Flying by...

A whole week has gone by, so fast!  Last Saturday I went back home, and spent the weekend with the pets and Netflix and the spinning wheel, which was great.  I caught up the laundry, watered the plants, enjoyed the quiet.  On Monday I came back up here to Camano and spent the day with the family.  Bri and Caity went swimming,

and we went for a walk along the beach, and took a picnic, which we ate sitting on a long in a sunny spot

Look at the camera everyone...

or not!

okay, whatever, I'm just going to take pictures anyway! 

- this turned out to have not been quite as well planned as I thought because Bri had his tides backwards, so the tide was heading IN, not OUT, and we came back OVER all the fallen trees and driftwood, which Becca absolutely loved! 

Caity had some fun with a deck of cards...

We could tell that Daddy was here because the house was suddenly more techy than it had been before!

On Thursday night we had a really big thunderstorm, lightning went on for hours and hours, and it was still raining when I woke at about 7 on Friday morning.  I wasn't too pleased to be awake that early, since I'd only had a couple of hours sleep, but it was worth the early awakening to find this friend outside...

It's grey and chilly, I sent the girls back to bed to sleep some more now that it's quiet, I wonder what today will bring...

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Tuesday

Today my body has figured out that it's on vacation, and I am TIRED!

This is like the first few days after Becca finished finals - she was fine for a while and then she crashed, exhausted and spent.  It's been a lovely day but both girls have been mothering me this evening, so I'm assuming I look pretty bad right now and I'm tucked up in bed with laptop, book, and knitting.  The girls have gone off upstairs to play cards, listen to music, and giggle quietly! 

We took a longer walk on the beach today, after a slow morning in which I spun some yarn, and Becca made pancakes.  We took off a little before 3, thinking that we had about 90 minutes to walk, and then 90 to get back before the tide started to rise significantly and we ran the risk of being cut off from the path home.  In the end, we didn't get nearly as far as we planned, because we stopped to chat to Ladybug the sausage dog and her owners, and then we stopped so the girls could climb on a fallen tree and admire the view from 8ft up in the air. 

Then we stopped so that Becca could go exploring in a quiet little hideaway under a fallen tree that is still in full leaf.  And when our 90 minutes were up and we turned to come home, we discovered that the return journey took a mere 30 minutes!  It was still lovely, and we found some excellent sea life under the seaweedy rocks. 

Becca found mussels growing all over the place, tucked in tree trunks, against rocks, there were thousands of them. 

This made us look a little closer, and we found limpets, teeny tiny black whelks, and soft crabs lurking underneath the rocks. 

Wednesday

Today was a quiet, at-home sort of a day.  We read a lot, played cards a lot, ate a lot, and I did a fair bit of spinning.  The girls spent a couple of hours on the beach in the late afternoon sun, reading and chatting and trying to find some stone skipping skills to show off to their Dad when he arrives for the weekend!  It's a very different experience being on vacation with the girls, compared to being at home with them.  For some reason the change of venue has chilled us all down a lot and we're happy just hanging out and being together. 

Thursday. 

Today was a big trip out day, we drove up to Fairhaven and then on to Bellingham.  There was lots of fun to be had in Fairhaven, it's a beautiful little town with a pottery, a glassworks, and a woodshop to visit, where local artisans have space to display and offer for sale their work.  It's lovely to see all the different styles of work and we were lucky to have time to wander around and appreciate all of the pretty things.  We had lunch in a London Double Decker Bus, which was a rare treat - fish and chips, at that!  Bellinghan was reaching the end of its day by the time we got there, but we enjoyed the waterfront - Bellingham Bay is beautiful, especially when the sun is out...

I tried to see if Johnny Depp was in this great pirate-ish looking rigger, but he must have been sleeping off the rum below decks! 

There was some sort of race going on here but we couldn't make out who was winning! 

and the chocolate shop, and then drove the scenic route home, down Chuckanut Drive. 

Friday.

Today was a very very strange day.  I was woken at about 8 by a HUGE clap of thunder, and cleared space in my bed for the daughter I knew would be along shortly.  Both of them arrived a few minutes later, and since we were all awake we had some breakfast and pulled all the chairs up to the windows so that we could watch the show - it was quite spectacular. 

This part of the world does not often get thunderstorms, and so when they do happen, they are big news.  Today was no exception, everyone was talking about it, and everyone was watching.  We even had rain for a while - first day this vacation that it hasn't been bright and sunny all day long. 

We did a little housetidying, played a LOT of cards, and ate a yummy salad for lunch, and then we put ribs in the oven to cook long and slow, and we played more cards as we waited for Dad to arrive.  His journey was long, the weather and the Friday afternoon traffic conspired to add an hour to his journey, but he was here in time for dinner, and got a walk along the beach after dinner with the girls.  They took some video of the lightning, which is still decorating the sky to the north of us, 15 hours after it started! 

I'm heading home tomorrow, to feed the pets, do some laundry, water the plants (all the veggies and container plants are needing daily watering in the heat that home is experiencing since we left), and I'm hoping to get in some quiet spinning and knitting time, too.  I'll be back on Sunday evening/Monday morning to spend next week with the girls while Dad goes back to work.  we had initially planned to bring the pets here for Dads long weekend but the cottage is so small that we don't know where we could put them and not be tripping over them, so they've stayed home in the air conditioning, which is probably better than being here in the storms anyway! 

Tenuous

It's been a lovely day, if a little weird.  Our link to the outside world was expected to be a little tenuous, and indeed it was, but not in the way we expected! 

We woke expecting to have no electricity, as per the sign at the end of the road announcing the 'scheduled outage from 8 til 2' today.  When it got to 11am and we still had a light on, I put a loaf of bread on and said a quick prayer to the Goddess of Yummy Lunches, asking that 2 hours might elapse without any disturbance to our dear and beloved bread maker.

We had a late breakfast, because we all slept til around 10, (I confess I got up at 7 and opened the door so I could hear the waves crashing on the wall, it was high tide, and then I fell back asleep listening) 

and then we lazed around in the sun reading books.  Late afternoon we decided we were hungry so we made a spot of lunch, and then we lazed around, reading books.  Then we played a game called Hoopla, which is one of those great Cranium games that are always fun, and we laughed a lot, and at about 8 we realised we'd had no dinner, so we fried some sausages and mashed some potatoes and listened to some cd's that are stacked in the cabinet here.  I educated the girls on the loveliness that is The Mills Brothers, and then we caught a few tracks of Glenn Miller, a little Simon and Garfunkel (the cd is badly scratched after track 4, very disappointing) and on to Nat King Cole.

As I stood in the kitchen moving potatoes around in the pan with my hands to get them all under the water, singing along to the Mills Bros, I suddenly realised that I was living my Nan's life, she used to do the exact same thing - it was lovely to remember her so suddenly.

After dinner, we lazed around and read books, fought with the dodgy internet, took pictures of the obviously broken connector and sent them to Dad so that he might figure out how to fix it, and eventually discovered a way to prop up the ethernet wire so that it connects with the circuit board, but I mustn't nudge the table otherwise it goes off again!  Just another of the many quirks in this cottage!

I think that my shoulder needs a little after sun, I think the slightly heavier breeze today made the sun less noticeable on my skin, but I can feel it now!  And it's probably time to sleep soon, too, after I find out what happens to Delia in my book!  Tomorrow we might even go for a walk!

Winners and more winners

It's our first whole day on Camano, and we woke early to watch the Wimbledon Singles Final for the men.  Roger Federer was after his 7th victory and Andy Murray was seeking the first British win for many decades. 

It was excellent sport, we cheered for both men because they both played the game of their lives, but in the end only one gets to hold the trophy. 

Andy Murray was tearful, sad to have disappointed those who have cheered him on for so long - but we could see only winners today, two great athletes who devote their time and energy into being the best they can be at what they do.  If only there were more people in the world who held that devotion, that determination, that spirit, in themselves, just think what the world might look like. 

Our own little world looks like we have not a single care, and it feels that way, too.  I sat upstairs on the deck with my spinning for an hour this morning, working with some beautiful polwarth/silk fiber in delicious shades of purple and blue - look...

It will be yarn in a few days, how many days depends largely on how many naps I take!  ;-)  

After a quick shower in the teeny tiny bathroom we headed out to get a few groceries - we had brought the bread machine with us to bake fresh bread each day but forgot the yeast, and the cottage could use a conversation with some Clorox wipes, so we drove off island and went to Stanwood.  We added french bread, pastrami, doughnuts, icecream, and various chocolate items to the needed purchases, and ate the bread and pastrami on the way home, driving through the tree-lined lanes in the quiet of the early afternoon.

The people are lovely - the lad stocking the freezers in the grocery store asked if we minded him pushing his cart in front of us, as we were browsing and he had places to be.  And the lady I stepped backwards and got in the way of waved off my apology and was sorry for having rushed me!  

Now we're having a little post-lunch quiet time, Caity is lost in a book, Becca is busy writing, and I'm here with you, catching you up on the day so far.  The tide hit its lowest about 90 minutes ago, so we're going to go for our walk in a bit, planning to be back by six to ensure that we don't get stranded up a tree!  Caitlin is making burgers for dinner, I've put the dough on for buns, and then we'll knit and read and chat until we're too tired to stay awake any more. 

In Search Of Rest...

We are on holiday!  By 'we' I mean the girls and I, and by 'holiday' I mean tucked up in a little cabin on the waterfront on Camano Island.  It's bliss!  There were a few little settling in issues, but we're all straight now, and it's going to be lovely!

This is 20 feet from our front door!  Becca put a stick in the ground to mark the water level - but by the time we came back an hour later it had been washed away by the speeding water!  

We arrived at 4pm today to find the tide on the way in and the pretty pebbles getting a wash.  We didn't even check out the cabin, we went straight down the boat ramp to see the view...

It's really rather pretty!

We turned around from the water, and saw this...

Home sweet teeny tiny home, for the next 2 weeks!

It's a lot smaller than we thought it would be from the pictures, and it is FULL of stuff.  There is not enough space in the kitchen cabinets to store a box of pasta or a sachet of KoolAid (not that we drink KoolAid, but you know what I mean) it is CRAMMED full of stuff, all sorts of stuff, most of it of little use.

We have emptied the bathroom cabinets of their stuff so that we can put our stuff in there, because otherwise we'd be carrying our shower gel to the bathroom every day, which seems silly - but then we had the problem of where to put the displaced stuff, so it's been shoe-horned into a book case in the sitting room, which is doubling as my bedroom because the 'double room with loft' turned out to be the worlds smallest double bed with a twin mattress crammed onto a shelf above the staircase!  Rebecca LOVES little spaces, secret nests, corners, fun little places, but this was just NOT going to work - she is over 5 feet tall, for a start - she wouldn't even be able to sit up up there, and there's no room for her books, either, which is a disaster in itself!  So she has one bedroom, Caity has the other, and I am sleeping down here, on an IKEA pull out which seems quite comfy.

Every shelf in the place is stuffed with books, cd's, dvds and videos.  There is nowhere to put our own books, and even the dresser drawers are filled with Other People's Things!  It's very odd, and not terribly welcoming, although others who have stayed here have thought it marvellous that they didn't need to bring their own shower gel because Somebody Else's shower gel was in the shower ready and waiting for them - yick!

But we've made a little space for ourselves and our things, and we've covered up the stained couch with a huge IKEA comforter and now it's much more welcoming, and we went for a walk and found...

...a place for Becca to sit and read.

that the tide comes in really quite fast - this was passable when we left and only climbable when we returned less than an hour later!

and that there are really rather a LOT of things to climb on around here! 

The walk was wonderful, there are agates galore in the beach pebbles, Caity and I came home with handfuls of rocks and pretty pretty shells.  We made ourselves some nachos for dinner and then sat around reading and chatting, and I went out to watch the fireworks in the dark, although they were really too far away to be any fun.  It was a beautiful evening, cooler than the day but not cold, just 'eveningish'.  It's SO quiet here, I love it!

This is the view from the front porch, over the flowers and down to the water - the tide comes all the way up to the bottom of that little boat ramp, and the water is moving very very fast - no swimming for us!  After dark I could see the crab boats moored out in the water, silhouetted by the distant lights of the nearest town.  

I spent the evening mending the holes under the toes of 2 pairs of felted slippers so that Caity and I have something for our feet - the floors are wood and a bit chilly at times.  We had a chat with Dad over Skype, and now the girls are tucked up in their beds and I am enjoying a little quiet before I call it a night, too.  Becca and I are planning to get up at 6 to watch the Wimbledon Tennis Final - I'll be cheering on Andy Murray, but Becca is not yet sure where her allegiance will lie, she has been a Federer fan for a long time now!

Sweet dreams, I wish you could hear the water lapping on the pebbles, it's very restful x

P.S.  I miss Connie - there is no Aga in the kitchen here!

Endings and Beginnings

Well, it's been quite busy around here since last I blogged.  And it's only going to get worse!  We did eventually all receive our Green Cards, although it was quite the fiasco!  It was timed in such a way that it completely ruined our remortgage application, which had to be scrapped and started over, and we also had a hiccup with our healthcare in which Husband suddenly aged 50 whole years and was pronounced 'dead' by our provider, even though he is the listed owner of the policy!  Apparently us making a fraudulent claim was horrifying to them, but the thought that they had fraudulently issued a policy to a 'dead man' (after all, he'd be NINETY ONE and no-one lives THAT long, said the girl on the phone!) did not upset them terribly.  It took many hours of phone calls, and much banging of heads against walls in frustration, but eventually they fixed their database and I am now married to 41, not 91!  Thank goodness! 

It's finals week for The Teenager, and although she's doing well, the stress is there, and the feeling of it all 'being just about over' is hanging over all of us.  We are relieved to have made it - when she started at the Uni last September it felt like this week might never come - but it's also gone shockingly fast and now we are facing Freshman Year, just on the other side of summer! 

It's also the Final Week of only having one teenager in the family - Twelve turns Thirteen at the weekend, and we will no longer be able to blame her strange out-of-character little turns on 'being Twelve'. 

I knitted a sweater.  A quick knit, and I intended it to belong to Teenager, so when I was measuring it up against Twelve, I thought I was doing fine!  Then I got to knitting, and thought that there was NO WAY the sleeves needed to be THAT long, and so I shortened them a little.  Silly me!  Somehow I have failed to notice that in order to make a sweater fit my daughters, I have to make it big enough to fit ME!  When did that happen?  They've always been so small, and even when they became tall they were very slim, and now suddenly they have shoulders, and long LONG arms, and all-access passes to my shoes and my shirts!  Teenager put the sweater on as soon as she saw it, and wore it for the rest of the day, so clearly she likes it but I'd like it to still fit next week, really!   

Yesterday Teenager put on her dance costumes for us to see, and that should have been a sign to me that the sweater would be a little on the fits-right-now side.  She looks stunning in her black strapless velvet basque and black tutu - a far cry from the teeny tiny little yellow costume she wore 10 years ago in her first ever ballet recital!  There will be pictures, of course, but only after finals. 

And Sunday is graduation, an informal affair in comparison to a general high school graduation, but nonetheless the closest we are going to get to that special day.  There will be a ceremony, and a buffet lunch, and then the kids all go off to camp overnight (having donned the required jeans and t-shirts, of course) for their last hurrah! 

We have some fun things planned for summer - a garden with vegetables and fruit and herbs in it, a vacation or two, a visitor, days out, days lazing in hammocks with a good book and a glass of lemonade, afternoon naps, walks on the beach.  Teenager needs to write a grant proposal or ten, and Twelve is going to be giving flute recitals and racing sailboats.  Husband may also have Other Things planned - he is getting a little tired of the 3 -4 hrs a day he spends commuting and is considering a change of location for his job.  Watch this space! 

And me?  I will be spinning, like a crazy woman, for the Tour de Fleece, where spinners across the world time their craft to coincide with the Tour de France, spinning each and every day that the cyclists race, and challenging ourselves to complete something difficult and out of the ordinary.  For me, this year, spinning each and every day of the tour is challenge enough, I usually fail to find time. 

And then it will be on to the Ravelympics, another craft-based adaptation of sporting greatness, where we knit/crochet/spin/weave our way through the Olympics, again challenging our skills and talents with new projects.  For this, I will choose a sweater, or a cardigan, and attempt to complete it between the starting ceremony and waving goodbye to all the athletes at the end.  It's going to be fun! 

But before any of that can happen, we need to make it to Thursday, when finals are over, and some earnest sleeping can be undertaken, although some of us will still need to get up - Twelve does not finish school for another 20 days - and that sweater needs a wash to see if we can convince it to grow, just a little bit, so that it'll still fit in the autumn!  I wonder if she wore it to bed... 

What's not Green and not made of Card?

11 years and18 days after we first set foot on American soil, we received 12 emails (3 each) from the USCIS, the department of Immigration Services, informing us that 'documents' had been printed and would soon be in the mail.  The next day, more emails, documents were in the mail, and on Monday, Brian and Becca each received an official 'Welcome To America' letter - on St George's Day, which made me laugh! 

Today they received their Permanent Resident Cards, commonly referred to as the Green Card, and are now officially freed from the burden of constant reporting for the next 10 years.  The email chain leads us to believe that Caity and I will be receiving our documents soon, too, we're not sure why they didn't all arrive together - these things are part of the mystery of USCIS. 

So what does it feel like to have a Green Card? 

Honestly?  It's a bit surreal at the moment.  We have spent so long wishing and hoping and waiting, holding on, thinking that surely it must be soon, and then discovering that it won't be any time soon, that it's hard to believe that our wait is actually over.  We were not expecting to receive our cards until 2014, so this is a big surprise to us, and it comes at the perfect time. 

Advantages that are now available to us include, but are not limited to, the following...

Brian will be able to accept promotions at work, and also job offers at new companies that include a step up from his current position.

We will be able to take vacations overseas - and will be allowed back into the US afterwards.

I will be able to work, for money, instead of volunteering, for free.  Becca will be able to work as a tutor at summer school on campus. 

Caity will be able to travel to Canada with the school band next year when they head to Vancouver for a competition, and will be allowed back in again!  

We will qualify for a .3% lower rate on our home refinance. 

We will save $1000's of dollars each year now that we no longer need to file documents, amendments, photographs, fingerprints, and retina scans.

We will never again have to suffer the indignity of having our blood tested for unmentionable diseases that people can only contract by doing unmentionable things.  And I will never have to listen to the gleeful nurse on the telephone announcing the 'good news' that I don't have any of those unmentionable diseases - like I didn't know that already!!!!! 

In short, life is going to be better, and we are very thankful for that.  It has taken a LONG time to get here, but we are glad to have been 'Welcomed to America'.  Now if we could just get the postal service to actually deliver our mail...