to celebrate MLK Day, we rented a car! makes perfect sense, right? we talked about driving north to see our friends in Washington. but driving with the prospect of winter weather sounded a bit much. so we stayed home. we rented a car and drove around our city and out to a few wild places.

on Friday night we drove over to NE to have dinner with Ben and Jess and Sophia. we shared a lovely meal at a Thai restaurant on Sandy. then drinks back home at their place. then over the bridge and back home to St Johns. being in the car let me notice all sorts of things i must have seen before but never quite registered. like the beautiful light posts lining our bridge. they can even be seen from our deck. or in the bathroom when you’re brushing your teeth.

Saturday morning we were up early and cold. we made a thermos full of coffee, boiled some eggs, bundled up and headed out to Sauvie Island. we drove the length of the island and saw sheep, cows, horses, cormorants, vultures, winter wrens, and geese. then we turned around and parked the car at the Wapato Greenway. we were headed toward a seasonal lake that is home to many birds who spend their winters in Portland. it was cold. freezing rain turned sleet turned snow. we followed a Stellers jay out to the water and back again. judging by how loud he was, i think the weather agreed with him!

on Sunday we went to church. then we watch the football game. our friends from Washington called…they were in town for the Old Time Music Festival…would we like to join them for the tail end of a concert? well, yes we would. we headed to the Mission Theater in NW and found the place packed with happy people, kids, mamas with babies in the sling dancing in the aisles. i saw two other little one ask to nurse. it was amazing to be listening to people sing and play the banjo and stand up bass, for there to be beer to drink if you wanted it, for kids to be so much a part of what was happening. i felt very blessed.

then we went to another friend’s house for burritos and more music. Nicki played her banjo and Kevin played his fiddle. and Mabel danced and played with the puppy named Zion. it was a comfortable, quiet evening in an old Portland house with dark wood floors. Troy came home with us and we made popcorn and talked about his trip to France and art and making a life and god and church and children.

in the morning we went out for breakfast with the big bunch of people and said our cold goodbyes. our family drove out to Kelley Point Park at the very edge of the peninsula. it’s the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia. i love seeing the two waters the mix, where the darker blue of the Columbia laps into the Willamette. the wind blow the clouds away, and the mountain was visible. it was windy up there too–a cloud of snow hung above the summit.

this entry is already too long. and i don’t feel i’ve even begun to tell you what we experienced. how nice it was to get very cold and then rush back to the car to get very warm. how full and expansive our days felt. how refreshed we were after being together in this new place in a new way. it was every thing a vacation ought to be. and it happened over one long weekend, right in the place we call home.

it just amazes me that M gets to have such wonderful people in her life. because there was an empty chair next to Phan when my brother Steven walked into his math class, my daughter gets to learn how to make papaya salad from a wonderful cook. at the end of the video, you can see Phan’s nifty rice cooker that makes sticky rice. yum!

i’ve been holding in my heart a few things i wanted to write about. but it just seems a bit odd to post a story without the pictures. will you be able to see what happened with only my words? some of the most important things that happen in our life don’t have pictures. we’re too busy living the experience to bother with a camera. and that’s as it should be. i reach for the camera when things are quiet otherwise. but sometimes that leaves me wishing i had something to share.

in the middle of December we had visitors. first came the Layton family. good friends who fill up our house with children and conversation and wine. it is such a treat for us to get to share time with those five kids. to tell stories, to hear theirs. i had a stack of books that i thought might interest one or another of them. and then things happen by accident too. Clara found a calligraphy dip pen. so we got out the paints and she practiced writing. that meant we got a few other paintings as well. last night Mabel sat on the floor with all of the painting spread out around her. she looked carefully at each one. i can’t wait to go visit them in the spring. then we get the kids and the wine and i get to eat good food made by Jess too!

Tim came by on his way up North. we shared warm mugs of spiced wine and then walked over to the pub for dinner. we sat at a perfect table where we could be comfortable while Mabel could play and couldn’t get too far. it was the kind of visit that leaves you wanting more. more talk, more time to just be together. i love that we live close enough that he can just pop in. that by itself makes the move worthwhile.

finally Dianne and Jacob visited twice. the two littles play well together. or next to each other. they can spend an evening together with little conflict, little reason for mamas to stop their talk and offer some help. it’s easy to be with these two. comfortable.

our house was full as fall tilted toward winter. and now the afternoons are getting lighter. buds are on the bare trees. we wait in hope.

she drew on a piece of paper by herself. she’s drawn (written? colored? what is it that she’s doing exactly?) in my journal or on other pieces of paper that i’ve given her with pens that i’ve given her.

but today she quietly got paper and a pencil out of the top drawer and drew on them. i found it later when i sat down at the computer while she was napping. she reads by herself. and now she writes too. amazing.

just now when i went to get her after her nap, she was sitting with her brow furrowed. then she pointed to the kitties on her jammies and meowed. as if the cats and all their noise had woke her up. what a silly girl.