Laowai

Bea has this sweet little friend and she is a gem of a friend. Her name is Mabel.

Claire has friends too and they are special girls, but Mabel is different because Mabel has helped Bea through some incredibly difficult times. When Bea was paralyzed with fear Mabel was the one who could make her smile. When the world seemed too scary Mabel showed her how to brush it all off and get on with having fun. I know that they have shared the most intimate whispers and I know that Bea attributes any braveness she has had to Mabel’s showing her the way.

And it’s not just Mabel – it’s her whole family. They somehow embraced Bea even when I was scared and confided how much she struggled. They understood in the most nonchalant way. When things seemed so dark and complicated to me – they focused on the right stuff. They got through to Bea – mostly by making her laugh and smile. With their help we have come out on the other side of a very scary storm. And so it feels so hard to leave Mabel and her mom behind. Just when I’ve come to love having a mom that I can trust I am going somewhere far away. Soon I won’t have a friend a couple blocks over that loves and understands my daughter.

Brian and I sometimes get annoyed (as parents do) and we roll our eyes at Bea and then we laugh and speculate that Mabel’s parents like her more than we do. Ha.

We are leaving right when these girls are ready to start changing into teenagers and we can’t know how their sweet friendship will fare. All we can do is look back and feel grateful for such a precious gift that the friendship has been… so far.

Paris on the Prairie – that’s what Daniel Burnham, visionary behind Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, nicknamed The Plan of Chicago.

We took the girls and Bea’s best friend Mabel down to the city to do the excellent Chicago Architecture Foundation river tour on Thursday. I’ve been on the tour a few time and each time I just eat it up. Floating along the river is like seeing a museum of skyscrapers – skyscrapers of every age and style. I took lots of photos!

After the tour we got a cold drink and walked to the Adler Planetarium. It was hot – we almost melted!

So glad we got to be tourists close to home before our big move. My mind is emotional this week because we are saying good-bye to everything and everyone. I should gather my thoughts and put them down but that would just make me cry. 

We have Brian back with us for the week. We really missed him. We’ve been swimming, watching fireworks, sleeping in late, picnicking, painting and just relaxing as a family.

The great lakes – what an understatement. They should be called the fantastic, spectacular, so big you can never see the other side lakes!

This rock was perched on a bench on the steps down to the water. I am trying to be happy, but I also feel like I’m in limbo. Between one section of my life and another. I don’t like waiting to be settled. Waiting to be together as a family and to be surrounded by the things that make me feel comfortable. At the same time – I don’t like turning my back on our current home which I have put so much work into and which I have grown to love. I find myself saying good-bye to all the little seasonal traditions that happen around here. So this little rock was a good reminder. While things feel a bit turned upside down – I have so much to be thankful for and in this moment of limbo all I really have to do is be happy.

Also, I can’t wait to paint some of the rocks that we picked up on the beach. I’m nuts and the girls will roll their eyes to hear it again, but this beach has the best smooth black rocks. I can’t express how happy those rocks make me!!!

We shipped all of our art supplies over to Switzerland – our paints and brushes and colored pencils and paper and markers and chalks. Everything! How can we survive these summer months without some art? We can’t. I had to take the girls to the art store to buy some paints. And wow, we have been using those paints just about everyday – in between trips to the pool.

We made some red, white and blue artwork for a contest at our local art store. 

Mine was inspired by the Herman Miller picnic posters.

We also made a couple more egg carton wreaths. A completely free craft other than the paint… and the eggs I suppose. 

And since our toys are also on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean we dragged my old doll house out of the basement and it’s been getting some love.

Today we went to a rocky beach North of us and we brought home some smooth round stones. Stay tuned for some more art – some painted rocks.

I tried a new recipe for the shortcakes – Smitten Kitchen’s version. It was very quick and easy and I think I would use it again.

I also made a strawberry milk recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I first tried last year. If you get your hands on a few cups of good strawberries I recommend you first make strawberry shortcake and then make this strawberry milk – it’s delicious (but don’t bother if you only have grocery store strawberries).

We are missing Brian like crazy. He sends us photos like this on the weekends.

I grew up doing so much serious camping and I loved it – it’s a wonder that I don’t do more camping with my kids.

So I took the girls and Bea’s best friend camping for a couple nights. We went to the Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin. The park is right along Lake Michigan, they have some nice hiking trails and a great little nature center.

When we arrived on Wednesday, I rushed to get our camp set up because some thunderstorms were coming. Here are the girls after experiencing a thunderstorm in a tent for the first time. I was thankful that the storm passed through fairly quickly and we were still able to cook our dinner over a fire.

Then we took a walk through a marsh at sunset time. The air was wet and fresh and cool and it felt lovely.

Did I mention I was camping with cute little dorks.

S’mores!

The next morning we went for a walk along a dunes trail before it got hot. I took a lot of photos. The dunes are so pretty and I kept thinking –  there are no dunes in Switzerland. There was a cool mist blowing off the lake and the sun was trying to burn through the clouds. I think the girls liked walking on the boardwalk – more fun than just a plain ol’ trail.

Then we went to the beach – it was beautiful too… but we were all a little put off by the many many dead fish. I don’t know why there were tons of them, I should have asked. 

Claire E. got a sunburn on her bum. Oops.

Bea caught a toad in the woods. I let the girls practice lighting matches and they made the fire on the second night. They were asleep each night before their heads hit their pillows. I stayed up reading for a long time by the fire. There was some complaining about mosquitos, but other than that, it was a success!

Yeah camping!!!