shutting down to open up

Dear friends,

It is the heat of the summer, humidity, fruit-flies and smelly dogs but it is also pretty dresses, cold showers, blooming gardens and ice cream. it is time for us to turn our cell phones off, shutdown our laptops, put the thule on the roof of the car and head to maine where we will be setting up camp by the river and hiking, swimming, canoeing, grilling, reading, roasting marshmallows all while we laugh, sing and look for moose.

just a few weeks ago i felt stuck, real stuck, i looked out the window and did not see passed today and now i see our trip to maine, our new farm house, montreal and so much more. I know that my life is made possible with the love i have been given by my husband and to know that the next week will be spent with him, the kids and the dogs in a place that brings us such peace has filled me with kid like giddiness!

Please do it, that thing you promised yourself you would do this summer!
with kindness,
nadia

* ps the photo is of the maron bells, and o ther peaks in colorado, i was reminded of our time there by deb. enjoy!

what we learn

i can easily regret all the things i did not learn when i was young, the baking techniques of my grandmother and how she would make our whites really white. my mums love of painting and her perfect petit point and all the languages that both of them spoke. i do have little of it, do to what i observed, what they had time to teach me but now it is my turn to try to pass on some of the things even though i might be learning some of those things myself.

elle takes to things very quickly i have noticed in many of the things we do. like teaching her crewel, perhaps i should teach her the basic of sewing first but instead we jumped into it and she is great at it. i just hope i teach her the right way. dylan is the same way the other day he asked me if i had games on my mac, i said i had a comic program but i had never used it, he said he would figure it out. an hour later he was on his fourth page and it was so great, clever and funny.

I think my fear is i will say “later” “tomorrow” one to many times, that somehow the patience i once had which in the last few years has dwindled will cost them.so even though i am saying it, writing it what i am really trying to say is stop whether it is for your kids or others or for yourself and don’t let tomorrow be too late.

tell me what you wish you would have learned as a child....

when it looks like this

Today we went to pick up my nephew Guylan (yes kid nation) it was hot but i could not rush home, i needed to stop along the way and take a walk so i, we did. thank goodness for when the mind calls for a time out, because it looks like this!

* the green algae took my breath away my pictures do not do it justice. i can picture floating in it, i know crazy but i can:) there was a million shade of green!

these brings me calm

have a wonderful day everybody!

two farm houses

the first farm house would be shared living with another couple, i loved the landscape it was beautiful, peaceful. chicken, horses, streams and pond. ( sharing makes us nervous since we tend to be very private- well in real life anyways:)elle's favorite!






this is the second a farm, it would be all ours, it has vast land, old barns, a cow name isabel and a horse named mike. pond, streams.. we would have to work hard to make it feel like a small farm opposed to the large dairy farm it used to be! dylan's favorite!

a house a home a house a home

distracted from their xbox’s( never thought i would write that on my blog:) the boys are running from the big white fury beast, does she know how much she brings them pleasure or is it the other way around. the girls upstairs unaware of the humidity dip their hands into a giant container of beads. grace (giant black beast) celebrates her birthday by licking everyones faces and the big belly laughs that follow put a smile on my face. I have almost forgotten the sad news k and i received yesterday well no not really, but what it has done is to help me understand is that a house can be taken away( landlords are separating need house) and we are to loose our most beloved place- but back to what i was saying a house can be taken away but a home is where.......well you know

* i am truly sad but trying to think positively! k says “everything will be alright” how we would like to find the perfect farm house !

**** this was written a few days ago, i am doing much better and we are visiting two farm houses in rhode island tonight can you believe it!!!

beach pals

Dylan remembers every detail of every time we stepped on this beach and while we swim he recounts the tales of our last adventures. He sits with sophie staring at the ocean for what seemed like an hour or so. as we get ready to leave, our walk into and out of the sand is as special as the water itself, he turns to k. and asks if they can walk together on the way out and have a conversation like they did last year..... sure buddy, k responds. then as boys sometimes do they get us lost but elle yells out it is this way and we make out safely.

the ocean's garden spell

i wish you could hear elle as she discovered the seaweed "oh my goodness look at it nadia it is so beautiful....look at the colors" her voice was the sweetest i had ever heard it. to see her finding beauty in all that was before her filled my heart to the fullest. it was a day that i will cherish always and a day that i she will relive again and again.

she was twirling as the sun set

yesterday i was preparing dinner in the kitchen while the boys where at the park with the dogs, elle was too quiet so i ran up the stairs to find her doing ballet! the sun began to set, little gifts before my eyes, i wondered how i would ever put my camera down..

life is a bowl of cherries!

scooter resting on the back porch, colored pencils spread on a table, a pretty little dress hanging on a hook, children’s books being read out loud by sweet voices, comical tooth brushes resting next to ours, giggles as little feet are chased all around the house by fury paws, fruit devoured by the handful, these are the cherries on top!