Parenting Under the Stars

Wow! I wasn’t sure I wanted to make this trip. After all, we were staying with my sister-in-law in Dupont, WA, and it was a bit of a drive to get down to Mount St. Helens. But my husband really wanted to see this amazing volcano.

In the end, I’m so glad we made the effort to see the erupted mountainside. Mount St. Helenswas so worth it. My kids thought it was so cool to see the movie of the actual May 18, 1980 eruption. Looking at it you can see a bit of steam coming out, so that makes you think that maybe something is going on. And it is. It’s constantly rebuilding its lava dome, and they say maybe in 200 years something could possibly happen again. That’s safe enough for me.

My family and I recently went on a vacation to the northwest. I could really live there if not for the rain. The air is so clean and fresh, and it always smells that way.

Utah has been unbearably hot and dry this summer–more so than usual. Combine that with the the numerous fires burning up the state and the air is smokey and dense. There is a gray haze over everything. Going to Seattle was just what the doctor ordered.

For the next few days I’m going to be blogging about great things to do with kids in the northwest. One of the highlights was going to the Bonneville Dam in the amazingly beautiful Columbia River Gorge. It was almost as cool as watching Niagra Falls. The spray was beautiful to watch. Visiting the fish hatchery there was educational and inspiring. We got to view the fish going up the ladders trying to get back to their birth places. How they instinctively know how to get back is one of nature’s amazing miracles. To me, anyway.

A few miles down the road was Multnomah Falls. This isn’t just an ordinary waterfall. It’s a “double decker” one, as my kids called it. It cascades into one deep pool and then down to another pool. Standing on the bridge at the halfway point was thrilling! Our children of all ages loved this.

I thought you all might like to hear about this contest! Good luck if you decide to enter. I think I might throw in my hat. I’ve had my share of camping traumas! Good luck Heather on your book! It looks fabulous.

Calling campers, wannabe campers, and writers with a sense of humor. Have a run-in with a raccoon? Forget your camp stove at home? Wake up to find your tent pitched in the middle of a trail and piss off a lot of hikers . . . wait, that happened to me.

To celebrate the publication of Let’s Get Primitive, Ten Speed Press is running a 500-word essay contest. Tell us your worst camping trauma. Share your backcountry disaster. Spill the beans and you could win a nifty 2-person Coleman tent, an unbreakable camp cocktail set (complete with shaker), and a copy of Let’s Get Primitive: The Urban Girl’s Guide to Camping!

Essays will be judged on originality, humor, writing style, and degree of calamity by the Queen of Camping Mishap, me!

No purchase (or chest-beating) is necessary, just email your very best camping disaster story of 500 words or less to camping@tenspeed.com between July 1 and August 31, 2007.

Visit www.tenspeed.com for more details and www.letsgetprimitive.com to read more about the book.

Website: www.letsgetprimitive.comIP: 24.229.233.82

Last weekend we were hiking through the Albion Basin in Little Cottonwood Canyon near Alta, Utah. Again I was in wildflower heaven. But even more incredlbe was the bull moose we ran into munching grass about 20 feet away.

I have never been so close to a moose before. My husband kept telling the kids they would most likely never be so close again. That moose was right there! All the kids were thrilled to be so close except for my super sensitive youngest who cried and cried and cried because she was scared. You see, that moose was standing right on the path, and she thought we wouldn’t be able to get through. She worries about things.

And there he stood, looking like some sort of dark, hybrid horse with antlers. We had forgotten the camera, of course. Everyone around us was busy clicking and filming away while my family stared in wonder.

After I settled down about being so close to the moose, what I noticed most about him was his gentle brown eyes. They were beautiful. Moose are rumored to be fiesty and onery, but this one was mellow and nice. He reminded me of the moose in the Dr. Suess book Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose. This moose was like Thidwick!

“We’ll name him Thidwick, the kids all agreed.

My hubby came up with a great family game last night, one that the kids loved. Usually there’s at least one kid that doesn’t like what we’re playing, but tonight all were in agreement that it was a great game. Thank you Darren! You’re gifted at games. You should be writing this blog!

You will need:

Sandbox
Nine red marbles (or whatever color you have)
Nine blue marbles (or whatever color you have)
rocks for bases

First, we learned that you need to spend a little bit of time teaching kids how to flick a marble. They’ll be able to play better.

Second, take all the toys and broken shovels and pails out of your sandbox and smooth it out. Have the kids set up a baseball diamond with rocks as bases. They can make bleachers and hot dog stands out of sand or whatever fun thing they want to have at the “ball park.’

Third, divide the family into the red team or the blue team.

Fourth, put the blue marble “team” in the outfield at all the regular positions. The red marble goes to the plate and one person flicks his marble. When it lands the blue marble can try to get him out by flicking (this is just a word I’m using, there’s probably a more appropriate one) his blue marble at the red marble. If he hits the red marble the red is out. He can also try to flick the marble at first base. If he hits first base the red guy’s out. So the blue player has two tries to get the red guy out after the red marble lands. Continue playing a baseball game by trying to flick the other color out.

Go to marble info for more ideas.

Here are some fun summertime night games, dictated to me by Nathan, my game-loving son. These games are all the more wonderful because it’s dark outside and it’s normally past everyone’s bedtime. So the kids think they’re getting away with something, which they probably are.

The first game is called Catch the Wave. The person who is “it” counts to 30 while the others hide around the neighborhood (set some reasonable parameters). The person who’s it can only move right, left, forward, and backward. The catch is you have to look the direction you’re facing the whole time. When the it person finds someone, they say, for example, “John behind the car,” and then John has to come out from hiding and follow the it person. If John sees a hand of another hiding player wave to him then he can go hide again. The person who is caught three times is then it.

Ghost in the Graveyard is another winner. Set a home base. One person is the ghost, the others count while the ghost hides. All players try to find the ghost. If they spot the ghost they yell, “ghost in the graveyard!” The ghost comes out and tries to catch the others who are running back to base. Whoever is first tags the ghost and you start all over agian.

Go to night games for other great ideas.

Did you know that sunflowers can grow between 8 and 12 feet in six months? This photo is a giant sunflower we currently have growing in our garden. It is five feet tall. Within the next few weeks we should have a flower. I can’t wait!

It’s sunflower season. I have always loved them because they are so incredibly friendly. My kids love them, too. Especially my second daughter whose birthday comes around right when they’re blooming. Chances are, you’ve already seen some blooming by the side of the road or around the neighborhood.

I thought it might be fun to learn some sunflower facts with kids today. Go to this sunflower site to get savvy about this amazing flower.

On July 10 I think of my Dad because it’s his birthday and sometimes I go to his grave and put the wildest flowers I can find there. Pink carnations or roses from a florist won’t do for him. I need my own garden-grown flowers, something unique and different, something earthy like him.

One year I put sunflowers and daisies, one year blooming stems from my butterfly bush, another pine boughs mixed with delphinium. There have been plenty of years when I’ve put nothing, and I’m sure that’s OK with him. One year my girls made a twig vase to hold the boquet in.

I can’t walk by a garden without thinking of Dad. Every February he’d get out his Burpee catalog and order all his seeds so he’d be ready to go in March–pea planting time. The first of March he’d go out there and turn over the soil and add a bunch of peat moss, compost and whatever concoction he had to make the soil rich and fertile. He’d have to lay down for a day after that. Working in the garden “did a number” on his back. Along about mid-March he’d get the peas in. He’d put up trellises for them to grow up, and would watch them grow carefully every day.

In April it was warm enough to plant some green beans, and then in May came the rest. Tomatoes were his crowining achivement. Every year he’d try a new variety, and he’d nurture them meticulously in their wire-fashioned cages. Whenever someone came over, (including my friends) he’d take them out back to show them the garden. He’d tell them about the new golden variety of tomato he was growing that year, but that he’d stopped growing parsnips since the family hated them.

He’d point to a growing green thing and ask, “What do you think that is?” When of course my 16-year old friends couldn’t possibly guess the plant, he’d tell them it was a kohlrobi, a turnip-like plant, but a bit sweeter. They were polite to humor him, even when he snatched the plant out of the dirt, wiped it off on his levis, and asked them if they wanted a bite. I was of course mortified that he was talking vegetables with my friends.

But my brother, sister and I spent plenty of time out there in the garden. Our morning chores in the summer always included weeding and watering the garden, before it got too hot. We grumbled and complained, but we loved what that garden reaped–fresh vegetables for dinner.

Dad was generous with his garden-growing talents. Every Mother’s Day he planted my grandmother’s garden, and took care of it like it was his own.

My brother learned to garden from my Dad, and I’m convinced it shaped his career choice. Today he is a certified landscape architect and a master gardener. The seeds he planted with my Dad as a toddler in overalls shaped him in ways we never imagined at the time, and now he repeats his own planting ritual every year in Seattle, Washington. He combines the time spent with Dad with the knowledge gained in study and experience, and creates a vegetable, flower, sculpture masterpiece that cause passerbys to stare and wonder.

My sister would plant a master garden, too, if she didn’t live in Texas where everything gets burned up in the summer. She did have an amazing one in Alaska, one that I’m sure made Dad start turning over soil in heaven.

I’m wondering which flower to bring to the grave this year. Maybe I bring a flowering tomato plant. He’d like that. Or humor him with some sprouting parsnips, since he loved them and we despised them. I think I like sunflowers the best. They are strong and cheerful like he was, unfailingly positive when things were bad. He always lined the garden with the giant variety, and took great joy in watching them reach toward the warmth.

Here are some books about wildflowers that I’ve loved reading with my kids over the years. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them, too.

The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush retells the Native American legend of how this beautiful red flower came to be. It’s the story of Little Gopher and his dream that he would one day paint a picture that was as pure as the colors in the evening sky.

The classic Miss Rumphius tells the story of a woman who wants to make the world more beautiful. She does this by planting five bushels of lupine seeds throughout the landscape. The next spring when the blue, purple and rose-colored flowers dot the hillsides, she is perfectly happy.

Blueberry Shoe is perhaps less known than the others, but is a darling story of a little boy who loses his shoe while picking blueberries with his family. Despite an extensive search, the family doesn’t find the shoe until the next summer when they go picking again. Little boy’s shoe has a single blueberry plant growing out of it. Only the reader learns what has really happened to the shoe during the long winter!

Happy reading.

I have always loved wildflowers. I love the way they grow wherever they want, sometimes jutting out of the rocks on a waterfall or right next to another flower they want to be next to. How they grow toward the sun or the shade or whatever they crave most. How there is no rhyme or reason to where they’re growing.

Our little Mom and Dad getaway last weekend included a breathtaking hike in Targhee National Forest. The goal was to get high enough to get a view of the spectacular Tetons. En route we hiked through a wildflower paradise. We came across 20 different varieties, half of which we had to look up the names. We also saw a mama moose and her baby grazing not too far away, and were serenaded by an idyllic mountain stream.

On most Mom and Dad getaways I don’t wish the kids were along. But I wanted to show them these incredible wildflowers and let them see the moose duo. What does my daughter call a beautiful sight? Eye candy. The landscape was eye candy and then some. Check out this website to learn more about wildflowers.

One of the main things parents can do to be better parents is to get away from the kids once in a while. A little Mom and Dad R and R without anyone begging me to butter their toast or look for their favorite doll can do wonders for my parenting skills.

My husband and I stumbled upon some great luck last night. We had traveled to Rexburg, Idaho, (sans kids) so my husband could give a talk to a group of political science students. After the talk we went out to dinner and to a movie and were walking into the hotel discussing how it was too cloudy to see any stars. My husband was disappointed about this. We got up to our hotel room to discover that our door was broken and wouldn’t lock. So we had to change rooms. The only room available was the Galaxy Fantasy Suite.We had stumbled into our own Star Trek Hollodeck. “Energize!”

Our room was painted like the solar system with a rock-hewn jacuzzi and a waterfall in the corner. A big screen TV piped digital sound around the room. The bathroom sink was shaped like a planet with lights underneath the glass surface. The water from the faucet cascaded in a fanned-like shape into the bowl. Best of all were the twinkling stars that sparkled on the ceiling.

My husband got his stars after all. Hopefully I will have rejuvenated enough to deal with the kids for the rest of the summer. Except that Darren tells me we’re going on an 8-mile hike today. I might be going home on a stretcher.

I think the 4th of July is one of the most fun holidays. There’s no pressure of gift giving or receiving, or worry about how much you just spent on gifts. You don’t have to spend a week cooking for a feast that lasts 30 minutes. It’s just swiimming, barbecues, outdoor games, baseball games and fireworks. My almost six-year old asked a bunch of questions today like “Why do they light of fireworks” and “How do they light off fireworks” and “Why are we all wearing red, white and blue?” It was a pleasure to take time to answer her questions because the 4th of July is a “fun,” no-pressure holiday as opposed to a religious holidiay or an expensive holiday or a why-is-this-a-holiday holiday?

The highlight of our 4th of July today was playing sprinkler kickball. It was 95 degrees and I thought there was no way I was going to play out in the heat of the day. But when you add the water element, the whole dynamic changes. It’s a pleasure to play when you’re cool.

Put the sprinkler at home plate. Turn it on. Use hula hoops as bases. The person who is kicking stands behind the kickball and runs through the sprinkler to kick. This makes for crazy kicks, the kind you don’t know where they’re going. Sliding into home is more fun than ever because you keep S L I D I N G forever, sometimes even into the neighbor’s yard. Best of all, you never get hot! What a blast!

Part of our backyard campout last weekend included homemade ice cream, summer’s most perfect treat. I thought I’d share the recipe with you.

Makes 1 gallon

2 14 ounce cans sweetened condensed milk
5 cups milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups fresh berries, sprinkled with sugar and masehd with a potato masher

Combine all ingredients in a freezer canister for ice cream. Freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

You’re also going to need a new extra things like severl bags of ice and some rock salt to melt the ice. Hopefully you have an ice cream maker laying around. I got three for my wedding, so we were well-prepared in that area. Visit recipes for homemade ice cream and how to’s on how this process works.

Tip: Our family only invited several people over to eat the ice cream and it’s a good thing because we all ate three bowls each. It was absolutely silent for 10 minutes while people indulged. We dipped lemon cookies into the ice cream to further indulge. So if you want to really pig out (which you will) keep the guest list small. Leftovers are always fun, too.

Maybe you’re not up to a full-blown, pack-up-everything-you-own campout where you actually drive to a campsite near or far from your home. Let’s face it, camping’s a ton of work, whether you think it’s worth it or not. But here’s something you can do if you have a tent and some sleeping bags, or even a tarp and some blankets if you live where there are no mosquitos.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most fun. “Like sleeping in a tent with Daddy,” my almost-six-year old says. Or roasting marshmallows over the barbecue or backyard firepit. Or, just sleeping in the back yard. It’s perfect if you need to go potty in the night, or if you’re uncomfortable in any way. You can just go in the house to your own bed.

We did this on Friday night. We’d just watched a kind of scary Star Trek episode and the kids were a bit freaked out to sleep outside. So I slept in the family room witih one kid, while Darren had the two younger ones slept outside in a tent. Our oldest was on a church youth overnighter. My back hurt a bit from sleeping on the couch, but everyone who was outside had a great sleep once we got rid of the spider that was dangling over Leah’s head. She was all cozy in her sleeping bags, stuffed animals and about five assorted blankets. She came in about nine the next morning declaring that she was quite grown up for sleeping in the tent all night. I agreed.

Here are some other fun things to try during a backyard campout:

* Try to find the Big Dipper and Milky Way.
* Play cards on the picnic table.
* Tell funny stories, not scary ones, or you will have put up the tent for nothing.

For more fun things to do check out The Great American Campout. Your kids will always remember that you camped out in the back yard.