They Blinded us with Science!

I'd been watching for the dates of this year's Virginia Science Festival, the memory of last year's fun still being vivid in my mind, and Miles growing in enthusiasm for all things science almost by the week. 

We in the New River Valley are currently in the middle of a monsoon, apparently. It's been raining for about 4-5 days now and shows no sign of stopping until next Monday! Flash flood warnings have begun today, as have school and dance class closures. The state university, as usual, acknowledges that there is weather, but not that it could have any impact upon anyone belonging to it, so my work continues. 

But fortunately, on Saturday, Virginia Tech's library stepped up to host the half of the Science Festival that usually occurs outside. It was a brilliant, educational, inspiring day of indoor science!

Miles probably spent 25 minutes engineering with hydrolics and Popsicle sticks. Adele and I made the rounds. She's able to take in so much more than last year!

Some dry ice chemistry demonstrations 

One of my students is taking Chemistry this semester (MWF 8am, yyyyesss), so I was able to impress myself by identifying some of the reactions at one chemistry table. "That's ionized! That's a precipitate!" I wanted a sticker, but just got a smile and a nod. This university is making me wish I'd been more inspired by my science teachers in high school, and that I'd believed in myself a bit more. Still, I am grateful that Dr. Bradstreet get me into the science world through the astronomy and physics window. Better late than never!

Hokies get cool library chairs.

Here, Miles engineers a weight-bearing structure. 

It's a "bed," capable of bearing the weight of 3 boxes of toothpicks!

Adele might have been eating too many of the gumdrops, and they might have given her a lollypop to get her to stop. Maybe. Hard to say.

Both kids made helium "hot air" balloons:

Adele spent a long time focused on thoroughly milking this "cow." She petted her for a while afterwards, too. Future Ag major? Husbandry?

See her self-made nametag?

She still insists she's opening that pizza place in Brooklyn, though.

I do not remember the name of this goo, but it's liquid when still, and solid when in motion. Cool!

I agreed to tweet with the hashtag #WhyICare4Nature to support the campaign (and to get some stuffed frogs for the kids, obvs). I tweeted, "Because this world IS our home." Some of the atmosphere in the more evangelical wing of the tradition I was raised in has the rather gnostic view that the world is doomed (because of sin, mind you, not because of climate change), and the best we can hope for is to be raptured out of it. I am glad to be raptured out of this mindset. A very lovely Lutheran professor I had at university said that if we felt at home on this earth, that was because it is the natural home of human beings. Our spiritual tradition says that we are made of earth; science confirms our elements and those of the earth to have a common origin. Let us care for the good earth as the precious and unreplaceable gift it is. 

Learning about tornadoes at the local news/weather station's table:

Making a cloud! She loved this.

I pose with the "sore throat" virus.
The Hokie Plague, an exceptionally strong fluey cold, is just getting out of my system now. For a lot of students and professors, however, it's just getting started. Out with you, dark virus spirits! 

They did so much that I didn't photograph; we were there for 6 hours! Then it was time to run some errands and head home to our wet pirate house.

Jon and I really needed a date, and though we couldn't get a babysitter, our "porch date" was probably more fun than we would have had in a restaurant. 
We enjoyed the rainy night in the dry, played some gin rummy, talked, laughed, and reconnected. You need creativity to make this healthy marriage thing work when you're a grad student family with kids! Fortunately, we have senses of humor to sustain us even when our creativity as at a low.

We're still getting tomatoes! 

What an inexhaustible source of joy is the pirate house.
 I even like to cook, here! 

For morning glorys, porch furniture, apple cider, endless small gifts, I am grateful.

I need this sweetness just now. My maternal Grandmother passed into the next world last Wednesday. I'm sure I'll have some photos of her to share in future entries, as it looks like I AM going to be able to attend Grandma Peggy's memorial service in 2 weeks. I missed the last two memorial services for grandparents, so this will be a really meaningful time to be with my family. I am grateful that the last time I saw her alive, she was still her sassy self.

I'll miss her as I've been missing her for years. She has been leaving us, bit by bit, for a while now. But she is free and with her husband and two of her three children, now, and is no doubt entertaining angels with some hilarious yarns right now. Selah. 

The Twilight of Summer

We are soaking up the last of the warmth and the green, here!

Finally, finally our morning glorys have decided to bless our porch in profusion.

I like how they curl up for the night

My morning commute is getting darker and darker. Walking in sunrise conditions is still breathtaking, though.

Grendel's had his one more summer fling, too. Our 9 year old indoor cat got out for the better part of 2 days last week. And then when I was giving up hope of seeing him again, there he was, yowling prodigal yowls at the window.

Welcome home, buddy. 

The kids continue to run wild with the neighbors whenever possible.

Last weekend, we attended 2 birthday parties and one baptism reception. It was a merry weekend! The kids next door invited Miles & Adele to their birthday party, verbally, through the fence, the day before. As the party was happening in their backyard, I was only too happy to let them RSVP a yes back through the fence.

Later, we went to a house party to celebrate one of my co-workers. There was a passel of kids and a huge trunk of dressup gear, so our kids pretty much didn't want to leave ever.

Miles keeps kidnapping my phone and taking selfies. I'm trying to be convincingly disapproving about this. 

The temperature dropped sharply on Sunday, reminding us that Fall is really imminent. So obviously, we had a fire.

I've been unpacking the cold-weather stuff, bit by bit.

Sunset at 7:30 these days. 

We counter the darkness. What a jolly fire we had!

There were s'mores. We invited the neighbor kids. Pirate house heaven.

Meanwhile, Miles continues to work hard in first grade. He does his daily homework and regularly brings home math quizzes with full marks.

And this week he achieved the ellusive "Role Model" ranking! None of us knows how he did it, but he was beaming!

Adele looks forward to preschool every day. She is beginning to throw around some Spanish words, and talks fondly of her music time and her playground friends. 

Fall has us in its momentum, now. There is talk of Halloween costumes. I've decided on a paper topic for Contemporary Theory, and I'm gaining confidence that I will probably survive the class. Jon continues his job quest, and has been working weekends at the VT reference desk. 

It's so much easier to stay in the now when the now is the mountains in early fall, is it not?

"...an old friend who has shared our morning days."

There is no friend like an old friend 

who has shared our morning days, 

no greeting like his welcome, 

no homage like his praise.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I know you readers can change the pronouns in the quotation above to reflect the devotion and love I feel for my Marijke!
Marijke has been my friend for 15 years, since she refused to let me sulk in a tent alone at the honors college camping trip. 

We are evening friends, too! 

Marijke was one of my merry band of friends in college, and we have seen each other through weddings and births and moves and crises and breakdowns and all of it. I wish all of you the blessing of a friend you don't have to hide anything from. And of a friend who will put her kids in the car and drive six hours by herself to see you! What full hearts we had this weekend. 

Here, Marijke charms the kids with books.

It was a joy to see the 9 year old iteration of dear Jeremiah. She was pregnant with him at my wedding:

See him protuding there to my left? He was about 6 weeks from being born in that shot.

And here he is patiently teaching Miles checkers skills, while cuddling Adele. What a young man he is becoming.

We took the kids to Pandapas Pond after church as we needed some quiet and they needed some space. 4 kids and 3 adults in the Pirate House is merry but also quite full!

Both my kids got to try out having an older sibling of their gender. Adele spontaneously said to Evelyn, "I love you" moments after I took this. Evelyn responded, "Ah! I love you too!"

Hasn't my dear got such lovely blue eyes? 

This guy and I have been through a lot together.

Someday we'll get someone who is not six years old to photograph us. 

Is he tough or what?

Labor Day morning came sunny and cool, as the whole weekend had been, as I had asked for it to be. We said leisurely porch goodbyes.

That morning of all mornings, we noticed that the porch morning glorys were beginning to bloom!

The merry band:

Miles says, "I miss Jeremiah. He was a good roommate. I wish they lived with us."

He's so much like his father:

Money shot, right?

This has all gone on too long. Evelyn goes back to her book. 

Thank you for walking with me, my friend.

From far away and near, we're connected by golden threads. And cell towers. And sturdy family cars. And love.