I'm not ready for reality

As much as summer is a slow rut in the fast pace life I prefer to live in, it is a welcome break when we actually get to vacation.  Today, we are back, and I am not ready to slip back into the doldrums of reality.  I am boycotting my dishes.  It is hard to come back to reality when you have just spent four days in this;

This one sums it all up.

What do you remember of summer vacations?

The first week that the kids were out of school we set off to start summer vacation off with a family vacation.  For a decade I have planned and executed family vacations, but this year I was too busy with school work to think of it and Josh was bored at work.  Josh wanted a family vacation like he had had when a kid: camping.  I am not opposed to camping.  So he 'planned' a little road trip south to Mammoth Caves National Park.  He did quite a bit of research and I only asked peripherally about how the plans were shaping up.  Rule #1 of delegation - if you give them the job, let them do it all even if it means somethings may not turn out so wonderful.  I could see a few hitches in the giddy-up, but hey, live and learn.  And learn we did.

We learned that vacationing in the first week of June is wonderful in that there are hardly any tourist,s but a bit unfortunate because all the tourist places are taking a break form Memorial Day crowds before the summer crowds turn up.  That translated into only 2 of the 6 tunnel tours being offered and all the naturalist hikes being cancelled.  We had booked 4 nights of camping at Mammoth cave but found after one day that we had maxed out on 'things' to do.  Josh and the kids were happy to ride their bikes around the campsite and play catch.  My body was not particularly happy with the weather conditions nor the meal options.  Josh had planned the meals, not forgetting that I couldn't eat certain inflammatory substances, but not remembering either.  That meant that for two days my diet consisted of beef.  Beef and Cheetos's.  Sounds like a bad two-year-old menu.  Rolling into day three we realized that camping further in the dank and cool (70 degrees in high humidity = aches for fibromyalgia) was not going to be awesome.  I was willing to troop it out, but frankly there as no more to do at Mammoth Caves.  

Do visit Mammoth Caves, it is phenomenal!  Of course we don't have pictures of anything underground, it was dark and no flash photography allowed.  After living my life in the west with all sorts of lava tubes and sandstone formations I was fascinated by the limestone caves.  I was 'geeking out' the whole time.  If I hadn't been an English major I would have happily spent my academic career looking at rocks as a geologist.  Mammoth is not famous for the dripstone formations (we had seen some of the worlds' best at Meramec Caverns in Mo. on our way up to Indiana) but for the sheer length of the tunnel - over 400 miles charted and 600 miles more expected.  That's amazing! But you can visit their website without me having to gush about it all. If there is a next time we visit we will be in cabins and bring mountain bikes (we are gonna wait till the kids are older so we can do more spelunking).

 Even though I was achey the whole time, Viv spent 30 minutes pouting in the visitor center because she didn't want to answer questions about bats, and Faith peed her pants half way through the historic tour,  what will remember most about camping at Mammoth Caves?  Probably riding our bikes and all sleeping in the same tent.

On we went, south, to Nashville Tennessee.  We had planned to make a day trip of it, but with the unfortunate events of Mammoth, we turned our Tennessee time into two nights in a hotel.  We rushed into town to get some real food and visited the Grand Ole' Opry.  Again, because of being in the 'between season' stage there weren't just fun family things going on at Opry as we had hoped and we weren't staying through the weekend to mash our small kids not a large concert of Little Big Town or Rascal Flats.  So the exterior was all we got of that; well, pictures with large guitars and lessons on overpriced souvenirs.

 The kids at their own spending cash this vacation from their own work which is a wonderful way to learn financial independence, but a grueling and non-stop litany of smallish children bringing up some of the most ridiculous garbage way over priced and saying with big doe eyes "can I buy this Mom?"  It's there money, so I can't just say NO! which is what any reasonable person should say in a souvenir shop (particularly at the Opry when you haven't seen a show or do not know more than two names of country artists past of present).  As it is their money, and their agency, I have to tell them in a severe whisper that a $5 pencil is no better than a 25 cent pencil we could get back home.  They pout a bit and put it back and I push them out of the gift shop to the sidewalk where I can explain the emotional appeal of souvenirs and how such shops get away with raking money out of emotionally charged tourists.  This repeated itself EVERYWHERE we went on this trip.  Exhausting, and I don't think it actually was a lesson learned, yet.   Is that what they will remember of visiting Nashville?

I will remember the dinner we ate at the Opry Hotel.  It was overpriced mexican food, but it was real food in a beautiful location.  The kids will probably remember that we went to a park with an odd old building, the Parthenon, and they got to pose with pillars.

 Danny rarely gets cranky on vacation, but this was one night where we were up late and he had not had enough dinner at the overpriced mexican restaurant.  Add to that there were not readily available restrooms so he had to be rushed off to a remote bush again, did not make him the most pleasant at the Parthenon.

The next day in Nashville was a bit more fun.  We visited The Hermitage, the farm/plantation of Andrew Jackson.  I am sure if Josh had not been in the medical field (for the money) he would have been an American history major.  He has read a biography of most of the American Presidents and loved Andrew Jackson.  Really, Andrew is one of the top 5 presidents of the US.  Who else do you remember?  I really appreciated that the audio tours kept the kids engaged throughout the entire morning without having to complain to me and I could listen to all the tracks from Rebecca Jackson's perspective.  I am intrigued by the history of the south and learning how slavery was justified for so many years even by very well meaning people. I believe I figured out the culprit for the continued inhuman use of black as slaves - the foreman.  That guy was in the worst position ever between the owner and the slaves.  He made it possible the genteel master to be benevolent and for the slaves to revolt which pegged him as the one with the whip.  I'm not saying any of it was right, and certainly my position as a white woman doesn't help me understand the culture or perspective of persecution justifiably, it was certainly a lesson on what may have contributed to the problem.

The Hermitage has about 90% original furniture and construction, that is amazing in itself.  The grounds are lovely and this was one place we were very happy that we visited in the early summer months because we could wander around the grounds without being punished by the sweltering summer heat.  Viv told us that if she had lived back in Jackson's time she would have been slave.  We assured her she was not African American - but it made me wonder about legitimacy of any brown skinned persons.  At any rate she did act as though we had punished her and had her headphones taken away and made sullen march out of the last 45 minutes of our visit at the Hermitage.  We probably won't remember that part.  I will remember how every night Andrew Jackson would go out to his wife's grave and sit with her for 30 minutes or more.

We spent the afternoon popping around downtown Nashville for some authentic music.  We did not pay to go in the Country Music Hall of Fame (again, of you do not know 2 famous country singers before you go in, it is likely you will not appreciate reading wall plaques about people you don't know, especially if you only have a 3rd grade reading level).  Viv was content to see Taylor Swift's name on the wall outside.  She was convinced the entire time we would walk around the corner and see her.  Faith just liked to tap her toes to the music of the live band music coming from every open bar on Broadway (although she did not like when we went into one for a moment to listen to Honky-Tonk because it smelled to thickly of alcohol) and Danny was intent on getting a loose tooth out during lunch, which he succeeded in doing by the end of the meal.    Those events were memorable indeed, but what I will remember is that night in the hotel.

Best parts of vacation are not at the tourist sites.

 We made our way back north with a trip past Abraham Lincoln's birthplace in Kentucky.  Inside this impressive structure is a log cabin that was taken apart and put back together to display around the US as the birthplace cabin of Lincoln.  Later it was discovered as a fake, but it was built inside the structure and now is a 'replica' of the cabin he was born in.  The most fascinating fact; because they rebuilt that little cabin so many times, someone came up with the idea of children toys that you could put together.  And that is the reason that for the first 5 years of my kids' lives they called the 16th president of the United States President Abraham Lincoln Log.

Our final vacation stop was at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.  The were running qualifying races and we watched 4 good races.  Josh was intent on teaching the kids the financial ruin of gambling and had them root for a horse each race with an ice cream wager.  Only on the fourth race did Josh let them box their picks to get an ice-cream.  

Some day we will go back with fancy hats.  We did get free fake tattoos promoting American Pharaoh who won the Triple Crown the next day - first time since 1978.  Pretty historic.  Not that we saw American Pharaoh, but we got an idea of where he ran and how big the jockey's were (we had Faith walk next to one of the jockey's and she was only a couple of inches shorter than he).  At the end of an 'over budget' trip, will I remember that Josh and I were barely talking to each other at Churchill Downs because I thought the kids should be able to eat until they were full despite the cost of food and, budget forbidding, have some lemonade to quench their thirst.  Probably not. They will most likely remember that we finished the 6th Harry Potter book on the drive home and are now in the last  of the series after a years worth of bedtime reading through the epoch take of Harry Potter.

So what do we remember of family vacations?  Sometimes we do recall the crummy parts as the standouts.  Sometimes we don't honestly remember anything more than the pictures tell us (which is why we are biased to only save the happy looking ones or the specifically posed ones).  They remember briefly that we went.  Although, at this point in the summer, three weeks removed from that vacation, the kids are just looking forward to the next vacation planned, and the next, and the next.  The past is behind us, time to move on.

Taking a mental vacation

School is all back in session now for us all.  I didn't take pictures of the kids on their first day back to school; they looked half-put together and excited as always.  Josh didn't take a picture of me on my first day back to school; all spiffed up in my teachers clothes.  Frankly, this is all back to normal.  We are back to the regular ins-and-outs of daily life.  It is all wonderful and an experience worth having.  Nevertheless, my mind is still rolling over the amazing times we had on vacation.  It seems that as we were away we could focus on our main purpose: being together having fun.  Even though we had nearly a month of break time once we got back home, it wasn't very summer vacation-y.  Perhaps it is because it was being compared to all of this:

Boating out on Boise reservoir with the Ricks family.  Noah was so kind to Danny the whole trip, an real exemplary young man.  I am impressed with all my nieces and nephews for sure, and there is an extra soft spot this summer for Noah and how amazing he made my son felt.  We will forever refer to the 'epic' wave that thrashed Rowan, Faith and Noah while they were on the tube.

Riding in the car with these three clowns was always fun.  Really, always.  They came up with the most creative stories and kept entertained and happy with one another.  A couple times, I let Mom Button drive (awesome East-West travel companion) and the kids wanted me to lay back my chair and so they could give me a massage and do my hair. I am a truly blessed woman.  Just look at those three cute faces!

The majesty of Glacier Park was awe inspiring.  

Little things with little people.  We watched a movie on Lemurs in 3-D.  Who would have thunk? Lemurs jumping at your on a very very large screen.  We sure did learn a lot about them.  Also, the company was amazing, Butt-olke family vacation 2014 was such a blast!  How many people still hang out with their best friend from the 3rd grade? I do!

Sunny summer days with cousins.  Nothing better, especially at this stage.  I could just put my camping chair in the edge of the water to keep cool and just sit back and listen to the glee.  We stayed at Lucky Peak park for hours; the majority of the time the kids were just playing in the sand.  Ages 13-2 all perfectly happy.

Lazy cabin days.  Thank the Heavens for Hancock Haven!  The weather was perfect.  The river glistened and glided along so nicely we couldn't help but nearly worship it.  I fell in love with watching my kids re-enact all the things I loved most about the cabin as a kid: fishing at the fishing hole, rolling your pants up to wade in the water, playing in the canal, rock hopping on the island, pulling apart link grass, gathering flowers, listening to nature, and being together or alone as it felt best.

"Mom, the ground is boiling!" I had forgotten, having grown up so near to Yellowstone National Park, what a natural anomaly the park is.  This stage of wonder in the little ones reawakened all sorts of vision as we walked around seeing gyser after gyser, each one as phenomenal as the first.  Even the unpredictable wait for Old Faithful with its groans and moans totally paid off as their level excitement grew with each foot of water height.

Family and flammables makes the Fourth of July real.  We had 19 grandchildren gathered at the Hancock Haven to honor our forefathers with a variety of fireworks.  The ending display of 'the big ones" had us all cuddled together on the lawn.

A detour worth taking.  Thanks to my parents' recommendation we headed off the beaten path to see Devil's Tower.  A geological wonder!  The small march around the base was holy in a way.  There are a lot of legends and history in that landmark worth respecting.  My favorite memory - Danny peeking around various trees, trying to be hidden just out of view on the path ahead with a smirk on his face and a playful pounce once we reached him.

I got my gumption in order and had the kids got through the rig-a-marole to become Jr. Rangers at Mt. Rushmore.  I figured it would make the very small stop more engaging.  It did to a degree.  The highlight was watching them study through the visitor center windows to make their own sketch of our National monument.

Hi-ho Summer Away!  I suppose all these memories shall motivate me to make sure each day has something special in which to rejoice.  Yep, I reckon we need more fun in our lives year round.

Danny boy is older

Last night as I lay in bed recounting the day to Josh, I realized yet again how cool Danny is.  He has an awesome sense of humor and keen timing.  He had heard a phrase I used earlier in the day and played it back perfectly that night as only a brother could.

We were nestling restlessly into our beds, doing our best and restructuring our sleep schedule the week before school starts and the stall tactics were epic.  Faith remembered that she needed some lotion for the sadly dry spots all over her body left from an ambush attack of random harmless hives.  Of course, once the lotion was on the extremely dry skin, it burned like searing fire.  She began to squirm and moan and thrash on her top bunk of the bed.  I was exasperated and had no retort, but Danny did!  "What, are you giving birth or something up there?"  He asks with an evident under-chuckle in his tone.  Perfect timing!  He can perfectly diffuse a situation.

Comedic timing and situation bomb-control are a couple of Danny's many talents.  I love this boy.  He is Golden.  Yes, he passed yet another milestone while on our family vacation.  He is six years old.  That's my baby boy, and he has grown!  Just everything about him makes me love him to his constant "forgetting" that I gave him a night time kiss just so I will come back and give him a zerbert on his fleshy cheeks to his determination to become an astronaut.

Riding cross country in a car of girls finally got to him when Viv requested, yet again, to listen to Taylor Swift.  I can't blame the guy.  He certainly did not get as much music air time for his playlist as the girls (read Viv and her music obsession) even though everyone agrees that the song "Happy" is definitely amazing for changing one's mood.

Danny quietly concentrates on most of his projects with a very clear design in his head of what it will be.  Notice the mountain forming with only a streak of red up the middle.

"It's Pompeii!" he told me.  "Where did you learn about Pompeii?"  I ask.  "From the National Geographic and the book we recently read in the Magic Tree House.  You can see the lava tube inside the mountain before it explodes." 

Since we were in WA on Grmpa Dan Button's 60th birthday and Josh was with us, we celebrated then the two Dan's birthday with family and food, the Button way.  Grandpa and Danny traded back scratches for gifts.

Again, the humor! We went to a fry specialty shop in Boise and Danny loved the blueberry ketchup.  He loved it so much he decided he ought to have a blueberry nose.  

On Danny's actual birthday on the 14th we had "The best birthday ever!" with his Ricks cousins.  We went to the perennial favorite of mini-golf and then shared a round of laser tag with all his boy cousins.  For his first time around, Danny was the sharp shooter for the kids in his age range.  He divulged to me how he had strategized by following certain older cousins in direct routes and going back to the recharge station before he was out of lives.  I was so proud of him.  Tactically minded at six years old.  Josh and I are planning on grooming him for West Point.

Another amazing gift: patience.  The boy his my namaste.  He is peaceful and calm and really enjoys just throwing a pole in the water and observing what is going on.  He also is a hard worker.  Danny's favorite times a the cabin were just following Grampie around and doing various man chores, learn to shoot pool, or sit next to the river.  Neither of them talk much, but they sure enjoyed each others' company, which warmed my heart.

When we visited Mesa Falls Danny was my buddy observing all the little nuances of geography and waterfalls.  He noticed the rainbows in the water and the formation of rocks.  He looked for wildlife and found his favorite souvenir of the trip: a guide to all the fish of the Mountain West.  He had to sleep with it and couldn't hardly put it down to close his eyes.

The boy is still super excited about fighter planes.  

Crowning moment of the trip: Danny asked to jump off the Fun Farm bridge.  No small matter for a small person.  With full trust in me, he climbed over the outer edge, more confident than his father.  We counted to 3 and went for it.  I was a bit concerned as he popped up out of the water after a 20ft drop, until I saw his face - absolute joy!!!  He had his first adrenaline rush of his life and loved it!  "That was BAWESOME" (better than awesome)

Grace and a visit with Grandpa

I have been lurking around the blogosphere since our recent return from a long and lovely vacation.  It is like getting reacquainted with an old friend and just enjoying listening.  I am content not to get into all the posting of my own life because I enjoy other people so very much; their creativity, their realism, their love and heartache.  Life is beautiful from every sphere.  Even when life is coming to an end.

First and foremost in my mind from our trip was my most favorite part: a visit with Grandpa Alonzo Bowman and his angel wife Alice in Packwood, Washington.  The inception of our cross-country vacation came from the realization after a semester-long biographical project on Grandpa's life that there was so much more to know about this great man.  He turned 90 in April.  The fragility of life loomed around the corner and we knew it was time to act. ( I wished I felt that same pleasant pressure to line up our life and finances to enjoy all the people I love in our life, or at least had the resources to act upon them)  In God's good grace, and it is extremely gracious and loving, we were able to plan out the extreme vacation through 10 states, over the two major rivers in this grand country, through 4 National Parks and over the continental divide with the peaceful valleys of family visits in between.

Josh found a medical conference in Seattle that allowed him to join us for time in Washington and the two most meaningful days of our whole trip.  As Josh finished out his speed-learning session on basically everything a PA needs to know and I had rounded up the kids from 4 fabulous days with my best friend Kristen and clan, we went south around Mount Rainier into the peaceful retirement community of Packwood.  Grandpa and Alice had agreed to let us visit with him with audio recorders, video recorders, and a whole lot of curiosity.  During my 4 month ethnographic and archival research surrounding the life of Alonzo Price Bowman I had learned so much, and thirsted for more.  There was a beautiful development within the family as we all turned our hearts and eyes inward on the jewels of history that were right within our family.  Josh and I talked almost weekly with Grandpa for about 20 minutes, but his attention span did not go beyond that, leaving me with more inquiries on the tip of my tongue.  We would research around the details he had given, then wait for another conversation on Sunday nights.

While in Packwood we had two glorious hours of stories and smiles.  Grandpa sat at ease in his favorite rocker casually talking with me, looking past the iPad I held to record it all.  Grandma Alice entertained the kids with tricks and coloring and interjected her humble and faithful opinions throughout Alonzo's narrative.  Before arriving we had arranged to meet with them the following morning but had to be sensitive of their comfort and energy levels.  As we closed our evening talks and determined to meet for breakfast at a local diner, I was gloriously happy.  My love for Grandpa and Grandma Alice had increased almost as fast as the Grinch's heart.

As we phoned Grandpa on our way to the hotel to tell him the breakfast joint didn't open until much later than we had decided upon for breakfast, he declined from meeting with us the next morning at all.  I was heartsick. Even as the kids (especially Danny) were SOOO excited that there were elk in the fields surrounding our hotel room, I felt so cheated.  We were spending the night in a hotel so we could see Grandpa the next morning and that was not going to happen.  We went to bed that night, together, looking forward to breakfast alone the next morning.

Josh is the early riser in the family and had gone for an early run as he awoke (our hotel strategy for not waking the rest of us up quite yet, he goes to the workout room) in the quiet misty mountain streets of Packwood.  He, as I, was praying that we would find a way to meet with Grandpa one more time before we left and felt the impression that he might see him on the roads.  So Josh turned his run around toward the hotel, and with a small miracle, ran right into Grandpa Alonzo as he was turning out of our hotel parking lot.  Grandpa had not seen us in the breakfast area (seems that these too men have an inherited trait of waking early) and thought to move on.

I awoke to Josh's jubilant voice opening our hotel room door and ushering Grandpa in.  No one was upset to be awakened to the soft and sweet voice of Grandpa Alonzo's polite excuses.  He spent an hour with us, having brought a special momento from his war days to share with us: a hand carved wooden shoe with his infantry symbol (the Cross of Lorraine) and the names and dates of every city he fought through during his 18 months in World War II.  I was giddy.  A bit bleary eyed, but giddy.

Just as we arrived back home in Indiana after another 3 weeks on the road, we heard from Mom that Grandpa was rapidly loosing weight.  Having a medical provider as a husband, we both knew what rapid weight loss meant after relatively good health.  Grandpa is now on hospice, back in Packwood after asking to have "no more pokes' from the good staff of Providence hospital in Olympia.

With grace and an open heart we thank God for letting us be with Grandpa Alonzo this summer.  And with some grace and agency, we hope to be with him, and many other revered family members who have gone on to their heavenly home, once our journey on earth is complete.  Family is everything.

Memorial 6th - Washington DC continued

Saturday July 6th was Josh' favorite day.  We were up early to wait in line for the National Arichives, home of the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution.  While the girls and I kept space in line Danny and Josh returned to the US Marine Memorial.  Once finally in the Archive building (ah air conditioning) it was awesome, as in awe-some.  There is a sign outside the Archive building about the Federal Triangle, which was designed by L'Enfant, designating the Archive building as the most elaborate design on the triangle.  It was to be "a temple of history."  I believe that the reverence inside the building for those documents it houses is worthy of the intention.

Danny with Thomas Jefferson's jacket.

After the Archive building we went on to revisit the American Heritage Smithsonian.  It was a bit of a split as the girls were super interested in the first lady dresses (as I was too) and Josh and Danny did a once over then headed downstairs to revisit the American Wars.

Our walk back to the metro was designed to take us past the White House.  It was a hot photo op as the kids really wanted to get back to the hotel for swimming in the pool and relaxing before an evening of visiting all the memorials.We ate lunch in the Ronald Reagan building, an addition to Federal Triangle.

Jefferson's house.

Abraham Lincoln was most recognized by the kids.

Korean War Memorial

Roosevelt's memorial was new to me, and super impressive.

WWII Memorial at twilight.

Vietnam War Memorial

Aunt Jill was our guide around DC and the perfect companion for the kids in the evening when Josh and I were done being parents.  She has such a good way of talking with the kids to help them understand the importance of things.