Five Years

 Emily and I just shake our heads in wonderment at how five years have passed and how we've managed to carry on without our fearless leader.  It's hard to lose someone, but to lose the very one who held it all together and kept us going, like Mike did, is devastating.

Emily struggles so hard without her dad and now seeing me get older.  She panics at the thought of the times she wasn't there for him or the missed opportunities and doesn't want to make the same mistake with me.  Although it's not a mistake.  I can't imagine a life much busier than theirs, and she and Ryan are dedicated to making the girls' childhoods happy, so I'm the one feeling guilty that she's trying to fit me in.

I love spending time with them at their house but just not long periods.  We laugh about it, but the girls are so full of energy and excitement and voices and giggles and running that seem to be exacerbated with the excitement of having Mimi over to visit that I start feeling like I'm causing a scene.  Emily says it's always like that.

I love it that they can and usually do find their own entertainment upstairs finally, but yesterday they were obsessed with asking Google to set timers for them.

After the pizza timer, they tried many other combinations.  The funniest ones were when Google misunderstood, like hearing lunacorn for unicorn.  Fits of giggles!

Miss Luna herself was giving a little hint that being an outdoor cat is not as much fun in the cool weather as it has been this summer.

The first thing I noticed when I got to Steller was the smell of lovely candles and the sight of the September 12th memorial set up.  PopPop will certainly be remembered as long as Emily has anything to do with it.

This is a beautiful collage, even including boiled peanuts and the NYT crossword.

It breaks our hearts that Katherine doesn't have any real memory of him and Graysen very few.  They can see the love in these few pictures though.

There were boiled peanuts to eat (although the "spicy ones"), and Emily was freezing her extra supply of tomatoes from the garden.  She took time to feed me though.  Ryan was working in Issaquah, so she made me a tomato sandwich with her basil mayonnaise and vegan potato salad.  It's lovely being catered to.  

The girls had picked blackberries from various places Friday and made a delicious blackberry cobbler - also vegan.   I was lucky enough to get a serving to take home.  Yum.

One of my reasons for going over was to get some repairs done.  I could have done some of them, but Emily was really wanting to get her little machine out and see if she could still work it and try to learn a little bit more.

We had two successful projects and two we gave up on.  She had gotten a couple of swimsuit coverups for the Hawaii trip that had been way too big.  She was hoping to take out some of the fullness and wear them around the house without feeling like a parade float.

She pretty much did the first one herself after I showed her how to do a basting stitch, and we were pleased with that.  And then I sewed some straps back on a nightgown that is much older than the children.  The one she wanted to work just didn't.  The fabric puckered and wouldn't cooperate, so she decided to just send it back.  Ditto for a black knit dress that was too long.  I told her that I was past the point of thinking I was going to get any better at my sewing skills, and I just didn't have any luck with knits, especially a hem that would be so visible.  Once, I thought there was nothing that I couldn't conquer with a little time and practice, but I've learned better!

I got this picture later.

A little late-night journaling.

Just like Mimi.

We're going to go to Mike's Tree after school, like we always try to do around the 12th.  It will be cool, so we'll wear sweaters, and I'll take my quilt.  There won't be any wading in the Snoqualmie River today.  Probably.  You never know.

We did make it to the Tree yesterday, so I'll come back and post some pictures here.

We picked the girls up at school at 1:00 and drove to North Bend.

We thought it was going to be cool so packed a few sweaters and jackets, but it turned out to be the prettiest day.

Graysen was worried that there would be someone else at our tree, but on a Monday afternoon, there were only two other cars in the parking lot, probably hikers, because we never saw anyone.  Later on, we saw a couple of horseback riders, a girl walking a dog, and some people down by the river enjoying the sunshine.  We did see a bald eagle circling above us, but we didn't take pictures.

We got our chairs set up, and the girls went right to work making a nest on the ground to help the mama birds out with feeding their babies.  They take such care to include everything they might need.  I did a video, but the wind was so strong I'm not sure it's clear enough to understand.  They have various rooms, even a "beak room" with snowberries (because they smell minty like toothpaste, to take care of their beaks.

We're still not quite sure what kind of tree this is.  Maybe some type of apple, but Google never identified it well enough to satisfy us as to whether the fruit was poisonous or not.

It's amazing that the girls could entertain themselves for a couple of hours while we sat and talked and reminisced and soaked up that sunshine.  Twigs, berries, dried grass "parcels" and lots of imagination.  I could easily have fallen asleep, and I know Mike would absolutely love seeing that little scene.  Maybe he did.  I wish I knew.