Poetry Cafe

April was National Poetry Month.  In case you missed it, Anna wanted to share a poem she wrote for her Poetry Cafe.

Inside My Heart

Inside my heart live two crazy hobbling cousins

One creative sister

One absolutely charming mother

Two gladly giving great grandparents

One chuckling dad

One super loving grandmother

And one awesome grandfather

All with me!

Overheard

after seeing Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland:

Sophie: How old is Johnny Depp?
Mommy: Oh, he's older.  He's probably around my age.
Sophie: Well, that's not old at all.
Mommy: I love you very much.

Aloooooha!

 
It is warm and beautiful in Hawaii!  The girls had not been here since they were toddlers and had no memories of it.  So, we made many of them on the Big Island, from hiking to Akaka Falls and Volcanoes National Park to snorkling in Kealakekua Bay.  Check out our album.

Here are some things we learned about Hawaii:

* Hawaiian is a fascinating language.  It has only twelve letters (a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m n, p. w) and an okina (which is symbol to pause).  To pronounce words correctly, you have to slow down and pronounce EV-ER-Y SYL-LA-BLE.  If you really want to challenge yourself, try pronouncing the name of Hawaii's state fish: humuhumunukunuku'āpua'a.  Yeah, go ahead and try again.  It means "fish with a pig's nose."  Or you could just call it a Triggerfish.

* The Big Island is home to the world's largest astronomical observatory, Mauna Kea, with telescopes operated by astronomers from eleven countries. The combined light-gathering power of the telescopes on Mauna Kea is fifteen times greater than that of the Palomar telescope in California -- for many years the world's largest -- and sixty times greater than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.  We had a nice chat with the lady at the Visitor's Center in Waimea but you can actually tour the observatory located at 14,000 feet (which we didn't do this time).

* One of First Lady Barbara Bush's finest acts was to advocate for the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the single largest conservation area in the United States, and one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world.  It encompasses 139,797 square miles of the Pacific Ocean (105,564 square nautical miles) - an area larger than all the country's national parks combined.  We stumbled upon the Education Center in Hilo (while on the hunt for fresh sugar cane which, sadly, we did not find).

* Notwithstanding the Bush Administration's contributions to Hawaii, the people love their hometown hero, Barak.  There are a lot of Obama bobble-heads stocked on the shelves.

Oh, it wasn't all so educational.  We did a lot of lounging at the pool and chatting.  We amended the rules for pre-dinner desserts, which you can read about on our dessert blog.  And here, you can eavesdrop on one of our breakfast conversations:


We had bunches of fun and hope to go back soon.  Happy Spring Break!

We have a dream

...that one day our daughters will have the table manners necessary to dine at the White House.  We may not get there with them, but we have seen the promised land.

After bidding Aunt Dee and NYC a fond farewell, we boarded the Acela down the Northeast Corridor to Washington, DC.  It was a whirlwind trip through the Nation's Capitol, but here are some of the highlights:

* The Capitol Building Tour:  Years of polarizing and cynical shenanigans have left us largely distrustful of our nation's politicians.  But in the great rotunda of the Capitol, we were reminded that this country was founded with an enormous optimism and ambition that the people should rule themselves.  It's a complicated and messy system, but on the whole, we are very proud to play our part in it.

* National Air and Space Museum:  Sophie has been asking how airplanes fly, and Mom and Dad didn't have very good answers.  Which is to say, they didn't know.  But the museum had a whole exhibit about how things fly (remember: drag, lift, thrust, weight).  We also saw the 3D movie of footage taken by astronauts and cosmonauts on the international space station.  A must see.  Here's an important lesson: you can cut your hair in space with vacuum hair snippers, but it is not recommended to eat popcorn in bed because the kernels float all over the place.

[Culinary note: Don't plan to eat at the museum.  Their onsite restaurant is a McDonald's/Boston Market.  Our organically-attuned children won't eat McDonald's -- even when we plead with them -- which made for a trying meal.  We hear the food at the National Museum of the American Indian next door is far superior.]

* International Spy Museum:  We adopted "cover" identities and proceeded into training.  All those gadgets in James Bond flicks and Get Smart shows?  They really had that stuff!!  Even a phone in a shoe!  We thought it was just Hollywood, but real spies have fantastic imaginations.

* National Museum of American History:  This is Mommy's favorite museum.  The hall of the Presidents is fascinating and Sophie and Anna stood at a mock podium for the POTUS.  There was also a great demonstration on how to conduct a sit-in at a lunch counter.  Among the pop culture artifacts, we saw Judy Garland's ruby slippers and Kermit the Frog (Apolo Ohno's skates were there too, which is interesting but, with all due respect to Apolo, feels a little pre-mature.  How can that place in the same exhibit with Evil Knievel's Harley-Davidson?).

* Dinner with old friends:  We got to catch up with Mommy's college roommate, Kat, Chris and kids.  The girls had a great time playing with Jules and Oliver and they ate multiple helpings of Kat's excellent coq au vin.  Thanks so much for the lovely meal and making us feel at home!!

* The Lincoln Memorial:  On a cold and blustery day, we ventured to the majestic Lincoln Memorial.  The park ranger was friendly and knowledgeable.  Here are a few fun facts: the statue of Lincoln has one hand open and one hand in a fist.  Apparently this was to reflect the President's character of being open and fair, but determined.  His chair is flanked by bundled rods representing the strength of individual rods bound together -- much as the states are stronger as a union.

From the steps of the memorial, looking out over the Reflecting Pool in the place that Martin Luther King, Jr. let freedom ring, Anna delivered her first address.


We're planning to come back soon.  We still want to visit the White House and we're working hard on table manners for the occasion.  In the meantime, here are memories from this President's Week.

Frolicking in the aftermath of Snowmageddon

Ok, this post is long overdue and we actually thought about back-dating it.  But that seems kind of like the blogger's form of cheating.  The fact is that we had a wonderful President's Day week on the East Coast and we were just too busy to write it all down.  So, here's a snapshot of our first stop in New York.

We spent four fantastic snowy days with Aunt Dee in NYC.  Really, really snowy.  We imagine that after being dumped on for the first half of February, New Yorkers were probably pretty sick of it.  But not us.  We like to watch it, walk in it, feel it land on our noses, roll it into snowballs and hear it splat solidly on Daddy's back.  Here's a video of our high tea experience and a view of the white doughnut of Columbus Circle.
 

The girls are at that magical age where they can really appreciate New York.  We were all agog at the view of the Empire State Building when we drove into Manhattan (this is probably because we've read so many Percy Jackson books that we really do believe Mt. Olympus is on the 600th Floor).  We sang along to Mamma Mia! at the Winter Garden (yes, we know all the words to ABBA's greatest hits, thank you very much).  To see the real New York, we also visited with Dad's friend, Anthony, and his family (mmmm, home-cooked lasagna!) and later spent hours in Anthony's magical bead shop, Metalliferous.  Well-supplied, the girls made beautiful necklaces and bracelets (Differing aesthetics: Sophie likes to make things in randomized sequences of complementary colors.  Anna likes a strict pattern embellished with a dramatic central piece).

In the middle of the Big City, we discovered wild life (that was no longer wild or live) at the Natural History Museum (see Sophie's "safari" photos here).  Anna celebrated her 7th birthday in high style at Cookshop in Chelsea.  In accordance with the new dessert rules, it was the Birthday Girl's prerogative to have dessert before dinner, but she decided to have her main meal first and savor Cookshop's yummy handmade candybar as her last taste.  Happy Birthday Anna Banana!

Why wait until the end?

Over the last few months, we've had many "blogworthy" moments, but the holidays finally motivated us to re-boot The Honeychurch Chronicles.  There's New Year's Resolution #1: start blogging again.  Happy New Year, everyone!

We celebrated post-Christmas in Palm Springs with a wonderful family dinner.  It was a fancy dinner with candlelight and cloth napkins and whatnot.  So, of course, Anna wore her red flannel nightgown with a faux cheetah fur poncho.  We are at the height of fashion.  But back to the dinner -- it was multiple courses with superb wine and, most impressively, sorbet served in between courses.

Sorbet!  In the middle of dinner?!?  The girls are absolutely flabbergasted that we've kept this culinary highlight from them for all these years.  Why don't we eat dessert in the middle of every meal?  Why doesn't everyone eat dessert in the middle of their meal?  Why should anyone wait until the end?

That was when we had a family brainstorm:  we should start a dessert blog focused on sweets that go well in between courses.  And we're going to call it "Why wait until the end?" (That was Anna's genius contribution.)  Ok, so it's a bit of a niche audience, but the research requirements alone make it a worthwhile endeavor.  Watch for it here.  There's New Year's Resolution #2: eat more dessert.

2009 was a tumultuous year for the world, but on the whole a very good year for our family.  We spent a lot of time together this past summer.  While some of our family have had some health issues and we've lost some dear relatives, we have also grown closer, made new friends and gained a stray cat named Lulu and a North American box turtle named Noodle.  We are happy, healthy and thriving.  New Year's Resolution #3:  keep doing that.

Here are the rest of our resolutions.

Sophie's Resolution: Sophie had an absolutely tremendous soccer season last fall.  She plays offense and defense and is a real thinking athlete.  Her New Year's Resolution is to score a goal off a team other than the Cheetahs.

Anna's Resolution:  Sometimes it is hard getting up in the morning. Or finishing our breakfast.  Or brushing our teeth.  Or finding an outfit that suits us.  Or finding a pair of socks that feel right.  This can make us late.  Anna's New Year's Resolution is to get to school on time.

Daddy's Resolution: Ed juggles many, many things.  From running his company (watch out Razor) to coaching Anna's soccer team (go Falcons!) to exercising every day.  His New Year's Resolution is to work smarter so that he has even more time to get things done and play with us.

Mommy's Resolution: Nicole tweaked her back over the holidays.  And it wasn't doing anything glamourous like tripping the light fantastic or something noble like saving a child from a well.  She was lifting the Thanksgiving turkey.  That's just sad and lame and there's really no other explanation than that she's getting old.  So, Nicole's New Year's Resolution is to exercise at least twice a week.

We'll let you know how the resolving goes this year.  Hope you all find joy and laughter in 2010!

P.S. Thanks to Aunt Dee for the beautiful holiday photo above.

Back to school

The girls went back to school last week and, today, I returned to work after a two-month sabbatical. To say that I am anything but sad would be a lie. This was the summer that the girls discovered Europe and art and countless flavors of gelato. This was the summer that we swam in the warm waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and flew through the trees in Beaujolais. This was the summer that I fell in love with my family all over again.

On their first day back at school, Sophie and Anna were asked to share a memory from their summer. Sophie described cruising up the coastline of Capo Vaticano in our paddle boat with a slide. We spent an unforgettable day breathlessly paddling, laughing and sliding into salty blueness. Anna told her classmates about the enormous painting, Coronation of Napoleon, which hangs (more than 20 feet tall and 32 feet wide) in the Louvre. The painter, Jacques-Louis David, inserted Napoleon's mother prominently into the painting even though she had refused to attend the coronation ceremony. (Okay, come on, be impressed. How many first graders know that little tidbit of art history?)

If you ask them to talk about this trip, the girls will shyly recite the cities we visited and mention a few of the things we saw or did. Traveling for 5 weeks with the girls, I learned a few things of note as well (in no particular order):

* We should never take for granted how much language allows us to weave into the fabric of where we are. It took me a few weeks to realize how isolated we became as Americans abroad. The girls adjusted well enough, but I think they also clung to each other and to me more because the rest of the world seemed so very foreign. While we enjoyed the local culture (and certainly the local food!), after a full day of the French, the Italians or the Spaniards, we really just wanted to be together and ground ourselves in the familiarity of each other.

* There is something to be said for sleeping a full and uninterrupted night, waking when your mind and body are ready, and pacing yourself through an unscheduled day. It makes you do unexpected things, like let your children have gelato for breakfast.

* No one really needs to see more than one major piece of art a day. We spent a lot of time just taking in the local scene. The girls now know that they can go to a different country where they don't speak the language and enjoy themselves just fine. They will not be afraid of foreignness and they will be competent in navigating new places. They can go back for more of the Louvre when they're 20.

* The Daddy is the best toy ever. He plays chase better, yells "Marco Polo" louder, builds bigger sand castles and tickles without mercy.

* When asked about my favorite part of the trip, I remember quietly sitting under the ivy-covered arbor in Peggy Guggenheim's Venetian courtyard. We read chapter after chapter of Percy Jackson's mythical adventures on the cool stone benches. In some ways, we could have been reading anywhere, in any park, on any bench. Except we wouldn't have heard the splash of the speedboats along the canal, or looked up into the olive trees that line the old wall, or walked over to gaze curiously at Marini's The Angel of the City (yes, the girls giggled a lot over that). And we might have been bothered by cell phones or email or the distraction of cleaning our rooms. So, for those reasons, the Guggenheim courtyard was a magical, incomparable place.

When I first proposed this sabbatical, a few people exclaimed, "My God, just you and the girls for that long? You'll be exhausted! You'll need therapy! You'll be dying to get back to work to escape the doldrums of staying at home!" And I actually thought it might be true. Maybe the stress of foreign travel would wear me down, or the 24/7 with the girls would raise my blood pressure. Maybe I would start to lose my mind and drive the streets of Berkeley aimlessly searching for something to do (okay, I did do that in the last weeks of my leave).

But here's the thing: there's no such thing as getting tired of my family. They're like high fructose corn syrup (without the calories or tooth-rotting sugar). The more I get, the more I want. I am more bowled over by their jokes, more fascinated by their stories, more in need of feeling them snuggle up close. These last two months brought the rest that I so very much needed ("That's why they call it a sabbatical!" says my wise friend, Neil. "It's supposed to be a sabbath!"). But this time with Ed and the girls also brought back many of the touchstones that I had let float out a bit too far: my love of travel, art, literature, afternoon naps and unplanned days, all shared with them. So, as I return to work "rested and ready," I have to keep hold of these things and not squander the gifts of our adventure abroad.

This ends the chapter of our summer. We may be back from time to time when the girls find something "blogworthy" to report. Thanks for reading.