Family Farmer’s Market Fiasco

Saturday I woke the kids with an invitation to the farmer’s market and a bribe of donuts. Usually these Saturday morning trips are a date thing with Mike and me. We’re up before anyone else (pretty much any time before noon, so don’t be impressed) and heading downtown on bikes. On this morning, Mike had something else […]

Continue Reading

Baby Daddy and the Sitter Dog

This was the week for sugar babies at Colin’s school: when sixth graders manage a budget and haul around a five-pound sack of sugar as though it’s a real baby. Which meant last weekend was probably when other sixth-grader families collected their requisite five pound bags, wrapped them with decorative duct tape to help prevent […]

Continue Reading

The thrilling life of parents of teens

This weekend we took the kids to a symphony. It’s good for all of us to see a concert once in a while that isn’t either (a) in a school gym, or (b) accented by strobe lights. We’d seen this orchestra before. Not world famous, but they fill a nearly thousand-seat auditorium. They sponsor an […]

Continue Reading

If we’re lucky, there’ll also be bears

We’re going to be schlepping the family to Yellowstone this summer, and as you can probably guess, I’m just beside myself with ambivalence. It’s time, though. On average, about three out of four exchange students will ask to see Yellowstone, and we haven’t even taken our own kids to see this American family vacation icon. […]

Continue Reading

Musings and Mind Games: A Runner’s Race Day Countdown

Tomorrow is the Race to Robie Creek, the self-proclaimed toughest race in the northwest. It’s not so bad. We’ve done it. It’s actually quite a pleasant ascent through a rocky canyon, up a dirt road and over a mountain and back down to a little valley where nudists and tree-huggers and hillbillies live in harmony. True, […]

Continue Reading