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Mother’s Day

My first memory in life is of my maternal grandmother on Mother’s Day, shortly before she had a heart attack. I was four years old. It’s a sobering memory. The details are well worn in my mind. This time of year, I think quite often of my own mother and of my five aunts, almost all of whom are mothers themselves. I think of what Mother’s Day means to them. Their mother died the next day.

As a daughter and one of the only nieces in my family, I’ve always had great respect for what my mom and her sisters must have gone through, losing their mom at Mother’s Day. They were all in their early 30′s or younger. My mom would have been 26 years old. Now, as a mother, that respect has deepened. Over time, the meaning of Mother’s Day has changed for me, too.

This year, I gave myself over to the blessings in my life. I spent the day with my guys. The sun came out after weeks of rain. We had a beautiful visitor in our backyard. We took our annual Mother’s Day hike. I had a conversation with my own mother that I won’t soon forget. And as I planted flowers in the garden, I realized that even though my first memory (and only memory of my grandmother) is sad, I’m blessed to have that one memory of her and the legacy she has left in my life.

Below are some photos of my memorable Mother’s Day (click to enlarge). To all my mom friends out there, I hope you found blessings in your day too.

 

 

 

A Year in the Life of a Wolf (Scout)

This weekend, we watched Garrett remove the gold neckerchief he’s been wearing with his Scout uniform for the last year, cross a bridge lined with torches in the twilight of an April evening, and receive the pale blue neckerchief of a Bear Cub Scout. This is a special ceremony called “Bridging” which takes place every spring and honors the work and effort each scout puts into earning a new rank in the Cub Scout program. Last year, I missed his Tiger to Wolf Bridge. This year, Dave and I both proudly witnessed Garrett’s advancement, as well as about 40 other boys in Juneau’s Pack 6 Cub Scout program.

Scouting has become a family affair for us. Dave is assistant Den leader for Garrett’s Den, and I am the Pack secretary. Pack 6 is comprised of a remarkable group of parents and adult volunteers. We have a lot of boys in our Pack, so the phrase, “it takes a village” comes to mind quite often. The scouting calendar runs from early fall through late spring, with a couple of events during the summer. Below are picture highlights of Garrett’s year as a Wolf Scout. Enjoy!

 

 

Off the Groom

For the first time this winter season, Garrett and Dave went downhill skiing last Saturday. It was one of those picture perfect days, and the guys returned from the mountain happy and exhausted.

Dave: We went into the West Bowl today.

Me: Great! (I can barely stand up cross country skiing, so this meant nothing to me).

Dave, lightly: You know, off the groom.

Me: Wait a minute, you took our son back-country skiing today??!!

Dave, not looking me in the eye: I wouldn’t call it back-country skiing.

Me: Just how do you define “off the groom??”

With his back to me, he chuckled. “Check out the pictures we got,” he replied. He knows how to distract me with shiny, pretty things.

It’s not like they went where no man has gone before. But when I heard him sharing details of their traverse across the West Bowl with a friend, I had to plug my ears and sing “La la la!” I have to remind myself that they had a great time and no one got hurt. A friend made a really good point today – at least Garrett went with his dad, who was able to show him how to do something like this safely. “Won’t be long now before he’s up there by himself, trying this stuff,” she warned. So very, very true. And they did get some mighty great pictures!

 

Saturday Creek Cabin

Last year, Dave and I rented remote cabins in Juneau to celebrate our birthdays. Garrett wanted in on that action, so we rented the Saturday Creek Cabin for an overnight this week to celebrate his 8th birthday.

Saturday Creek Cabin is a fairly new public use cabin located at Eagle Beach State Recreation Area about 15 miles from our home. You can drive to this cabin, which is perfect for a birthday in February. The cabin has a main floor area with a large table, a “kitchen” cabinet and sleeping platform along the back wall that easily sleeps four. There’s a beautiful upper loft that easily sleeps 6-8. The cabin is fueled by an oil stove, which gave Dave a little bit of trouble, but once fired up kept us toasty warm and dry.

The cabin sits right on the banks of Saturday Creek, which separates Eagle Beach from the Boy Scout Beach trail. We got there at high tide, which pushed the river up very high and proved to be entertaining. The river was filled with big ice chunks, river otters and seals. Garrett declared us “adventurers!” and we spent most of the daylight hours playing along the river.

The biggest adventure we had was dinner. Dave made homemade tortilla soup at the house, and after warming it for dinner at the cabin, accidentally spilled the entire pot of soup. The dogs enjoyed it and were an immense help in cleaning up (it wasn’t as if I had packed the truck with cleaning supplies). Thankfully, the soup was a last minute add-on to the main meal, and we had enough food for the evening.

While we humans had a lot of fun, I think that our old girls really enjoyed our little outing. Cedar and Autumn are both 11+ now, and cannot hike to the remote cabins with us any longer. This was a grand adventure for them, and they nap contentedly at my feet as I put together this summary. Dave, on the other hand, is making another batch of homemade tortilla soup!

 

Eight is GR8T!

Today, 2/19/12, was Garrett’s 8th birthday. Eight! How did that happen? He seems so old, but really he’s still a little boy. But there’s nothing little about him. At this rate, he’ll be as tall as me by the time he’s 12. No matter how old or tall, he’ll always be our baby. Below are some pictures from the last couple of days of celebration. Enjoy!

What??? It’s still winter!

Taking a vacation in the heart of winter is such a blessing. But returning to the cold, dark, snow is a bit of a shock to the system. Especially when there are still several months of winter left. Note to self: vacation in late February/early March next time.

We’ve gotten about two feet (or more) of snow in the last week. This after a wicked cold snap of temperatures at 25 below zero with wind chill. I’m not complaining  – we could be Valdez or Cordova – two Alaskan communities struggling with record breaking, life threatening snow fall this winter. Check out some pictures from Cordova at this link: http://www.adn.com/2012/01/09/2254598/reader-photos-cordova-snow.html#id=2258123&view=large_view

And check out some of our pictures from recent outdoor adventures, back at home.

Vacation-isms

Garrett and I worked together to keep a travel journal this past vacation to San Diego. Almost every day I had him write a few sentences about what we did and what he thought. I added a note here and there, and we rounded it out with drawings, postcards and pictures. In the back, I kept a separate log of some of his funnier moments. And here they are.

Everyone we saw had some sort of comment about how Garrett looked like Dave and/or I. He heard a lot about his height. One evening during dinner, he leaned over to me and said, “Mom, I have Dad’s legs. What do I have of you?” Feeling a little sassy, I replied, “My sparkling personality.” He slowly sat back, looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Right. Of course.”

We visited friends, and Garrett got to play with an 8 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. The kids threw on their swimsuits and jumped into the hot tub to play. When they got out, they wandered into the house soaking wet, needing to dry off and change. We mothers trailed behind the kids, and as they got to the bedrooms, my friend directed her kids into one room and Garrett into another, saying to Garrett, “Why don’t you have to go into that room to change so you don’t have to see any of my kids bits and pieces.” She said it off-handedly, and I didn’t even really pay much attention until Garrett said to me, “I’ve already seen her bits and pieces,” referring to the 8 year old girl. “How’s that?” I asked, as lightly as I could. “Have you been in her room, Mom?” Garrett asked. “She’s got a TON of stuff.”

While visiting Dave’s mom’s house, Garrett, Dave and I all shared one room. Garrett had a blow-up bed on the floor next to our bed – next to the side that Dave slept on. For the first time ever, Garrett had a hard time adjusting to a new place. He was so anxious that he woke me up twice in the middle of the night that first night, walking around the bed in the dark bedroom to stand above me and wake me up. On the second night, he asked me to change sides of the bed so he didn’t have to walk so far if he woke up. “Wake up your Dad – he’s right there!” was my response. Garrett’s comeback: “But Dad doesn’t know everything like you do.”

And finally, Garrett thoroughly enjoyed the fact that his Grandma has cable television, and because we were on vacation, we let him watch a lot more TV than we normally do. As we drove to the airport on the day we were scheduled to fly home, June sighed and said, “Oh, the house is going to be so quiet without you all.” Garrett piped up from the backseat. “Grandma, just turn on Cartoon Network. That will help.”

 

 

The Very Best of San Diego

We Klein’s recently returned from nine wonderful days in San Diego. I’m not a big fan of traveling during the holidays, but we took advantage of holiday closures from work and school and got the heck out of dodge after Christmas. We missed our pets and friends (but not the weather) while we were away from Juneau. But the vacation was long overdue and pretty darn terrific.

The great part about traveling during the holidays is that other people are too. We were so fortunate that our visit to San Diego overlapped with some far-flung friends and family. Dave’s brother Mike came down from San Francisco, and we all stayed with my mother-in-law, June. Dave’s childhood friend, Steve, his wife Julie Ann, and their two children, Nate (10) and Jenna (8) overlapped one day with us, and we enjoyed a fantastic evening together. Dave’s aunt Jeannette and her friend Chuck were visiting from Arizona, and Dave’s cousin Teresa hosted a wonderful family reunion brunch, spanning four generations! And after 9 long years we reconnected with the Thornton family. Dave and Daryl have been friends since high school. The last time our two families got together it was just the four of us – pre-kids! We were so happy to meet their three amazing children, Miya (7), Olivia (5) and John (3). Of course, we spent lots of time visiting Great Grandma Helen. She lives with Dave’s Uncle Dean and Dean’s wife, Sue. We were blessed to have so much quality time with family and friends.

You all know the saying, “when in Rome….” While in San Diego, we took advantage of so many things that the city and surrounding areas offer. Garrett got to see his first IMAX film after exploring some of Balboa Park. We got a little shopping in. Along with thousands of others, we rang in the New Year in Legoland. We went to the beach twice, witnessing “big surf” days with 15-18 foot swells. We visited SeaWorld for the first time. And Dave and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary a little early, enjoying a walking wine tasting tour in La Jolla.

We asked Garrett what his favorite parts of the trip were and without hesitation, he said, “everything!” We teased him that he was taking the easy way out of answering, but when he turned the question on us, we couldn’t pull out favorites either. Because everything was a favorite! Overall, it was a solid, excellent family vacation.

I’ve decided that I like starting the new year with a vacation. I think we may have found a new Klein family tradition? Reality set in with the 6 am alarm clock this morning. Dave said he spent his first day at work peeking at our trip pictures. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Click here for more pictures of the trip.

Happy New Year! I hope 2012 is filled with special memories for you as well.

Holiday Happiness

Ah, the big day has come and gone. No more countdowns. No more anticipation. We were blessed again this Christmas with entirely too many gifts, an abundance of good food and drink, and valued quality time with friends and family (by phone). All in all, it’s been a happy time at our house, and I hope you can say the same for yours. Below is a smattering of pictures from the last couple of weeks of holiday happiness.

Garrett-isms

Garrett has been full of little quips and quirks lately. They’ve tickled my funny bone enough to jot them down in his journal, and I thought I would share them here.

One night at dinner, Garrett was telling us how is friend “M” told him that he couldn’t add 2 + 3. We know “M” well enough to know he can add to 5, and Dave said as much. Garrett laughed and said, “yep, I knew he was  just tugging at my arm.”

After a couple of weeks of rain at the beginning of the month, we were all getting a little grouchy with each other. On a Saturday morning I declared that, regardless of the weather, we would take a walk on the beach together that afternoon. Lucky for us, the sun dropped down below the clouds! Our spirits lifted as we walked, hand-in-hand, along the beach, searching for treasures. We got about half way down the beach and Garrett said he was ready to go back to the truck. “Just a little farther,” I urged, pointing to spot up ahead. “We can turn around at that tree.” We got to the tree and Garrett wanted to keep going. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Just a second ago you were whining that you were tired and ready to go back to the truck.” With a sigh he said, “Mom, you should know by now that I change my mind every 3-4 minutes.”

Dave and Garrett were running errands in the car. A story came on NPR that caught Dave’s attention – a book review of a new book about military and government officials who had first hand encounters with UFOs. At some point in the story, it caught Garrett’s attention too, but he didn’t quite catch the context. “Dad,” Garrett piped up from the back seat (evidently with some concern in his voice), “are aliens attacking the earth?”

Like many of you, we’ve been busy this month with lots of holiday festivities. I didn’t realize just how busy we were until Garrett said to me, “Mom, are you free to do something with me tonight?”

And finally, the other night we attended a play at our local theater. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” was getting rave reviews and we were excited to go. The play started at 7:30 pm and wrapped up around 10 pm. As we drove home, Garrett started to doze in the back seat. We got to the house and he started to fake cry when we told him he had to get out of the car, get himself into the house, teeth brushed and into bed. “I can’t do it! I’m too tired,” was his response. “C’mon! You can do this,” I encouraged. “I’m tired too, and I’m so much older than you are.” Trudging ahead of me into the house, Garrett turned and said over his shoulder, “Yes, but you’re so much tougher than me.”

Keep in touch. Email me at lori@alaskafamily.net.

 

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