It snowed.

 I mean, it snowed a LOT. A historic a LOT. We thought it was a classic Portland snow, with some flakes and nothing sticking, and then rain, but then the rain turned back into snow, and the snow started sticking and it just kept snowing. Luckily I was working from home and the kids' schools are walking distance. Cook made it almost all the way home by bike, and then had to walk the last mile, but he's very fortunate that he wasn't driving, as many people's car commutes home turned pretty nightmarish.

We have no dramatic stories. It just snowed A LOT. The kids had two days off school. They shoveled a bunch. 

In other news, I went by myself on a lovely weekend trip to visit another family with teenage daughters - I snuggled a cat, ate new food, watched a Korean drama, got the full social analysis of a middle school dance, and enjoyed myself enormously.

That's about all. My job continues to be good. Duchess has been accepted to TWO colleges so she's going to have to make at least once choice. Both kids have signed up to do track in the spring. Life goes on!

Pumpkins

This weekend I took the girls to The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island, a place where u-pick meets consumer kitsch, and the parking lots overflow with cars from all over the region. We haven't been there in a while. Duchess brought a new friend she met in French class, an exchange student (somewhat bewilderingly) from Sweden, and Skipper brought a friend whom she first met when they were both toddlers tagging along to their big sisters' kindergarten dropoffs. It was a nice outing, and the kids were all good company. I'm generally opposed to chauffeuring, and I usually stay out of the way of their friends, because I am embarrassing, but I was reminded today that it is often a pleasure to hang out with them and their friends, who are generally interesting and funny and able to keep a conversation rolling merrily along. (And apparently I was able to keep my embarrassingness under the tolerance threshold.)

Things are fine. The weather has been unseasonably warm and sunny. Duchess is in the throes of college applications. Skipper continues to do crosscountry and ultimate frisbee. Cook has been taking time off work to do house work, because that is still how he rolls. I just emptied my entire work email inbox into a new folder labeled "old stuff - unsorted" so that I can PRETEND I don't have 300 un-dealt-with emails looming over my head. I recommend this dumb psychological trick - I feel amazingly relaxed.

Stockholm

I went to Sweden! I had to pick up Skipper from camp, and I did some touristing on my own in Stockholm and also got to visit some family and friends as a wonderful bonus. 

I really enjoyed poking around Stockholm on my own and with Skipper. The transit (including ferries!) is fantastic, the public spaces are abundant and delightful (if short on public bathrooms), the bike and pedestrian infrastructure is good, and the cardamom buns are delicious. Skipper declared that Stockholm has "cool old stuff and nice new stuff" and she's not wrong.

I stayed part of the time in a hostel in a former prison in Södermalm. 

Katarina kyrka

City Hall

Bonkers statue of St George and the dragon in Storkyrka. I loved this dragon, which was carved in the 15th century and has spikes made of antlers and generally is extremely cool.

Gamla Stan

The rest of Stockholm.

I got to visit museums, wander around on my own, eat a million cardamom buns, and spend time with family and friends I haven't seen in over twenty years, and that was all wonderful. 

Went camping again

We're jamming all of our summer into August. Three camping trips and a house rental! This weekend was the second camping trip, a very gentle local adventure. We did get some river rafting in, which was very fun. Otherwise, mostly hammocks and berry foraging.

 

More updates

It's hot. It's summery. I'm in the midst of a bunch of stressful work deadlines, but the kids have been wringing a lot of summer out of the week. Skipper has been on several adventures with friends - hiking on Wednesday, the local amusement park yesterday, an exploratory baseball playdate today.




































She also finally consented to get a haircut* that included bangs! I am really enjoying looking at her face. (She's cuddling Momo in this photo. Momo hates being picked up, but once you finally catch her, she utters a small, hopeless squeak of despair and then surrenders completely to the pleasure of a warm quiet place to doze where Snufkin can't pester her. When I pick her up to put her back in the cage after she's been sitting on Skipper's lap for a while, her whole body is so relaxed that she feels like a warm beanie baby instead of an actual living mammal.)

Duchess started rowing last week - she rows from 8 to 10am every weekday. She loves it. I dropped her off the first day, and walked with her back into the boat-storage/rowing-machine area, and I felt like I had wandered into the Land of Giants. Duchess is considered small in the Land of Giants, and I felt pretty much pocket-sized.

And today Cook dropped her off at an intensive week of ultimate frisbee camp. There's a lot going on around here. And next weekend I will be done with this wave of scary work deadlines, and I will get to wring out some summer!

*Skipper's distrust of my judgement around haircuts is hard-earned.

Weekend at Opal Creek