Category Archives: Travel

Lumpy and Stupid Visit the Country, Part 2

I remember once long ago asking my father what part of Korea he was from. He told me and then added, “There’s absolutely no reason why you would have ever heard of it.” On Tuesday we drove two and a half hours south of Seoul to Yesan-gun in South Chungcheong Province to visit my father’s last living sibling. As we were driving there I looked it up on wikipedia and found that in 2009, it earned the designation of a “‘slow city,’ one in which traditional cultures and communities are preserved.” Its most famous native son is the resistance fighter Yoon Bong-Gil. In 1932 during the Japanese Occupation, he carried out a bombing in Shanghai which killed a Japanese general and a Chancellor. Left seriously wounded were an army commander, the Japanese Consul-General, and a special envoy. As we got closer, the view out the window was mostly muddy rice paddies and greenhouses. In the midst of this agricultural landscape, it was quite a startling sight to see the monolithic memorial in Yoon Bong-Gil’s honor decorated with what looked like a million Korean flags.

We pulled into a narrow alley and came to a stop here:

This is a newer house that was built in the place of the old hanok, where my father lived as a child. It is now occupied by the widow of one of his older brothers, the second woman to the left:

My father’s brother (furthest to the right) and his wife (furthest to the left) drove the short distance from their own house to meet us there.

I was delighted when my aunt brought out an ancient-looking photo album. We have very few photos of my father, and none of him as a child. I had never seen this photo before:

My dad is on the far left.

My dad is not in this photo, but pictured are a lot of my aunts and uncles. My grandmother is in the center, fifth from the left.

Here’s one of just my grandmother. My dad has always said I look like her:

What do you think?

We admired the garden and the cats in the courtyard before heading to lunch. The calico’s name is “Nabi,” or Butterfly – a generic cat name in Korea. I wish I knew what the other kitty’s name is…My mom says it was probably also Nabi!

The county’s other claim to fame is Sudeoksa, a Buddhist temple, which has been designated a National Treasure. We drove there for lunch along with busloads of tourists who had the same idea:

A pama (perm) and a bright colored jacket – the official uniform for tourism.

We took a few photos:

and then went to my uncle’s house:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a picture of the whole house, which is perched on supports with the entryway on the second floor.

This is the view from the front entrance:

Inside the house we were thrilled to find:

25 day old poodle puppies!

and a sweet Yorkie.

Both dogs immediately took to my dad, who has always been a dog-lover. Now I’m thinking it’s genetic…

After letting the mother poodle finish up his yogurt…

…my uncle kept hand feeding her and the Yorkie something else. He would crunch something in his own mouth and then spit it into his own hand to feed both of the dogs in turn. I was dying to know what it was. Later my dad told me it was candy.

After hugs and farewells, we headed back to Seoul with a stop for dinner:

…where this:

became this:

Lumpy and Stupid Visit the Country, Part I

On Monday we drove two hours to the north of Seoul to visit the graves of my mother’s parents and brother. On Tuesday we drove two and a half hours to the south of Seoul to visit my father’s last living sibling – a brother who is three years older than he is.

En route we stopped at a rest area, where I couldn’t resist snapping photos like a hayseed visiting the big city for the first time.

Hmmm…Which side to pick?

WRONG SIDE!

Squatter

The right side was equipped with this device, as many of the public restrooms are:

In the land of perfect people, with a push of a button, unpleasant bathroom noises can be masked with the pleasing sound of flowing water.

Here’s a good idea:

Massage chairs for weary travelers.

No Popeye’s Fried Chicken or Sbarros in this rest area:

Mmm…onion donuts!

We tried these cunning little walnut cakes, a specialty of the region:

Alas, like most Korean desserts, they were filled with sweet red bean paste.

More on Lumpy and Stupid’s visit to the country tomorrow.

Visiting the Gravesite

On Monday we drove two hours north of Seoul to visit the graves of my maternal grandparents and uncle. There we met up with my mother’s brother and his wife, as well as some others, who accompanied them.

The Korean tradition is for graves to be sited on mountainsides. My grandfather’s church bought this mountain for their burial ground. The last time we visited the gravesite, my mother was so ill we thought it would be the last time she would be able to make the trip up the mountain. On that day, (was it six or seven years ago?), we ran into someone she recognized from her father’s church who was there tending to the graves. To our surprise and dismay she called to him and pointed out the spot she had picked, not too far from her parents, where she wanted to be buried. We were all desperately sad that day. It was one of the most painful days of my life.

It was a somber occasion this time, but I could tell it meant the world to my mother to be able to visit her parents’ and beloved brother’s graves again. It meant the world to us that we could be there with her. I think back to the last time we were there, and I realize that life is so unpredictable. It sucker punches you; it showers you with unexpected blessings. All you can do is roll with it. Kind of like this trip, actually. Every morning my sister and I naively ask what the plan for the day is. My parents tell us what we’ll be doing – and it never, never goes as they said it would…We’re rolling with it.

The last time we were here, my dad pointed out where our names are carved into the stone marker between my grandparents’ two graves. This time my mom was able to point them out to us herself:

With her cane, she pointed out my oldest sister’s name, my second sister’s name directly under hers, and mine below theirs.

“Hmmm, she said. “I guess they didn’t put Teddy’s name on it.” (That’s our brother).

She looked puzzled as she continued to read the names of all of my grandparents’ children and their children inscribed upon the stone.

“Oh, there it is!” she said as she pointed out our brother’s name and laughed. “They put it higher on the stone, because he’s a boy.”

Yep.

We headed down the mountain to visit my uncle’s grave. One of the kind gentlemen in our party did his best to sweep aside the slippery dry pine needles so my mom wouldn’t fall.

That’s my uncle and aunt to the left, and my parents to the right.

After laying the flowers we had brought and saying a prayer, we drove on a short distance to my grandfather’s mountain. He bought this property, located fairly near the DMZ, shortly after the Korean War. After the war, it had been completely denuded of all trees. He spent the rest of his life replanting trees on that mountain like a Korean Johnny Appleseed. My mother remembers being taken there often with her siblings to help him plant trees. After he founded a university, it became a tradition for his students to plant trees there as well. I remember hearing as a child long ago, that someone who had been camping on the property, accidentally burned down a huge swathe of trees. For my grandfather it was years of his life and effort going up in flames. He was absolutely devastated.

Today the mountain is being used as a retreat center for the students who attend my grandfather’s university, located in the middle of Seoul. Two hours away from the city, they come to a mountain lush with trees and vegetation. We drove along rough, narrow roads lined with birch saplings that have been recently planted by students and stopped to admire the view. We could hear nothing but the sound of birds singing in the trees.

We drove on to find lunch at a “mushroom shabu shabu restaurant” out in the middle of nowhere.

We stopped to say hello to these dogs that were being kept in the courtyard…

If only I could bring home one of these Korean style doghouses!

Most of the clientele were army soldiers stationed near the DMZ. I looked at all the identical black boots that had been taken off and left by the dining room, (the custom in Korea), and wondered how they would figure out whose were whose after lunch.

Aftermath of the soldiers’ meal.

Mushroom shabu shabu:

After all the mushrooms and vegetables are finished, and you think it’s very possible that you might explode from eating too much, noodles are added to the broth to finish off the meal.

You manage to finish the noodles and are surprised and relieved to discover that although your stomach is grossly distended, it is still intact.

And then they bring a huge bowl of rice to the table and add it to the little broth there is left. They continue to stir it until it acquires the consistency of delicious Korean risotto…

…which you can’t NOT eat, obviously.

After all of this, I thought for sure my mother would want to drive the two hours back to the city and collapse in a heap until the next morning. As is so often the case, I was wrong.

As we came to a stop here:

…my sister and I gave each other a wary look. That morning when we had asked my parents what the day’s itinerary would be, we were told we would visit the gravesite and return to the city, period. My parents wanted to stop at this nursery:

where they were selling dandelions in flats alongside other less identifiable plants:

They wanted these to buy some seeds to plant a little of Korea in their own backyard in America:

Now, surely, the day was done.

Nope.

We stopped one more time at a store called Hanaro. It’s kind of like Walmart. And kind of not:

Kimchi pots.

My mom’s mission was to buy dried anchovies and seaweed. There are entire aisles devoted to nothing but dried anchovies and seaweed.

“Uh, mom, there’s a little place not too far from where you live in Virginia called H Mart where you can buy all of these things…” my sister said.

“They’re cheaper here,” she replied serenely.

Last night my sister and I wandered around the Lotte Department store Duty Free section and witnessed a shopping frenzy like we had never seen before. Bargain-hunters, the vast majority of them Chinese, had brought gigantic suitcases to the store and were stuffing them full of fancy Korean cosmetics they had stood in long lines waiting to buy. My mom’s entire suitcase is going to be crammed full of dried fish and seaweed.

Done?

Nope.

Dinner:

We’re rolling with it.

 

Weekend Snapshots 23

Saturday

We are staying at the beautiful Westin Chosun Seoul, which happens to be in my mother’s childhood neighborhood. From our window, we can see City Hall, the building in the foreground. My mom’s family used to live in a traditional Korean style house (hanok), right across the street.

We can see City Hall from our hotel window…

The old house is long gone. City Hall and a few of the historical sites which survived bombings are the only buildings that are left from my mother’s childhood.

My father recalls catching a ride on a fishing boat and sailing to Inchon right after the Korean War. From there he hiked to the top of Namsan (South) Mountain to survey the city. He remembers seeing nothing but ashes and the stone walls and chimneys that didn’t get burned down the ground by the bombings.

It’s hard to imagine that scene now, when you see the bustling city:

The Westin Chosun is adjacent to the Hwangudan, or Altar, built in 1897 by Emperor Gojung (1852-1919). The American bombers deliberately made an effort to spare this and other historical sites. Seoul is full of these spots where the old and new are squeezed together:

We saw a group of schoolchildren cleaning the pagoda:

The Deoksugung Palace is right down the street:

The throne
The ceiling

Check out the cell phones…

We found a little restaurant across from the hotel. No menu, just this:

A delicious, steaming cauldron full of spicy kimchi jigae.

Right next door to the hotel is the Lotte Department Store. The Food Court is spectacular:

But where’s the potato salad?

How about fried squid on a stick instead?

Sunday

Mother’s Day with my mama:

It was nice to see my dad behind the pulpit again…He was the minister of this university church for a few years:

At night we went to the Jogyesa Temple which is decorated for Buddha’s birthday with thousands of colorful lanterns:

At the entrance to the temple:

Parents Day

We made it to Seoul! Fittingly, it’s Parents Day in Korea today.

As per usual there was an entourage awaiting my parents at the gate…I counted at least eight to ten people there to welcome them back:

We’re staying at the beautiful Westin Chosun in Seoul. This is the view from our window:

Time to hit the hay!

My Parents’ Journey

Grandfather's Journey

The first time I read Grandfather’s Journey out loud to my children, I kept having to stop to recompose myself. My children were entirely used to this kind of nonsense. It would happen every. single. time I read them Eileen Spinelli’s Sophie’s Masterpiece, at many points throughout the years it took us to read through the entire Harry Potter series, every Christmas when I would read them Max Lucado’s The Crippled Lamb…When I would pause to gulp back a sob that threatened to escape, they would glance up at my face and then look back at the page I was in the middle of trying to read, politely ignoring the tears dropping on their little heads, waiting patiently for me to resume.

T and her cousins

I felt a keen pang of recognition as I read Allen Say’s story, the Caldecott Medal winner in 1994. In spare language and restrained watercolors, Say recounts the story of his grandfather, who immigrated from Japan to America and then back again to Japan. It reminded me of my own parents’ story:  their love for two different countries, and their irreconcilable longing for both. Say’s book ends with these words:

“The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.”

My mother told me once long ago that the minute she stepped off the plane in San Francisco for the first time in 1963, she felt at home in a way she never had in Korea. America suited her. As a woman, she relished her newfound freedom. She felt like she could finally be herself: an irrepressible charmer, who would easily chat up strangers everywhere she went…a woman who, instead of demurely tittering behind a hand covering her mouth, would toss her head back and give a full-throated chortle that would carry for miles…a Drama Queen, who could always command an audience. She discovered her true self in this country, and she was proud to become a naturalized American.

It never occurred to us that our parents would ever leave their adopted country, which they both embraced with a frank and almost corny patriotism. After many years, however, when they had lived longer in America than they had in Korea, they were reluctantly drawn back to the country of their birth by an overwhelming sense of duty and filial piety to help run a university that my grandfather had founded. When they would come back to visit their children at Christmas they would tell us that they couldn’t wait to get back to their own house in Virginia, the clean air, and us, of course. Every year they would declare that they would stay in Korea for just one more year. We believed them for the first few years, but these conversations were repeated every Christmas for more than a decade.

My mother finally returned to America when she was diagnosed with primary amyloidosis and was given 18 months to live. My sister found a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and convinced her to come for treatment. After multiple rounds of punishing chemotherapy it became clear that the treatment would kill her faster than her disease. My mother was kicked out of the clinical trial. To our utter dismay, as soon as she could manage to drag herself to the airport, she returned to Korea.

That summer my family and I went to Korea for a month. We were terrified that we would lose our mother at any minute and we wanted to make the most of the time we had left. We acted upon the premise that this summer might be our last one together…We took a long and grueling trip to the countryside to visit our maternal family’s burial grounds, assuming that it would be the last time my mother would ever be able to visit her parents’ and brother’s graves:

My dad showed my brother and me where our own names were engraved on our grandparents’ markers:

My mother recognized someone from my grandfather’s church, who was there tending the graves that day. She took the opportunity to point out to him the spot she had picked, not far from her parents’ graves, where she wanted to be buried.

My mother was spending most of her days in bed, but one day she insisted on taking us to the center of bustling Seoul to buy my daughter a traditional Korean dress. I remember nervously holding my breath as she made her way across busy city streets at a painfully slow crawl, not bothering to look left or right. My daughter has never been one to tolerate itchy clothing, and she was never shy about letting her displeasure be known if we tried to force her into anything that looked remotely uncomfortable. I was so worried that she would complain about having to try on the dress and ruin an experience that meant so much to my mother and had cost her so much energy. I could have wept for joy when she beamed with delight at the sight of herself in the extremely itchy Korean dress my mother bought for her.

I will always cherish the memory of my mother’s smile as she watched my daughter twirl this way and that, admiring herself in the mirror. Later that day when my mother had collapsed in bed, my sister and I dressed my daughter up in the hanbok again. We taught her how to bow in the traditional Korean way so that we could videotape it to show my mother later:

I noticed a change in my mother that summer. She was sick and weak, and yet she somehow seemed more powerful in Korea. One day we were on the campus of  the university when we noticed a young man skulking against a wall smoking a cigarette. She imperiously demanded that he leave the premises and that he take his offending cigarettes with him. He did so, repeatedly bowing apologetically as he hurried to obey my mother’s orders. Speeding cars hurtling along the streets of Seoul would come to a screeching halt as she would step into the street, staring straight ahead. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, she would hold up her wrinkled hand, commanding the drivers to stop for the several centuries it would take her to shuffle across the street. She knew all the best restaurants and their proprietors. She knew the best stalls at the marketplace and would chat amiably with the women who sat on their haunches serving up whatever mysterious roots or vegetables they were selling that day. One afternoon she called to tell me that she had picked out a bracelet for my daughter and that she wanted me to come with her to the jewelry shop across the street from her apartment. I watched awe-struck as she bargained with a woman, who helplessly caved in the face of her calm insistence that the price she would pay for the bracelet would be a ludicrously tiny fraction of the price listed on the tag. She was comfortable. She was home.

We didn’t know it at the time, but the chemotherapy that almost killed my mother, saved her life in the end. She is still in remission. About six years ago, my parents finally returned to their house in Virginia. The first months were terrible. My parents happened to arrive in the middle of a particularly harsh winter. The long flight had exhausted my mother, and it was taking much longer than usual for her to recover from jet lag. She knew she would never be able to make the arduous journey across the ocean again, and she was profoundly sad to have left behind her life in Korea forever.

“But mom,” I said to her, “Remember you once told me you felt more like yourself here in America?”

“That was before…I’ve been away from here for too long,” she replied sadly, “It’s not the same.”

That spring my mother desperately waited for the cherry blossoms to bloom on the tree in her yard. Cherry trees were blooming all around DC and in my parents’ neighborhood, but the tight buds on the tree in their own yard stubbornly refused to open. My sister and I anxiously conferred with each other about the status of those blooms every day. My mother’s very survival seemed to depend on that tree finally coming back to life again. As I wrote in my Cherry Blossoms post a few years ago, if my sister and I could have opened each blossom by hand, I swear we would have. Of course the tree eventually did break into bloom. It was the most riotously joyful display I’d ever seen on any tree anywhere. With their appearance, my mother’s spirits began to recover.

The cherry trees are blooming again now…I’ve always loved cherry blossoms, but they mean so much more to me now. Even after the bitterest of winters, they faithfully return every year, blessing us with their impossible, miraculous, ravishing blossoms.

My dad is turning 80 this year. For his birthday, my sister told him she would take him anywhere in the world he wanted to go. He’s a history buff, and has never been to Europe. We assumed he would want to go to a place like Rome or London. He wants to go back to Korea. In a few weeks I will go with my sister and parents back to a place they never thought they would see again. I think we will go back to visit the graves of our grandparents. We will leave Seoul to go to the country to visit my father’s surviving brothers. I imagine it will be for the last time, but who knows?

Life can be so precarious, so unpredictable, and sometimes…so wonderful.

The Gardens at the University of Virginia

It’s gray and rainy today here in Charlottesville, but yesterday was a perfect spring day.

Founder’s Day tributes on Monday – Thomas Jefferson’s birthday.

Yesterday, I wandered around The Gardens behind Thomas Jefferson’s “Academical Village” and found them in full bloom…Jefferson’s hope that the Gardens would “afford the quiet retirement so friendly to study” is being fulfilled even today. In each of the gardens, students were lounging in the grass reading books under a gentle shower of petals, poetically floating down all around them.

The Colonnade Club

Today the Garden Club of Virginia, guided by Jefferson’s vision, maintains the colonial-style gardens hidden behind the famous serpentine walls. Although the pavilions are occupied, the Gardens themselves are open to the public…

We laughed about this yesterday…

Yesterday when I was waiting with my son for his ride to DC, we reminisced about this incident from last year. I originally posted this on April 9, 2014…

The cherry blossoms hadn’t quite popped yet, but the Cherry Blossom Festival was in full swing this weekend.

After lunch, we decided to go paddle-boating in the Tidal Basin.

Two people had to peddle in our four person boat. My three kids argued over who would get to peddle as if they were vying for seats on the U.S. Olympic rowing team. The man who was helping us into the boat solved the problem by suggesting that we return to the dock halfway through to switch positions.

“Remember! You’re not allowed to switch positions in the middle of the water,” he warned, “When you’re ready to switch, you have to come back here and we’ll help you do it.”

The boys took the first shift while my daughter and I relaxed:

Halfway through the hour, we returned to the dock so that my daughter could have a turn. My oldest son graciously gave up his coveted spot to switch positions with her…

Moments before all hell broke loose.

…and immediately transformed into a crazed martinet. “FASTER! Peddle faster, you maggots!” he shouted gleefully.

His siblings bore his strident orders with good humor at first, but the relentless nature of his hectoring soon began to pall. Undeterred by my dirty looks and increasingly forceful requests that he put a sock in it, he kept goading his younger siblings. We were like the characters in Sartre’s Huis Clos, who eventually come to realize that they are in hell, and that their punishment is being trapped for eternity with each other.

To distract the kids, I suggested that we go investigate some white rocks I could see in the distance. I didn’t recognize them and wanted to get a closer look.

The two kids got the boat fairly close to the rocks, but not close enough for me to make out what they were.

“I still can’t see what they are. Can you get a little closer?” I asked.

My conscientious eleven year old, our family’s own Jiminy Cricket, advised me against this unwise course of action. “It will take us too long to get back to the dock if we get any closer to the rock.”

“But I really want to see what they are. How about you get us just a little closer?”

Meanwhile, my eldest took this as a signal to renew his taunts.

“CLOSER! Get CLOSER! Peddle harder, you maggots! I want to see bubbles in our wake!!!”

Against his own better judgment, Jiminy Cricket steered us close enough to the rocks so that I could see at last that it was the new(ish) Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial:

“OK, let’s head back now!” I said, sneaking a peek at the time.

“How much time do we have left to get back to the dock? NO! Don’t tell me, it will just stress me out. OK, go ahead and tell me.”

“Ummm, well, we have about ten minutes.”

Now Jiminy Cricket was pissed. He started scolding both of us.

“You HAD to see the rock! And NOW we’re going to be late getting back to the dock. Don’t blame me if they make us pay more for the boat! I TOLD you it would take too long, but NO, you HAD to get closer.”

“Don’t stress out about it! If we have to pay extra, we’ll just pay extra. It’s not a big deal,” I tried to reassure him.

All the while, his brother provided a steady dose of maddening counterpoint: “Is that the best you can do? We’re not even moving! Come ON! Peddle for all your worth, Maggots!”

Jiminy Cricket lost it: “YOU peddle then. I’m not going to peddle anymore!”

“I’d be glad to peddle, but we’re not allowed to switch.” (For some reason, now my eldest son switched to a velvety, smarmy English accent dripping with evil).

For dramatic effect my second son stopped peddling, even though I know it was killing him not to be making any progress back toward the dock.

“Well somebody has to peddle…,” I ventured, as the boat came to a standstill.

At that point we realized the youngest was not feeling well.

“I think I might throw up,” she moaned.

“Just stop peddling. STOP PEDDLING! Take your feet OFF the pedals. I can manage myself!” shrieked my poor little Jiminy Cricket as he resumed peddling as fast as he could, “UGH! My back is KILLING me! My legs are killing me!”

“QUIT your whining, you maggot and peddle!” (I whacked the boy to shut him up – to no avail). “Don’t tell me that’s the best you can do. Peddle harder!!!”

The ridiculousness of it got to me and I started shaking with silent laughter.

“You think this is FUNNY?!” asked Jiminy Cricket, apoplectic with rage.

“NO! I’m sorry! It’s not funny at ALL!” I said trying to get a hold of myself, “I’m sorry, I wish I could help you peddle, but….”

Finally, we made it back to the dock, about fifteen minutes past the time we were due. Fortunately, they took pity on us, and let us stagger off into the sunset without any additional payment.

As we walked on, my sweet Jiminy Cricket said, “Thanks so much for taking us on the awesome boat ride, Mommy.” I looked at him suspiciously to see if he was mocking me, but he continued with earnest sincerity, “It was so much fun!” (That one’s a keeper, I’m telling you)!

The three siblings reconciled…

and we headed back to meet up with my sister for our ride back to Arlington.

 

Destination Imagination

Part I:

I’ve recently discovered that there’s a right and wrong way to praise children, and I, of course, have been doing it aaaaall wrong. Not only have I been “cheapening” my words when I’ve praised my children, I may have actually been harming their development. I’ve created praise-junkies, afraid to to take risks for fear of not getting their next hit of approval. In fact, when I think I’m praising my children, I may actually be “belittling” them, because I am sending them the message that their every move is some sort of high wire performance for my benefit and judgment.

Now whenever an errant “Good job!” escapes my lips, I clap my hand over my mouth and try to counteract the bad I’ve put out into the universe by immediately shouting out something more appropriate:

“I mean: ‘I can see that you worked hard on that!'”

After my child wins a soccer game, rather than “Great game!”, I have to remind myself to say, “I loved watching you play…Not because you’re a good player or anything, but because I truly enjoy sitting in the blazing sun/freezing cold/pouring rain watching you and your friends kick a ball around the field for an hour.”

It’s frankly exhausting. What? It’s not enough just to keep these little people alive?!

My daughter has been a part of a Destination Imagination team for three years now. Last year was the first year her team was old enough to compete. They had a wonderful time, but did not advance beyond the first round of competition. This year, before they had even competed, she was chirruping away about the Global Tournament. I felt that it was my duty to manage her expectations. I kept gently interrupting her reveries by saying things like, “…It’s actually quite difficult to qualify for Globals. Only a few teams get to go…” and “Let’s see how you guys do at the Regional Tournament first…” She took it on the chin for awhile, but one day she narrowed her eyes and said, “Wait a minute…Do you have low expectations for us?!”

Clearly, I haven’t yet hit upon the right balance.

Part II

Two weekends ago my daughter’s team competed at the Regional Tournament and qualified to advance to the State Tournament, so this past Friday she and I headed to Harrisonburg, Virginia. We shared a hotel room for the night with our good friends, who also happen to be the DI team manager and her son. I think my daughter may have slept three hours. She spent the rest of the night thrashing, getting drinks of water, going to the bathroom, and being shushed by her increasingly grumpy mother…

Can you tell someone is excited? “I look like a crazed llama!”
Crazed llama? Underslept, dazed mamas

The rest of the team and the rest of our family showed up the next day for the competition.

Because I’ve been appraising other challenges, I’d never actually been able to see my daughter’s team perform this year. She looked like this!

The gym before the Award Ceremony looked like this!

There’s no diplomatic way to put this…It smelled like a million sweaty socks in that gym!

The kids were feeling rather glum when the awards were announced and they didn’t place high enough to advance to the Global Tournament. I was mentally preparing my consolation speech, when they were announced as the winners of the Instant Challenge part of the competition!

At the very end of the ceremony two “Wild Card” teams were pulled out of a cup. The only teams who could qualify for the drawing to advance to the Global Tournament had to have placed first in either the Instant Challenge or the Main Challenge…They won!

This awesome  hard-working team is going to the Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee!

Two years ago when my son’s team advanced to the Global Tournament, my daughter was crushed when her mean mother didn’t pull her out of school so that she could accompany her brother to the tournament. Here she is saying goodbye to him as he headed off back then:

And here they are on Saturday!

Knoxville, Tennessee here she comes…despite all the damage her mother has inflicted upon her psyche over the years!

Valentine’s Day

It was not the Valentine’s Day of my dreams…

In the afternoon I attended the memorial service for a man with whom my husband and I used to sing. He was a retired minister with a warm smile, a twinkle in his eye, and a deep love and steadfast devotion for his wife. His son described the love his father had for his mother as a “perfect shelter.” One of his closest friends spoke movingly of the time he spent with him on the many hikes they would take together in the Shenandoah Mountains. He was one of those rare people in this world who simply radiate goodness and light.

I went alone to the service, and my husband stayed home with the kids. As I was leaving the house, I asked my family to think of something fun that we could all do together when I got back. I knew it would be a wrenching occasion, and I wanted to have something to look forward to when I came home.

When I returned, my husband suggested that we go for a hike.

?!

?!?!

Did he not remember that I had asked him to think of something fun to do?

Did he not remember that in all of the almost twenty years that he’s known her, his wife has always, most definitely been an indoorsy kind of person?

Did he not remember that we had just gone on a hike the weekend before, thereby 100%, maybe even 175% fulfilling the annual hike quota for 2015?

Did he not care that it was about 20 degrees outside?

No. The answer is no, he did not.

And so we went.

We went to the Ragged Mountain Natural Area, which at this time of the year looks like this:

I ask you: Is this view worth hypothermia?

As we walked along I kept hearing alarming creaking noises and thought it was only a matter of time before I got beamed on the head with a falling tree.

My fourteen year old had decided not to wear his winter coat, and in keeping with my resolution to let him make his own crazy-ass wardrobe decisions, I kept my mouth shut. He did not look very happy:

My daughter still has two legs. I have no idea where she hid the other one in this photo.

As we hiked, I was quickly outpaced and fell behind. Everyone disappeared from view, and I trudged along by myself, thinking sad thoughts and apprehensively eyeing the groaning tree trunks. Suddenly, I saw this brave little plant right in the middle of the path. It seemed to be miraculously growing out of rocks…

I thought it might be a sign.

When I reached the summit, I found this:

Note that my daughter lost her coat, but found her other leg and also a big, cheesy grin.

It was a beautiful view worth hiking for, and it made me smile for the first time that day.

My Valentine for whom I hiked. Outdoors. In 20 degree weather.

And then, to round off Valentine’s Day, we went to Lowe’s to pick up a part to fix a light fixture that had blown out…

And that’s how we restored a little light and love to Valentine’s Day.

In memory of John, who really did love hiking, and who brought so much light and love to the world.