a four-hour canoe trip down Neel's beloved Brandywine river. Neel's determined to make a master paddler of Callum yet, and Callum seems just as determined to become one. They floated in crystal clear water, saw snowy egrets, herons and even a bald eagle. All that and home before 9PM. Not too shabby.

3. I think  this article is one of the most powerful things I've read in awhile. David Roberts, energy and environment writer for grist.org, is taking a year off. From everything. Twitter, email, news, phone, computer. Everything. He's going dark. I'm impressed. Not as much with the type of change he's making, although I could certainly stand to curb my online life, but with the simple fact that he's making sweeping changes at all. If you could make a sweeping big change in your life, what would it be?

4. I think  I'm having fun pushing myself photographically this summer. I'm so sorry, Erin, but a post about the Lensbaby is surely in the works! I'm a totally digging that lens. My Thursday Morning Photo Group has been working on a scavenger hunt that has really had me thinking creatively, and that's been both challenging and fun. I wrote a few weeks ago about David DuChemin's Photographically Speaking, and in it he talks about shooting during "the blue hour." This is the time of day between sunset (which is coming earlier and earlier these days) and full darkness. During the Blue Hour long exposures give the sky more color than the naked eye would see. Long exposure, plus motion plus Lensbaby was a tricky combo to play with by our river Wednesday night, but I had fun.

5. I think  we'll do our best to make every moment count this weekend. Callum was actually pretty okay about school starting on Monday until we had dinner with friends on Wednesday and that boy was all "boo hoo, school's starting, I hate school." Only then did Cal start the "three and 1/4 days left..." bit. {wink}

We bought all his books (and a $110 calculator, which, so help me God if he loses....), and he found his locker. Good settling in stuff. A Separate Peace. Much Ado About Nothing. The Odyssey. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I always get excited about what they're going to read. But school is not until Monday, and until then, Cal's having a sleepover, and tonight is Movie Night at The Hermitage. We'll try to squeeze the beach in somewhere, and I'm sure there will be lots of lazing about going on. That's what summer is all about, after all.