Okay, I'm not TOTALLY homesick or jealous or anything - just so you know!! We WON'T be at the Shore next week (not physically present, anyway!). Certainly will be thinking of you all and missing you heaps. One good thing - we're not hot! Love to you all - put some Shore photos on the blog so I experience it vicariously through my flat screen!

Yup! See you there! I believe all the Coburns will be there at one point or another during the week. Can't wait. It's been damn hot here since the end of June. I am really ready to have some "normal" summer days. - 75 (not at night) would be wonderful!

The camping trips sound wonderful.

Sarah is at an MIA concert tonight on Gov Island in NYC harbor - home at 2.

Matt is recuperating from a day of babysitting for our new neighbors (3 boys; 6, 4, and 1). I think it's the best form of birth control around!

Into The Wilderness

A couple of years ago, I started doing a "backpack" trip with Reid, and now it's become an annual event. This was the first year that I invited Boden to come along for his own backcountry adventure. We take a short hike down a local canyon, set up camp in a really great spot with a mossy tent site, and we try to catch a couple of trout for dinner, but carry in a few hot dogs just in case. Boden and I had a great trip this Monday night and Reid and I have our sights set on a more substantial foray into the Indian Peaks Wilderness this coming monday where we'll camp at a lake at 11,000 feet and have to do some real hiking to get in and out!

It's been hot in Boulder- every day is over 90 degrees and we've had to get creative with the heat-beating activities- lot's of tubing in the creek and slip 'n' slide in the yard. Can't wait to be able to dive into Long Island Sound from the front yard! We'll be there on 8/1 as soon as the Scudders are out! Any plans for heading up that week, Julie?

Emily's Entries in the Hillbrook Photography Competition

Here are the six photographs that Emily selected from her (literally) thousands of possibilities to enter into the photo competition at her school. The categories were numerous, but her entries fell into 3: colour, flora and fauna, and places overseas. Here they are, and I will put them in that order, 2 photos for each category.

Heat wave head shaving

Okay, it's spreading,...Who's next? Who's that laddie? (same tune - sung to "Who's that lady?")

July Travels for Mom and Dad

July 16, 2010

We have been having a busy but very enjoyable week with lots of great music and meals out. We have finally gotten together some plans and here they are for the end of July as we have them at the moment.

Leave Denver Wednesday July 21 South West Air Dep 11:20 flight #3692 to Baltimore.

Wed. and Thurs. nights - Charley Wheatley - Grasonville, MD - 410- 827-6285

Fri and Sat nights - Hotel Philadelphia Mariott West Conshohocken. PA 610-941-5600
Wedding contact - Betsy Kellogg Hamilton 610 642-1844

Sun and Mon nights - Coburn's, Dobbs Ferry, NY

Tue. night - on the road - no reservation yet - Brattleboro, VT area

Wed and Thur nights - Hopkinton, NH Anne Sayce 603-746-2475

Fri night - Tim and Margrit Miller - York Harbor, ME 207 363-3914

Sat night - Tentative - Dick and Nancy Boynton CT (If we don't stay with the Boyntons - they are having some work done on their house,) we'll stay at a hotel near Niantic.

Sun night - 86 East Shore Drive, Niantic, CT

Just saw Jack Johnson at Madison Square Garden - family concert experience. He's so great! Closing Song; "It's always better when we're together,..."

AHHH! SUMMER!

You hit so many buttons I don't even know where to start.

I am entering my second week of transition to summer mode and I can feel I'm almost fully there.

Another Lazy Blogger Returns!

I've felt swamped with new challenges at work, kids on school holidays, and just life in general! But after the latest creative and inspiring blogs, I needed to check in to say "hi!" - I'm still here! No creative prose from me, or even any photos at this stage. Just wanted to say how much I loved both Mom's and Rico's words, and how they make me homesick for a Northern Hemisphere summer! I know where Emily gets her creative story-writing genes from...

Loved the cruise photos, too. What a relaxing and satisfying trip that must have been. That's all from me at the moment. Oh, and in case you didn't know we have a new Prime Minister here - a female and a red-head! All very sudden and dramatic - google her: Julia Gillard. Love to all, Elli

The shift from photos to words was very inspiring. Both Mom and Rico captured the essence of summer as we shift to the downward spiral of the fireworks and their fading into darkness. However, the next season with its own joys and wonders flickers on the horizon. I, too, appreciate the sharing of creativity and thoughtfulness. It is quite a family I belong to. Thank you all for making it so in your varied and amazing ways.

We had quite a 4th last night. We had decided to stay home and watch fireworks on TV. I'm glad we did as nature took over about 6 with her own fireworks accompanied by an inch of rain. The day had been cloudy with some patches of sun so the picnic in the local park went undisturbed but Folsom Field fireworks were damp. Boston's fireworks were spectacular on TV, but the music left much to be desired from my point of view. The Pops are too pop for my taste which, pehaps unfortunately, does not include singers who lack enunciation and songs whose words I can't understand. Whatever happened to the 1812 Overture and the cannons - maybe they have all been sent to Afghanistan.

In a happier mood, I have been planning to put together some artsy photos from the cruise. Its been two months since we were taking them. They have been appearing on the screen saver so I've had a chance to pick and choose as the cruise unwinds on the small screen. Hope you all enjoy them.

Dad

More on Summer

Thank you, Rico, for that beautifully metaphoric piece on the joys of this season. My eyes filled up as I read it! You inspired me to search for (and find) some poems of mine from ancient days on this time of year and the feelings it brings. Here are two. The "wasps of August" were the trigger!

These Golden Days

Yesterday was Labor Day.
The beach tolerated the passing partygoers
who scattered their laughter
snapped their beer cans
spread their oil on the wan waters
then gassed up their land machines and left.

Today there is a heavy honey in the afternoon light.
Silence drips
into a compressed capsule of sweetness.
I stretch on the warm sand
and the bees swarm thickly around my luncheon plum pit.



Terra Familia

A small area, really.
Your little brown car practically fills the half of it,
standing ready on the grass
doors wung out
futon filling the back seat
tunes stacked close to hand
mountain bike stamped sternly across the back.


As I step out the back door
the bathing suits on the clothesline to the right are waving a brave goodbye.
To the left, the last red August lilies lift their hands.
The road beyond peeps and beckons.

Do you remember, only yesterday,
How you stepped down here, shy and proud, from your teenage bicycle,
Your long solo journey completed? You were home.
It was just breakfast time, as it is now.

Soon you will wheel out, (avoiding the rock),
nosing out Interstate 80,
sucked into the straw of Colorado's inbreathing.
This grass will spring back up,
your cat will prowl questioningly--
The blackberries will still ripen by the garage.


Love, Mom

Return of the Lazy Blogger

Hi again! I know I've been remiss in posting news from the young Kelloggs, but I've been enjoying summer, and I didn't want to make Julie envious! The kids had a lot of camps; basketball, art, archery, cycling and ultimate frisbee- coupled with a some camping and lots of bike rides around Boulder, and it's been busy! Like mom mentioned, we're here in Durango now enjoying perfect 4th of July weather and the Bowers' company. I had one of the best mt. bike rides of the summer so far out their back door this morning- I love this town!

I just finished a two week professional development course on writing workshops where I did a lot of writing and ended up very inspired- I can't wait for writing time in my classroom next year. (well, actually I CAN wait- summer's pretty nice!) I wrote a piece about summer that I want to share with everyone, so I'm pasting it on below. Sorry no pictures to share, but there'll be plenty when we get back to Boulder.

4^th of July

By Rico Kellogg

The summer is like a firework. The apex of summer’s blazing trajectory explodes on the first week of July. June is the thin, glowing thread of the canister climbing skyward, all anticipation and building heat, momentum and excitement. The last week of June hangs suspended for a fraction of a second before exploding brilliantly in a blossom of sparks that ultimately fade and wink out during their earthward fall in August. Every part of a firework is a delight. The suspense, the colorful explosion and the twinkling fade to the black of the night sky are all moments to savor and wonder at. Fireworks are brief, and you can easily miss beautiful parts of them if you are distracted or not looking attentively.

When the holiday arrives, summer is at its full, blazing zenith; the days long, hot and languid. Watermelon, strawberries and big bunches of perfumed peonies are growing and ripening so quickly I can almost watch it happen before my eyes, and the pace of the days can make me feel as though I have the time to.

My kids and I are out of school and already the past school year is a distant memory; the rhythm of our routines changing. Up before dawn hurrying to assemble sack lunches for the boys replaced by rolling out of bed when I feel the whispered promise of the day’s heat on my neck. Leisurely breakfasts on a weathered grey teak bench in the garden instead of rushed cups of coffee and scrambling to remember all the paraphernalia needed to get out the door for the day. My morning ride to school, zigzagging around the brokers shuffling to offices on Walnut street and the CU students cluelessly stepping into my path while texting shifts to mountain bike laps on Betasso with only the deer as distractions. I have time to stop at Amante to savor an americano as I watch downtown Boulder come alive for the day. These are days when the stresses of being a teacher at the end of the school year melt away. I feel the pace of life slow down.

The kids’ days are free and unfocused and unfold organically. My children shuffle to our morning bedside with requests to watch cartoons and start the day bouncing on the trampoline with a ripped stuffed dog clenched between unbrushed teeth. Friends and neighbors’ kids show up, and the whole mob is running barefoot through the grass from house to house through the neighborhood like a many-limbed monster gathering more sunburned arms and legs, dirty hands and freckled noses as it noisily careens down the block toward the park. My two-year-old runs across the dazzlingly green lawn in a polka-dotted sundress and no diaper, the baby fat on her cheeks jiggling up and down while she crazily swings a half-eaten slice of watermelon to and fro. I can’t imagine a better place and time for her to be.

The sun is now the all-powerful ruler, dictator and despot, but also the benevolent protector. He gives warm lazy mornings that invite us into the damp haze of the yard as well as lingering, sultry evenings that melt deliciously into twilight as we linger around the table, sated by another meal from the grill. But he also sends us scurrying away for the shelter of the giant ash tree in the front yard or banishes us to the high country with his withering wrath once he has climbed high enough in the sky to hold us in his full gaze . The burning hot intensity of the summer’s explosion is scorching the grass and blinding us, making a part of us yearn for the cool, dark stillness of night again.

Late July and August are the slow burn; the dying embers of the campfire, the crunchy lawn after the searing heat wave and oven days in the high 90s. There is the overbearing bittersweet knowledge that we have passed the tipping point; we now have enjoyed more days of summer than we have left to relish. It’s a time to reflect on the days spent splashing in the pool, knee deep in a clear alpine stream or feeling the crackling sweat dry on my back as I snake down a twisty canyon road. There is that singular feeling that Robert McCloskey names in “A Time of Wonder”

“Take a farewell look at the waves and sky.

Take a farewell sniff of the salty sea.

A little bit sad about the place you are leaving; a little bit glad about the place you are going.

It is a time of wonder…”

The days shorten. The sun’s arc across the sky narrows. The signs are clear that the colorful sparks of high summer are beginning their inevitable twinkling out like fireflies at the distant edge of a meadow of tall grass. The shadows in the afternoon lengthen. The wasps of August visit the dining table with an angry urgency, seeking the meat they crave to brace for the cooler weather ahead. Class lists, hanging butcher paper and reams of writing paper push themselves rudely into my daydreams. There is a panicky lump forming in my throat. Plans not brought to fruition, hikes and rides not taken; trips postponed all trigger melancholy at the remembering. I feel myself aging as the summer wanes, the blossoms fall petal by petal, the water in the creeks drops and clears. Another season through the net slips by like the strong, deep-bellied rainbow lazily fins away from my grasp as I let it disappear into the swirling, pellucid waters of the eddy. I notice an exceptional stone at my feet; variegated schist polished to a translucent sheen. I bend to pick it up, intending to bring it home and place it in the garden to remind me of the pyrotechnic glory that was the summer.

---

It is summer!

South Beach of Martha's Vineyard with the bathing beauties. I went up to pick up Sarah and five friends from a house in West Tisbury where they spent four days in one of two family owned houses. What a great set-up - kids in one house, parents in the other. Which girl is Sarah?

Yes. I was rooting for Germany. Overall, I would love to see the Netherlands win. I was disappointed that Ghana lost. The officiating has reached new creative heights. Only time will tell.

HAPPY FOURTH!

Greetings to all, and may the big American weekend be fun and not TOO noisy! We are planning a quiet time, mostly taken with scrambling to catch all the sports---soccer quarter finals, Wimbledon finals, and start of the Tour. The young Kelloggs are off to Durango for a week, as soon as Dad and Boden return from pottery class in about half an hour. Dad and I went to a creative and moving production of King Lear last night done in the outdoor theater by the Colorado Shakespeare Company. It was set, very successfully, in the Rocky Mountains in late 1800's, with Lear as a power-broker head of an oil-producing dynasty. As the play moved toward its climax on the stormy heath, ravaged by thunder and lightning, our skies clouded over and rain began to fall lightly, with distant flashes and rumblings---this was an audience in double suspense! Mercifully, we did not get soaked, a luckier finale than poor Lear's! It is a very grim play---thought -provoking and dealing with some timeless human issues.
As my eyes are settling down and learning how to see differently, my skin is claiming attention---lots of old sunbathing bad habits dues to be paid. I had a squamous cell removed from my right shin which will take a long time to heal, and some others are possible, but results have not yet come back from their biopsies. Since I must limit sun exposure, I am spending time in the TV room, and think I will head there right now to see how Spain will handle Paraguay. Julie, did you root for Argentina or Germany?? I too thought that the young new Germans were very impressive. Well, that's it for now---Lots of love to you all, Mom