"Oh Shenandoah!"

While we were back in the States, the whole Garber clan took a weekend trip to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  As we do every year, most of the kids (including Lena, on her daddy's back) climbed Old Rag Mountain the first day before meeting everyone else at the vacation house.

The house was near a field of Texas Longhorn cattle (beautiful creatures!) and what appeared to be a horse boarding facility.  A couple of Arabians were happy to get their necks rubbed by many hands, large and tiny.

We were also very close to a stream flowing out of Shenandoah National Park.  My sister Emily drove down to spend part of the weekend with us, and she loved enjoying all this natural beauty with us too.

Everyone loves Lena's jelly shoes!

Twice we visited quiet parts of the river to go "swimming" and relax near the cold, clear water.

 

We also took a family portrait, which this time included Jonathan's lovely fiance, Erika.  Here's a hilarious candid of some of the family...

... and here's the final product, which turned out beautifully.  I love you, wonderful new family of mine!

the Father's Day breakfast in bed flop

Buzzzzz.  Buzz buzz.

My alarm clock went off early on Father's Day morning.  Elliot was wearing ear plugs (the dogs in the farm nearby bark loudly through our open windows at night) and didn't hear it.  Good for me, because that meant I could proceed with my plan: breakfast in bed for him!  Soft Eggs with Buttery Herb-Gruyere Toasts.  Doesn't it sound heavenly?! 

About 5 minutes into said plan, as I was still studying the list of ingredients for breakfast, I heard our baby crying.  Uh oh.  This breakfast in bed might not go as well as I'd hoped.

About 20 minutes into said plan, as I was slipping eggs into boiling water, I could hear that Elliott had woken up.  Uh oh again.  Lena and I went to meet him.  "Happy Father's Day!" I said.

"Oh wow... good morning... I forgot!" he said.

"Well, get ready, because you're about to have breakfast in bed."

"Whoa."

(I should say right now that thus far in our marriage we have never had breakfast in bed.  I was making history!)

I quickly finished cooking the romantic breakfast, but I was disappointed that it didn't look anything like the pictures on Smitten Kitchen.  For one thing, I was missing egg cups.  For another, the toasts were kind of burned.  And lastly, I only had cheddar, not Gruyere, for the toasts.  Sigh.

                                                   mine                                                                                     Smitten Kitchen's

Oh well, Elliott hasn't ever seen Smitten Kitchen in his life, so he didn't know the difference.  He raised his eyes appropriately in delight when I brought the meal to him on a Polish pottery platter, accompanied by a fresh cup of coffee.  Unfortunately, however, breakfast in bed also meant baby in bed, and there was no way we could juggle her and cracking eggs and dipping toasts.  We relocated to the balcony.

The summer sun shines right on our balcony in the morning, which means it's about 80 degrees by 8am.  Sweating, squinting, and attempting to enjoy a hot breakfast, I glanced at a clock.

"We're going to have to eat kind of fast," I said to the man I was attempting to honor with peace and rest today. "We should leave for church in 10 minutes."

We managed to leave in 15, still swallowing our coffee as we raced out the door.  (In fact some of mine landed on my white dress.)  We left so fast, unfortunately, that Elliott forgot his entire wallet.  We arrived on base and the security guards shook their heads.  "You're going to have to go home and get your I.D. card.  Sorry."

I forlornly unpacked the diaper bag and my daughter from the car as Elliott sat even more forlornly in the driver's seat, ready to turn around and go home and be even more late to church than we already were.  Just then some friends pulled up behind us and said hello, then kept watching me unload and said, "Did you forgot something?  Your I.D., Elliott?  I can get you in.  Oh, you don't have any identification on you?  Wow.  Well... I can still get you in.  Don't worry.  I'll park outside the chapel and come right back for you!"

Bless him.  Saved our day just a little bit, he did.

So Father's Day wasn't quite the restful, peaceful bliss I'd hoped it would be for Elliott's sake, but real life rarely is, right?  Later that evening we took a hike in the valley below our house.  Although the grass is dry and prickly this time of year, we managed to find a quiet spot with a pretty vista and enjoyed one of Elliott's favorite things: a picnic meal out in nature.  He and Lena shared a peach and found a baby frog in a nearby creek.  Not a bad end to his Father's Day!

Dearest Elliott, thank you for being such a patient, attentive, and involved daddy to little Lena.  She has no idea how blessed she is.  But I have some idea, and I am thankful and grateful every day.  We love you!

bathtime in Burke

Today wasn't my greatest day as a mother.  At 8am this morning I rushed my little girl out the door, carpooling with Elliott on his way to work, so that I could get errands done before my weekly women's Bible study.  I dragged Lena from the library to the commissary to the post office.  Unfortunately I didn't do my research and missed the fact that today all the moms and kids were not at Bible study... they were at a playground 20 minutes away!  This all dawned on me when I took Lena to the nursery to drop her off and it was a dark, empty nursery.  Lena toddled around pulling out her favorite toys off the shelves while I scrolled through emails on my phone, realized my mistake, and groaned.

Lena and I drove home, Lena weeping in the back seat, hot and exhausted and hungry.  Little Lena, I'm so sorry for pushing you beyond your limits, for not giving you a nap when you needed one, for not checking my emails beforehand and seeing where we needed to be and when!  I'm sorry, too, for not being able to nurse you before your nap once we got home.  I know that's what you still want before you sleep, but you're growing up, little one, and you can't always drink Mama's milk. 

In the midst of feeling rather in the dumps about my mothering/scheduling abilities, my sister-in-law Jess sent these wonderful photos from our trip home to Virginia.  She took them right after I got Lena out of her bath.  Sweet memories and a dear family.  Love that covers a multitude of sins!

there and back again

Well, I guess I went on an unexplained blogging vacation!  Sorry about being MIA for all you few and faithful who look forward to updates.  I'm back now with some photos today and other life updates later this week.

One reason for the lack of posting is that our little family took a trip back to the States.  We did nothing but relax with family and see friends the entire time, altogether a sweet interlude in regular life.  I'll share more from our visit home later this week, but for now, here are some iPhone photos from time with family as well as a few from life since we got back last Wednesday night.

Marmee (mother of twins) teaches Lena how hard it is to take care of twin babies!

& snack time on the back deck

 nature loving in the Garbers' beautiful backyard in Virginia

 now back home in Sicily, we settle back into our familiar routines (and also pots)

 playtime and "helping" with the laundry

 she pulls her wooden alligator behind her everywhere these days

& enjoying a traditional Sicilian breakfast (frozen granite ices inside brioche sweet buns) with my dad, who visited us this weekend

 enjoying the fruits of Sicily: homemade cherry compote (in an old lemon curd jar) 

& munching on an apricot on a walk

yesterday Lena found new uses for her cloth diapers as her mama took them off the line

life lately

Happy Monday, everyone!  Here are a few snapshots from our life recently:

a trip to the visiting circus in our little town!

& I gave her a bucket to splash in on the porch and she got right in 

 celebrating the end of May and my month of no sweets with a giant chocolate chip cookie

& lunchtime with a cutie patootie

 new activity: stacking things

one day she just walked up to me with a blanket on her head

 "Look what a great seat I found!"

& then the next night, when I was cooking in all the big pots, "Why don't I fit in here anymore...???"

 baby legs on the go in cute velvet skirts 

& cross-eyed over a pea

 books, books, oh how we love books!

& working on some mending

a walk around our town's cemetery

a trip to the beach

Very, very spontaneously, Elliott and I decided to go away to the beach this past weekend.  The decision was made when Elliott was looking at hotels online, and when I asked him why, he said, "For Memorial Day weekend."

This was Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend.

The hotel he'd found, though, seemed perfect.  Glowing reviews on booking.com, lovely pictures of gardens, famously delicious meals in the hotel restaurant, and just 100 feet from the beach.

"Let's do it!" I said.  "You said you wanted a getaway to a white sand beach.  We can go tomorrow afternoon and come back Monday."

And so we did!

Hotel Villamare was fabulous; I think we'll go back if we can.  White sand surrounded a bay of turquoise water, although unfortunately the scenery was marred by a lot of seaweed.  (We missed the annual seaweed clean up, which was scheduled for June 1... oops!)  We worked around a winters' worth of seaweed, though, and thoroughly enjoyed sand and sea.

That evening Elliott and I enjoyed a delicious three-course Italian meal in the hotel restaurant.  We lingered over our bottle of wine, savoring the cheeses and meats, the fresh pistachio pasta, the fillets of fish.  Breakfast the next morning was just as noteworthy, and we got special attention because of little Lena sitting primly in her high chair at our table.  The waitress brought us a special dish of almond granita and brioche, a very traditional Sicilian breakfast.  We slathered the sorbet (granita) over the sweet bread roll (brioche) and ate up like true Sicilians.

On Monday morning our good friends Josh, Becca, and their kids joined us on the beach, and another friend and her two sons came as well.  They all dug a huuuuuge hole, which little Stevie said was for Lena to swim in.

Princess Lena awaited her pool while playing with everyone else's beach toys and trying a taste of sand.

She loved her handmade pool!  She also clearly loved the beach, and her friends, and the sunshine.  Now whenever Lena sees a bottle of sunscreen, she asks me to pop off the lid and then carefully dabs her fingertip in it and wipes it on her face.  She's ready for summertime in Sicily, I think!