Trip to Arizona

Jonah and I had the good fortune of visiting Chino Valley, Arizona at the beginning of June. We spent our time catching up with some of my friends from high school and college, seeing family members old and new, and enjoying what Arizona is famous for the sun. Thanks Mom and Dad for the great time and for Kyle letting us go!

My dad and Jonah sitting on the front porch feeling the wind blow through their hair.

A little swim in the pool!

Jonah and his new first cousin once removed Clara!

G.G. testing out her baby feeding skills- she still has them!

The Johnson Family

Kona and Jonah, not only do their names rhyme they are great friends.

We were all together at the start of September to bid a fond farewell to Grandma Frances. We stayed at Jerry and Michelle's house and they were the perfect hosts. Kona also welcomed us and I am pretty sure she loves nothing more than kissing Jonah on the face. I am also sure that it is her that taught him his 2nd word, dog. 
It was fair time while we were there and we got to eat some great fried food and see tractors. 

Granny and Jonah enjoying the garden.

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Michelle and Jonah having a cuddle after their walk

Jonah on the train to Klamath Falls

Jonah and Uncle Ty

Oh, how this baby loves his books

Jim Anderson showing Jonah the tractor

Enjoying the last of the days sun on the porch with Auntie Dawn

 I was freaking out a little bit, but Jonah sat on horse for the first time with his Uncle Monte (the horse whisper). Jonah was not sure what to make of it, but went along with it and I think that he will like more of that in the future.

Bear sharing his sunglasses with Jonah

On the last night we were there we made a traditional Swedish meal called Kroppkakor in Grandma's Memory. It turned out great as always and it really felt like living history.

First Hair Cut: a bit of a bowl cut indeed

 Though I have not been, I am sure on the first day of beauty school they tell you "You can always take more off, but you can't put any back on." I could have used that advice. Jonah's hair ended up a bit short in the front, but he did great and sat pretty still for us (he got to hold Dad's iPhone and that was a huge help in keeping him distracted). 
 

Late Summer: She keeps on giving!

 Jonah and his friend Penny who is about 1 month older than him enjoyed a lovely evening swing in the park.

 Jonah loves the water be it in the bath or in his alligator swim pool. He would spend hours in the pool especially, but he doesn't have enough body fat for that. The pictures below detail some of his most enjoyed summer fun.

 Here Penny and Jonah exchange thoughts on a recipe they are cooking in the kitchen together. They ended up adding more sugar and boy did it taste great. Seriously it is really special to see the two of them together as they learn how to be friends. I can't get over the joy of children.

Rafting!

Jonah's first time in a raft

 “If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.”
~The Tao of Pooh

One lovely August weekend we found ourselves in the company of the spectacular Ellingford-Rhodes family floating dreamily down a flat section of the Deschutes River in Central Oregon. We spent our time climbing (well we watched while they climbed), taking bike rides, watching movies, observing a cheerleader camp (a huge hit for Autumn), eating yummy food, and generally enjoying the company of dear friends to the fullest.

Helping on the oars

Cheese

 Autumn was such a great "big sister" to Jonah sharing her toys, hugs, and even her bike trailer with him. The way he looks at her makes me sure that they will have a long friendship because I don't think he is going to ever let her out of his sights.

 Autumn calls the rapids rappers. Above you can see she LOVES the thrill of the river and the big splashes!

Martha the sweetest dog in the world!

After Cristi, Spencer, and Autumn returned home Uncle Hyfte came for a quick visit too. On our way back to Salem we stopped so Jonah could bag his first Geo Cash with Uncle Hyfte. Very cool indeed.

Grandma Frances

I woke her up one night when I was about 7 years old. Shaking her shoulder and saying Grandma, "wake up there is a dragon in our bed!" As it turned out there was no dragon in bed just my grandma snoring. Every time she and Papa came to visit I got to sleep with her on the fold out couch. I remember her wrapping her arms around me and feeling her soft silk wrinkles all around me. This tight hold was mostly about showing me how loved I was, but it was also about keeping my bony knees and elbows from bumping her during the night. I still am all knees and elbows and now Kyle suffers from the same misfortune. Sleeping in the bed with her is more or less where my memories of her begin but from the photographs and stories I know our friendship started well before the dragon in the bed night. She had lived a whole full life before I came along. I will leave it to someone else to write down those memories. I will tell you some of what I knew about her.
She was of the earth and knew encyclopedias full of knowledge about gardening and farming.
She loved her family and she hated to say goodbye. When we would have the car all packed up to drive home she would say just get out of here and shoo us off. She often would not make it outside to see us off. I would cry in the car as we drove away imagining what it would be like to say goodbye to her forever. I was blessed because that time did not come until 20 or more years later, but it has been just as deeply painful as I imagined it would be. She passed away peacefully in her chair with the newspaper in her lap and her blanket pulled up around her shoulders. She never had to say to goodbye to us and for that I am thankful.
I went to stay with them in the summer and take swimming lessons at the Malin pool. She would drive me there every morning and watch in the stands as I learned to swim. I remember picking raspberries in the little berry patch behind their house that summer. I don't think I will ever taste a raspberry without thinking of her.
My grandfather and she bickered relentlessly and I remember making everyone say, "I appreciate you grandma" that summer to try to smooth things out a little bit. She was forever sending my grandpa on errands out to the shed to get this or that.
She was all in all a good cook and kept us all fed one of my very favorite dishes was a cabbage and carrot soup she made with black peppercorns in it. You never knew when you were going to crunch down on one and light your mouth up with spice. It was warm and comforting like she was but also had a mean kick if  you bit it wrong. Grandma had a short fuse. But we forgive her that because she was just so darn much fun. She was always looking for an opportunity to laugh her high pitched exhaled laugh and she found plenty of them. She would tell stories and almost not be able to get through them because she would be laughing so much.
She played cards. . .  any card game. She loved it and she was sharp too. I played a lot of skip bo with her.
She loved Christmas. This was confirmed to me when she moved to "The Home" in Klamath Falls. She only had 3 small storage cupboards and she had all 3 of them full of Christmas decorations. The door around her room as well as half the hallway was decorated in her Christmas cheer.
She was a social butterfly. Any social event I attended with her she would stop and say hello to everyone at the party she never met a stranger.
She had a whirlpool tub that she would fill with bubbles for me to soak in. As a child immersing yourself in a giant tub of bubbles was about the most fun that could be had.  I would be completely covered in two feet of bubbles with my head sticking out like a cherry on top of a fresh batch of whipped cream.
She loved Kyle and welcomed him into the family with an open heart. She would ask him about some of her medical conditions and tease him about how he was forever doing her dishes for her. She loved to make him her rhubarb crisp (it really is the best dessert ever and to bestow it on Kyle really meant something).

Our son Jonah and his Great Grandma Frances have something special. From the minute they met he loved to be held by her and sung to. She would put him down and watch him kick and play with his toys. I know this sounds like what anyone would do with a baby, but I am telling you there was something more to it. Something that matched their souls up. I can't describe it, but it was just something that they knew, a secret language they spoke together. I am devastated that they will not see each other again here, but I am confident that when Jonah gets to whatever comes next Frances' spirit will be there too.
She was forever inventing things or finding new uses for old things. You just never knew what purpose she had found for a  Cool Whip container.
In so many ways I feel like with her passing all this is all gone. There is so much emptiness in my heart and I know I will miss her for the rest of my life probably every day
God Speed Grandma
I have selected two poems for you.

i love you much(most beautiful darling)

by e.e. cummings

i love you much(most beautiful darling)  more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky  -sunlight and singing welcome your coming although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness noone can quite begin to guess (except my life)the true time of year- and if what calls itself a world should have the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such sunlight as will leap higher than high through gayer than gayest someone's heart at your each nearness)everyone certainly would(my most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love Stealing Lilacs by Alice N. Persons A guaranteed miracle, it happens for two weeks each May, this bounty of riches where McMansion, trailer, the humblest driveway burst with color—pale lavender, purple, darker plum— and glorious scent. This morning a battered station wagon drew up on my street and a very fat woman got out and starting tearing branches from my neighbor's tall old lilac— grabbing, snapping stems, heaving armloads of purple sprays into her beater. A tangle of kids' arms and legs writhed in the car. I almost opened the screen door to say something, but couldn't begrudge her theft, or the impulse to steal such beauty. Just this once, there is enough for everyone.

July and August

Okay, as it turns out having a blog is easy keeping it updated is hard. I am way behind. I will do my best to update.
As I walked through the park today I noticed that some of the leaves on the trees are starting to change. Although we were running the AC just two days ago, tonight I wished we were having soup for dinner and I have had 3 cups of tea today. Times they are a changin'. Jonah learned to crawl this month. As you can see from the video above. He has enjoyed his new freedom and mobility.

Auntie K and Jonah 

And change they did. As I look back on July and August I think of fresh veggies from the garden. We ate raspberries the size of quarters and Swiss Chard until I did not know what else to do with it. Many evenings were filled with sitting on the back porch listening to the sprinklers and drinking Mojitos after Jonah went to sleep.


Olive, Chris, Penny, and Jonah enjoying the skateboarding contest in the park.

 The 4th of July was spent in Waldport for the second year in a row Kyle's sister Kari was there as well. Kyle and I stood on the beach and watched the fireworks in the distance as Jonah slept inside the coast cabin. What a delightful way to celebrate. Jonah sat up all by himself for the first time while we were at the coast too.

We had some great visitors Justus and Becca from New York City came to play with us at the coast. I have to say a special thanks to the staff at the Best Western Inn in Newport Oregon. I had booked our rooms for the wrong days in a crazy fit of mommie brain and the staff gave us the two rooms that they hold for emergencies and gave us the week day price.
Jonah spends most of his time these days crawling, and lifting himself up onto his feet. He is also "talking" quite a bit. He speaks in what we call his dragon voice. This voice is deep and very scratchy. It is a crack up to hear that voice coming from such a little guy.

Jonah with Mor Mor and Papa on the 4th of July in Florence

Jonah's audition for the Lion King as Mufasa of course!

We spent a great weekend camping with some of Kyle's high school friends. On the first night there was a brilliant and thunderous storm. None of us slept through the night, but it was just the right way to introduce Jonah to camping. During the day we enjoyed lots of sun and swimming. Not to mention the excellent company that old friends bring.

CVHS Go fight win! Tami, Kyle, and Amy with the kiddos in packs.

The shirt says it all.

Isaiah, Jonah, and Kyle enjoying some creek swimming.

In July we made the decision after much thought and honestly torture to return to our beloved Tahoe where Kyle will work as a physician assistant.