Here Comes The Sun, Dun-na-na-na...

Well, it's finally happened. After a pretty mild summer, the sun has officially come out and has started to relentlessly shine itself down, in preparation of killing us all. 104 degrees yesterday! 75% humidity! Everyone around here is cranky. We're all stuck indoors because nobody wants to venture outside, not even to the van to go somewhere. It's like 30 feet to the van but in the time it would take to get there, a person could melt into a puddle of goo. Not worth it.

Every day Gus comes over with Mickey because his place doesn't have AC, just a couple of old fans. Today he brought his nephew, Levi, over to play with Emmie. We like to joke that someday the two of them are going to wind up together. Levi Preston and Emmeline Bradley, a match made in heaven. Of course, not for another decade or two. But someday. Right now the only thing they have in common is that they both like to unroll the toilet paper and make a huge mess the second you look the other way. And splash around in the cat's water dish. And smear applesauce on the dog.

But it's all good. We're surviving. And school starts in a couple of weeks. Gus and I are going to a rent a house this year with three of our friends from school. My parents flipped out when we told them, but I think they've finally accepted it. Because it's happening.

I hope it will be awesome.

Camping!

We got to go camping last weekend! Like, actual camping at a campground! Mom, Dad, Caitlin, Oliver, Emmie, Gus, Mickey, and me.

My mom was in charge of the BBQ and did a most excellent job.

Mickey loved being out in the woods. There are sticks everywhere!!

 

Gus searches for a really annoying-sounding bird we kept hearing. I don't think he ever found it.

Dad & Caitlin go for a spin.

Gus teaches Emmie to dance!

I think Gus is Emmie's new Favorite Person.

Caitlin and Oliver being silly

"Hey, who's in my bed?"

"Oh well, there's room for two."

D'awww

Gus & me:)

 Did I mention Mickey LOVED camping?

At night, Caitlin & Oliver got their first taste of roasted marshmallows

Yum!

Emmie was more interested in the fireflies. And the crickets. And the zipper on the tent. Annnd pretty much anything and everything.

Fireside conversations

 Gus knows how to make perfect marshmallows, golden brown with perfectly-melted insides.

Mine just burn.

Telling ghost stories

 Annnd time for bed!

Now it's back to the real world. :(

Families & Fireworks

July 4th (Independence Day to us crazy Americans) was okay this year. Gus and Mickey came over, and so did Aunt Kathy, Ray, and Bethany. We had barbecue and set off fireworks.

However, in the midst of all the sparkler action, Aunt Kathy and Ray got into an EPIC fight. I'm pretty sure it started over a bag of potato chips. Before long, they were screaming at each other and using some pretty nasty language! Mickey started howling and Emmy started crying and my dad finally had to go tell them to take it somewhere else. As in, leave. 

So they did. Ray drove off in their car and Aunt Kathy went inside and locked herself in the bathroom. Which I guess technically isn't leaving, but at least the fighting was over. Later, Aunt Kathy told my parents she was going to go check herself in to a spa for a few days. Then she left, too.

 Bethany stayed the night with us. We had a slumber party in my room -- her, me, and Caitlin -- and after Caitlin fell asleep Bethany told me not to worry about what happened, because Ray and Kathy fight all the time. I feel so bad for Bethany. I think I'll ask my parents if she can stay with us more often this summer. She really has grown up into a cool person. I remember when she was a little kid and she came to stay with us and she was SO ANNOYING. 

Well, she still can be, sometimes, but she's way better than she used to be.

Anyway, that was our holiday, and I'll keep you all posted on the continuing saga of terror that IS Kathy and Ray. (As if anybody cares!)

Beach Trip

So my grandparents -- my dad’s parents -- decided they were going to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by inviting my entire extended family to a oceanside resort for an entire week. 

Now, I know I’m not married yet, and I don’t have kids, but if I ever have a 50th wedding anniversary -- or any anniversary, really -- I’m pretty sure that my children will NOT be allowed to be present. That is SO not romantic! I can not understand why my grandparents wanted us all there. And by us, I mean my family (my parents, me, Caitlin, Oliver, and Emmie) and Uncle Bill and Aunt Sheila and their kids (Tennyson, Carmody, and Langston.)

Yeah, that's a heck of a lot of people. Here are some pix for reference:

Grandma & Grandpa

My mom & dad

Uncle Bill & Aunt Sheila

Me

Caitlin (5)               Oliver (5)                 Emmy (1)

Tennyson (13)           Carmody (12)           Langston (3.5)

The resort my grandparents chose was called Blue Heart Canyon. I’m sure there was some kind of touching story behind the name -- maybe it had something to do with blue skies.... or a beloved, deceased wife’s great love for the outdoors. But I thought it sounded absolutely disgusting.

My grandparents rented what can only be a described as a cabin condo. It had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living area, and game room, plus a sprawling deck with a barbecue pit and a swingset out back for the munchkins.

Now, five bedrooms may seem like a lot, but keep in mind who else was going. Bedroom #1- for my grandparents. Bedroom #2-- for Bill and Sheila, and bedroom #3-- for my parents and Emmy. That left two. One for boys, one for girls. Tennyson, Oliver, and Langston would board together, and I was doomed to bunk with Caitlin and, for the love of all things evil and obnoxious, Miss Carmody Bradley.

You may remember Carmody from Thanksgiving, 2007, when she and Tennyson destroyed my beloved doll house and then proceeded to try to cover up the heinous crime.  Well, they may have come up in age, but they certainly haven’t sprouted angel wings. Carmody is now pressing thirteen, and you know what THAT’S like. Everyone telling you to “be yourself” and not give in to peer pressure, but in the next breath telling you what to do and saying everything you do is wrong. It’s enough to send anyone to the psych ward. And Tennyson. Well, he’s going on fourteen and a whole nother story....

On the first day of our vacation, my parents stuffed us all into the minivan, luggage and family members alike, and drove to the resort. My grandparents were already there, but Uncle Bill’s family had yet to arrive. Which gave us about an hour to settle in, in relative peace.

And then.... THEY CAME....

I could actually sense them coming before their van even appeared along the resort’s winding driveway. There was a kind of a strange hum, a sinister vibe that made my blood run cold. And then *HONK* *HONK*! Screeeech. A door slid open and three little urchins tumbled out of the van, yelling “We’re HERE!”... as if such a thing was not entirely obvious.

Caitlin and Oliver, not knowing any better, ran to meet their cousins with excitement. This was a mistake, of course, and I should have tried to stop them, but it was pure chaos, and I wasn’t at my personal best. And so it happened that Tennyson swooped toward Oliver, picked him up, and started spinning him around. At first Oliver was like “tee heeeee,” but then Tennyson just kept spinning and Oliver was crying “AUGHHHH!” and before any of us could get to him, Tennyson had friggin LET GO, and Oliver went flying. It could have been epically awful, if he had hit the pavement, but luckily (?) he landed in a bush. Unfortunately, it was a kind of a prickly bush, and Oliver got scratched up pretty badly.

After that, none of the kids would go anywhere near Tennyson. The jerk didn’t even get punished for tossing Oliver; he claimed it was “an accident.” His parents were like, “Well, honey, no more spinning your cousins, okay?” and Tennyson just smirked, like he was saying, “Okay, I won’t SPIN them, but what OTHER THINGS can I do?”

That night, we all had dinner together in the resort’s big old dining room. The waiters pushed three tables together. Surprisingly, all the kids were pretty well-behaved, but this was probably because the adults were wise enough to spread themselves out amongst all the children and not let the kids all sit together. I’m sure Tennyson was sitting there just WAITING for an opportunity to stab someone with a fork and claim he thought that person’s hand was merely his filet mignon.

After dinner, we went back to our condo and broke out some board games. My dad, Uncle Bill, Grandma, and I began playing a game of Ticket To Ride. Oliver sat in my lap as my unofficial “partner.” Over at the text table, Grandpa, Caitlin, Mom, Sheila, Langston, and Tennyson were working on a puzzle. Carmody was sitting on an armchair, with Emmy in her lap, reading her a couple of stories.

At some point, Caitlin ran off to use the bathroom, and came back shrieking.

“What’s wrong?” my mom cried, as Caitlin tore into the room.

“There’s-- there’s-- there’s something wrong with the SINK!” came my sister’s breathless response.

Indeed there was. SOMEBODY had stuffed a couple of lacy pink socks in the sink’s drain and then left the water running. They’d even put a sock in the emergency drain at the top of the sink. So guess what; water had flowed out of the sink and had flooded the counter and had made the floor nice and slippery.

All accusatory eyes were on the kids.

“I didn’t do it!” Tennyson insisted, his face the picture of innocence.

“I didn’t either,” said Carmody. “I was with Emmy the whoooole time.”

“I think I know how we can tell who did it,” said Tennyson, as the grown-ups began cleaning up the mess. “Whose socks are those?”

“They look like Caitlin’s,” said Mom, wrinkling her nose at the now-soaking garments.

“Aha,” said Tennyson, as if that solved everything. “I guess Caitlin did it, then.”

“Why would I want to ruin my own socks?!” Caitlin cried.

Good point, I thought.

In the end, we never did figure out the culprit, but the parents laid down the law and said that if there were any more pranks like this, EVERYONE would be grounded from going to the beach for 24 hours.

At bedtime, Oliver threw a fit when he saw he was to bunk with Tennyson. He didn’t mind sharing a room with little Langston -- those two actually got on pretty well -- but I think he was afraid Tennyson would try to smother him in his sleep or something. I didn’t blame him for thinking so. In the end, it was decided that, at least for the first couple of nights, Caitlin, Oliver, and I would share one room, and Tennyson, Carmody, and Langston would share the other. (Like I mentioned before, Emmy had crib in my parents’ room.)

The next morning, we were all awoken way too early (7am? On vacation???) and went to the dining room for a breakfast buffet. After we ate, the adults announced that several of them wanted to go “antiquing,” which is where people go to little antique shops and buy, I don’t know, old stuff. It was agreed that everyone who didn’t want to do that would go down to the beach for a few hours.

Dad and Uncle Bill led the way down to the shore, followed by me, Caitlin, Oliver, Tennyson, Carmody, and Langston. We got slathered with sun lotion and began to play.

“Who wants me to bury them in the sand?” Tennyson called loudly.

“How ‘bout we bury YOU in the sand?” I asked sweetly.

“THAT’S no fun,” he said.

Well, it sounded fun to me.

All the kids except Tennyson began building sandcastles. Tenny went out to jump waves. “Don’t go out too far!” Uncle Bill called after him. There was no lifeguard on duty at this beach; signs posted said “swim at your own risk.”

To his credit, Uncle Bill really did seem like he was keeping an eye on Tennyson. But with Langston constantly trying to eat sand -- not to mention all the little kids fighting over the “best” sand shovels -- not to mention Carmody getting bitten by a crab or something -- well, it’s not surprising that, at one point, someone said, “Hey, where’s Tenny?”

All heads snapped toward the ocean. Bodies did a 360 as everyone scanned the beach for him. “TENNY!” Uncle Bill shouted, leaping off his beach towel and running toward the ocean.

My dad turned to me. “Ella, keep all the kids here on the towels. DON’T let them come near the ocean. If you see me wave my arms like this” -- he demonstrated-- “I want you to call 9-1-1. Got it?”

I got it. Except it was easier said than done. All the kids wanted to “watch” the supposed rescue, and they kept inching closer to the sea. I’d drag one of them back just as another one would move forward. “Carmody, help me out here!” I cried through clenched teeth.
“But I wanna SEE!” she said. “And you’re not my boss.”

“At least hold onto your brother,” I said, and she obliged, taking Langston’s hand. I held firmly to Caitlin and Oliver’s as we watched our fathers paddle through the ocean, looking for poor, drowning Tennyson.

Now, there were some other people on the beach at this time, but none of them were very useful. Like, there was one couple who were sunbathing, their backs to the sky, and I doubt they even noticed anything going on around them. There were some other people flying a kite, and another family farther down the beach, looking for shells. But there was nobody who looked like they could be all life-guardy and find Tenny in the ocean.

After what seemed like only two or three minutes, my dad began to do the arm-waving thing he’d showed me. I dragged my siblings back to the towels, grabbed my phone and called 9-1-1.

I really don’t want to extend the dramatics here, because in the end, it was a really stupid situation. We were all scared, 9-1-1 was called, rescuers came, and -- well, suffice it to say, Tennyson Bradley was NOT drowned, not dead... he had gone back up to the condo without telling anyone.

Yep.

And even though Tennyson maintained the whole, innocent, “I just had to go to the bathroom! I didn’t think anyone would even notice!” thing, he got in SUCH BIG TROUBLE, it was purely awesome. He got completely grounded to his bedroom at the condo -- no pool, no beach, no game nights... and for meals? He was allowed to eat with the family, but his parents ordered his food for him, and he got a lot of vegetables over the next few days. No dessert, of course.

The kid was miserable. It was great. Grandma and Grandpa Bradley felt sorry for him, and tried to reason with Bill and Sheila. “If it was an honest mistake, shouldn’t you go easy on him? This is a vacation!” But Bill, especially, stood firm, and said that IF Tennyson behaved himself, they would let him out of the condo on the very last day.

With Tennyson out of the way, the rest of us enjoyed our vacation quite a lot! The day after the “beach incident,” Mom, Sheila, Grandpa and Grandma took me, Carmody, Caitlin, Oliver, and Langston into town, where we rented two “family bikes” which are like cars that you pedal. We rode those around for an hour, then had ice cream, played mini golf, and visited a candy shop, filling a sack with at least fifty different flavors of saltwater taffy. That evening, the dads took the older kids (minus Emmy and Langston, and Tennyson of course) to a movie that was playing at a single-screen theater in town.

 

My grandparents celebrated their actual anniversary on the last evening we were there. Tenny was allowed out of his room for cake and ice cream. Everyone gave my grandparents presents. Aunt Sheila had made a slideshow with pictures galore, starting with my grandparents as little kids, continuing with pix of them from when they were dating, photos of their wedding, and on and on. The adults loved it. It made them all cry. The kids lasted about five minutes before the yawns began. Me? I was somewhere in the middle. Mostly I enjoyed it. It’s my family’s history, after all. 

Before I knew it, our vacation was over and we were back home, with sand in our suitcases and a big pile of half-wet laundry for my parents to deal with.

We’ve been back for a week, now. Oliver’s scratches have healed. Our sunburns have begun to peel nicely (and by nicely, I mean grossly.) And I have two more months of summer to look forward to, before heading back to my third (!) year of college.

So that’s the story of our epic (?) family vacation, 2012.

Maybe next year we can go to Disney World!

Yeah, I won’t hold my breath.

Emmie's Story

Hey, it's me, Ella. I have a new baby sister. Only she’s not really new anymore... she’s walking and blabbering and getting into everything. She’s one. Her name is Emmeline; we call her Emmie. She has red hair, which hasn’t been seen in our family since my mother’s mother. And I absolutely love her.

This is the story of how she came about.

WAIT. WHOA. BACK THAT BUS RIGHT UP. I didn’t mean THAT. I didn’t mean I was going to go to the BEGINNING! Gross, that is between my parents and... my parents. EW. FORGET I SAID ANYTHING. SO. THIS IS THE STORY OF HOW I FOUND OUT EMMIE WAS ON THE WAY. Okay. That sounds pretty innocent, right? WELL GOOD, BECAUSE IT IS. Why am I yelling?

Okay, so here’s the story. It was the summer after I graduated from high school. I was working at the Enchanted Kingdom, a small-time theme park about twenty miles outside of town. Every day I was wearing a hideous, hot, fuzzy cow costume, trying to make kids smile. Most of them just cried. When I wasn’t in the costume, I was working behind the scenes, sorting garbage and recycling and doing all other kinds of icky stuff, but I didn’t really mind, because at least I didn’t have to wear a cow costume while doing it. This is called “looking on the bright side.” (I try, I really do.)

My dad was off for the summer (he’s a professor) and was working on an article. Actually, he’s always working on an article. He writes things for boring scholastic journals and stuff. They pay him, so that’s good, but honestly, it makes me cry to try to read them. They are SO. DULL. (Sorry, Dad.)

My mom, on the other hand, is always doing something different. She’s dabbled in card making, jewelry making, knitting, computer programming, home daycare-ing... and that particular summer, it was pies. Pie-making. I don’t know what started her on it -- or who thinks SUMMER is a good time to BAKE -- but that’s what happened. Caitlin and Oliver and I were all for it, though, because pies are most delicious, especially with ice cream on top, and my mom made good pies. Really good. She even entered one in the county fair, and won. So, you know... that’s cred, right there.

Towards the end of that summer I’d noticed my mom was gaining a little weight, but I didn’t want to say anything. I mean, I’d gained some too. No big. I just thought it was a result of eating too much pie. I was about to start college, and I was determined to spend at least two hours a week in the gym, then, so... well... I’d be okay. But my mom? Yeah, she was doomed to just keep getting bigger, as I would soon find out.

A few days before I left for college, my parents sat the three of us kids down and said the following: “Kids, we have something we want to tell you.” It’s alarming when this phrase is uttered by parents, and even more alarming the statements that can follow it. Really, what can come after something like THAT? Parents never just say, “Kids, we have something we want to tell you... we are going to the grocery store in an hour. Need anything?” No, “Kids, we have something we want to tell you” is always followed by something SERIOUS. Like:

A) We are separating, possibly getting a divorce.

B) One or more of us has a terrible disease and we are going to die shortly.

C) The bank has foreclosed on our house and we’re moving to the slums.

D) Your mother has been demoted and we’re moving to Saudi Arabia.

or E) We are going to have a baby.

Out of all those, which would YOU be the most grateful to hear come out of your parents’ mouths? Well, for me, I’m sorry, but it would have to be E. EVEN THOUGH I thought having twin siblings was enough. EVEN THOUGH I thought my parents (age 40) were too old to be considering such things. I knew that if they were going to spill some life-altering information, a baby was the lesser (lessest? least?) of all evils.

And how did we take the news? Well, keep in mind that when my parents sat us down for this talk, the twins were just 3 1/2. Oliver just sat there looking confused. Caitlin got all excited, ran and got her doll’s baby bottle, and brought it to mom, as if to say, “Here, you’re gonna need this.” And I just sat there shaking my head. Because, REALLY, PARENTS? You needed MORE CHILDREN?

Gus was the first person I told. He was actually pleased by the information, saying that now his nephew, Levi (then just an infant) would soon have a playmate. Levi and his parents, Gus’s brother and sister-in-law, live with Gus and his dad. It’s a small house and things are a little strained. But trust Gus to look on the positive side of everything. I thought it was kinda sweet.

Then college began. Gus and I went off together. Life became a whirlwind of papers, classes, books, parties, paintings (what? I’m an Art Major), late nights and tired mornings. I came home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, each time observing that my mother’s midsection had grown. The twins turned four in February, and not too many days after that, my mom went into labor and I got a phone call with the news -- Emmeline Rose; 8 lbs, 1 ounce, 21 inches long, yada yada. Through the power of the Internet, I got to see photos and video. She was adorable! I was so excited to get to finally meet her a few weeks later.

So that’s it. The story of Emmeline. And here's a video I put together of some footage we shot the other day!