Sunday Salon -- The "Grand" Adventure

Highlights from the Grand Adventure

Weather: Right now it is raining, Again. It rained over 2 inches this week. More on rain to follow.

The "Grand" Adventure: this week, Don's first full week of retirement, we made a trip to the Washington Coast with our grandsons for a "grand" (Grandsons-Grandparents) adventure. We rented a beach house, ran in the waves, flew a kite, hiked to the beach, made a fire in the fire pit, toasted marshmallows for s'mores, checked out the cranberry bogs, climbed a tsunami tower, viewed a lighthouse, checked out a bottle tree (literally), read lots of books, got stuck in the house because it rained so hard, found a mouse in the back of the pickup truck, ate kid-friendly food, played follow-the-leader, found a huge stump on the beach and crawled all over it, saw a bald eagle, pretended to fly, listened to audiobook stories, and ended our adventure where it began at the Yelm City Park play structure. Whew! Grandma and Grandpa were pooped from the three-day adventure.  

 

Bottle trees (literally)

  

Trees: When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When is the second best time to plant a tree? Right now. // Enjoying the trees in my yard which all were planted over 20 years ago.

Pink Kousa dogwood; Maple with woodpecker holes; Japanese Snowbell; Harkuro Nishiki Willow

Jan. 6th Insurrection Committee Hearings: Don and I stayed up late on Thursday night, after getting the grandsons to sleep, so we could watch the first televised Congressional hearing. We found it on PBS News Hour. If you still haven't seen it, please watch. There is information that hasn't been made public before and video footage that will blow your socks off. Start viewing at hour two. The first two hours are the news show and a build up to that actual event. I feel a mixture of hope and anger. Anger that people were led by Trump to believe that the insurrection attempt was a good idea. Hopeful that the truth will come out and some people will change their opinions about what happened and how dangerous the day was for our republic. Here is the schedule for upcoming additional hearings, including the second hearing on Monday morning.

Comedy night out: Last night Don, Carly, and I drove up to Seattle to see a comedian live: Hannah Gadsby. We enjoyed her show very much. Look for her shows on Netflix. She is profound, funny, and poignant. Thanks, Carly, for the birthday/Mother's Day gift. Loved it!

Books:

• Completed this week:
• The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. The 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner. Interesting?! Is that a good description? Not sure if that helps you. It is somewhat about Jewish history and also about how we record and study history. Interestingly it is based on a story told about the famous family by a literary critic, Harold Bloom. Audio.
• The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. The sixth book in the Chronicles of Narnia. A reread. Print.
• The ABC of Black History by Rio Cortez. A Children's book that highlights the accomplishments of many Black people and aspects of Black history. A good place to start for parents who want to have a conversation about race and justice with their children. Print.
• Nate the Great Collected Stories, Vol. 1. by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat Four short stories about the young detective, Nate the Great. Ian was delighted with these stories. We listened to them together in the car en route to our Grand Adventure event. Audio.
   
• Currently reading
• Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land. I've watched the miniseries and now I'm reading the book for book club. Print. 19%.
• The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb. A mystery about the disappearance of a black musician's family heirloom violin. For my other book club. Audio. 5%.
   
• Progress on the '100 Books Every Child Should Hear Before Kindergarten' Project: We've read 59 books toward our goal of 100. One of the books, Frog and Toad, we listened together on our adventure trip. I Stink completely delighted Ian and me. I've heard of this book for years but never read it before. What a joy. This project has really ignited a reading flame in Ian who already loved books, but seems so delighted with the project and proud of listening to so many books.

Laugh or cry:

This is appropriate since we made s'mores on our adventure this past week.

 

The Jan. 6th Committee revealed that several House Members sought pardons from Trump for their participation in the Jan. 6th insurrection attempt. Guilty much? Brian Schatz is a Democratic Representative from Hawaii. His tweet makes me laugh.

Look again. It took me a while to see it correctly.

Dogs. You gotta love them.

Fred and George: 

The maintenance crew was outside my daughter's apartment, preparing the exterior for painting. Fred ran and hid. George, on the other hand, displayed his inner meerkat.

Have a good week. Around here, have a good last week of school!

-Anne