The everyday wonder of riding bicycles at 5:45 am with my daughter

I am so loving having my daughter home for the summer. I know this because I rise several days a week, at least three, to ride my bicycle with her to her job in Oregon City, where she works for Clackamas County as a temporary summer employeed.

She rides her bicycle every day to work because she has no car. We did not get our children cars for their 16th birthday as some parents do (that is a whole other topic of a column).

But I think even if Rachel had a car she would still ride her bicycle to work. She likes the exercise, she likes to feel like she is in Germany, and she likes to feel as if she is saving the planet. All of which she is doing, one ride at a time.

It really is invigorating. And I made a commitment to ride with her Monday Wednesday and Friday. And two of those days, I take her out to Coffee Rush for a coconut mocha for me and a coconut latte for her.

I love our morning bicycle rides. The sunrise this summer has been splendid. The fresh air, the conversation. The everyday feel of life, the moment, the wonder, the sweetness of having this time with my daughter. I thank God every day, every moment, as I ride with her.

When we arrive at Coffee Rush, we are greeted by Angela and two other workers at the coffee shop depending on which day it is. The music is soft folk rock which I enjoy. We talk about small things, and family, and church, and faith, and school, and frustrations, and future, and careers, and passions, and callings, and health, and American culture compared with German culture, and relationships, and community.

Daily conversations, moments with people, with family, with friends, with loved ones, cannot be planned necessarily. You just have to be there for them. To be available. Forget this quality time. You need time. And time is what I love having for my family. Taking the time. To just be. To sit after dinner to talk instead of rushing off to do dinner or the internet. To have tea in the evenings together, to make tea first off, then to sit on the deck or the couch to sip and see who will join you. To just be.

Rachel's job is going to be over for the summer in a couple of weeks which is so hard to believe. I do not want summer to end. I want to hold on to it, to keep it close, to never let it go. I know I cannot, but what I can do is savor it, and write about it and take lots and lots of photographs and treasure this moment close to my heart.

Week 6 Adventure - Summer 2009 - Living Deliberately

This week my twins were at Boy Scout camp in Washington and my youngest was at a Fun in the Sun camp while I was working away having a new website created and getting bids on replacement windows and working on house projects and preparing for my class I teach this week at the Oregon Christian Writers Conference. So, did I have my weekly adventure with kids –
I can tell I am a legalistic person because when my youngest (age 6) and I went on a walk this week to Sourdough Willy’s for a sticky bun and some cherries, I said to him, “This can be our adventure this week” and he said, “No camping with Daddy will be.”
Okay, so Dad gets to have the adventure with the kids this week.
But really, so much of my life could be called an adventure of the week.
I like to live deliberately as Thoreau said and pointing out the adventures of life and that the very thing we are doing is an adventure and celebration helps me feel that I am living deliberately and with purpose as I believe God would have us do.
This week -yesterday- we went to our Sudan family friends again in north Portland and Rachel had organized once again and invited a few more of her friends and Breezy came again and even though not all of my children could come as is the case with kids of varied ages, I am calling this our adventure of the week. We had wanted to help lighten the load of our Sudan friends---there are seven children with the youngest age 2 ½ and the mom does not know English very well and we had hoped to help her clean a bit and assist her with groceries.
I know I always appreciated help when someone offered to help me with cleaning or with my children, especially when they were very young.
And I know how hard it is to keep a fridge filled for a large family and we have looked inside their fridge at their apartment and it is empty.
But the mom was quiet about our offer though last week she seemed happy about when we told her we were returning to assist her. Yesterday she just said that she is fine and does not need help and we of course were going to honor her. I know it is hard to accept help and we are just trying to be her friend. One of the sons said it is a pride thing and we are truly not trying to make anyone feel badly but only to help. I had to swallow my pride when I was on bedrest with the twins and friends offered to help me clean and my house is so hard for me to clean as it is—forget bedrest as an excuse. And my friends made me diners and took my children and I loved it and so appreciated it and it was in that spirit that we went to help our Sudan friends.
So, this time, we came up with a plan B.
Some of the group took the children to the park again for a makeshift sports camp like last week, while I offered to take the oldest son Jima to the store and he could pick out some items that the family might like and the mom was fine with that. My son Ryan came along to. Our entire family enjoys being with our Sudan family friends. I love to see all of my children interacting with people of varied cultures. To be in community with people of different backgrounds.
An adventure indeed.

The Extraordinary Ordinary Everyday Moments

I had to go to a writing meeting tonight so I was not able to eat dinner with the family, but I did not want to miss what was happening at home. I did not want to miss the ordinary extraordinary.
Rachel’s friend had come over and I had initially thought they were going to go out, but instead they sat at our island in our kitchen and I offered that they eat dinner with us and they said yes, and I wanted the meal to be nice and my home to be a warm place for my children and their friends and I wanted to be a part of this very every day moment.
At the time I offered to have my daughter and her friend eat dinner with us, I had not even made dinner but then it looked like they were going to just stay at our house and so I offered to make dinner and I wanted it to be nice and I wanted to sit on our deck covered with trees and listen to the creek that is next to the deck and participate in the conversation of everyday life.
I want my home to be a safe and comfortable haven for my entire family and I felt like things were not in order enough, so I quickly cleaned up and made a salad and had Ryan help clean up and I got chicken out to barbeque and I took the husks off of the corn on the cob ready to boil and I cleaned off the table on the deck so it would be nice and clean and I just wanted to stay…but I did not. I went to my meeting.
And hurried back home.
I told my friend Janice about this blog I wanted to write, about wanting to be with my children for the ordinary every day moments of life, about the importance of creating a home that our children want to be in. A place that is not rushed, a place where our children can talk about life and God and faith and worries and questions and whatever comes to their minds. A place where our children can share their thoughts and dreams and frienships and everyday life. A place where our children can laugh and be silly and be themselves and in our home there is a lot of craziness.

It is not about quality time only but it is about time. Having the time. Taking the time. About creating a safe place, a place of warmth, that our children can bring their friends home to, a place where they feel comfortable. And Janice said that is exactly what is important to her, that is exactly what she has tried to provide for her family these 20 years as a stay home mom.
Two days ago, I walked to Sourdough Willy’s with my oldest son 17 and my youngest son 6 and we got cherries which are amazing this time of year and we got sticky buns and danishes, apricot and cream cheese and it felt good to walk together in our neighborhood, it was just a moment, but one that I treasure and I try to tell my kids to treasure.
Last night we ate our dinner on the deck again. It has been amazing summer evenings and we had corn on the cob and sausages and spinach salad and the twins are at Boy Scout camp right now so there are only 3 kids at home. And I wanted to savor every moment. The laughter, the discussion, the conversation. Before the dinner, Rachel and Augustin had been putting dried mint leaves into a bottle together in our kitchen/ It was an everyday moment they were sharing. Rachel was going to do this alone after she had been drying the mint leaves from our yard but Augustin asked if he could help. So they did the project together.

And a day before the two of them had planted herbs in a planter. Rachel works with someone at the county who plants his own garden and she wanted to do some of that as well. She had done some last year.

I went to get my camera to capture some of these everyday ordinary moments of an everyday summer day.

That feels extraordinary.

Week 3 Summer 2009 ~ When WORK is Adventure -

Okay, so it’s not a great hike in the outdoors or a wildlife refuge but the Week 3 adventure with my children ended up being Work projects. That’s right. What one of my twin 11year olds said to me during one of the work projects got me to realize that work can count as an adventure and has to this third week of summer as we just didn’t get to do the original adventure we had planned (going to the fountains).
My garage has been bugging me for a while and so one day during week 3 of summer I just could not stand it anymore and I began taking everything out of one half of the garage. What started it is, we could not find a certain pair of boots for one of my children. So, I dumped out all of the boxes where the boots are stored in the garage to search for them and one thing led to another.
Then as I looked at our garage walls I realized they looked terrible and had spider webs all over them and the walls had never really been painted. So I thought, one way to clean walls of cobwebs is to paint them.
So, paint we did.
All three of my three youngest boys helped me.
First, though, we took everything out of the garage. Some things I am guessing had not been moved, and I am embarrassed to admit this, for 20 years. As long as we have lived here.
Paint cans and tarps and shoes and sports gear and tools and sleeping bags and old roller blades and broken toys and and and. The garage becomes a storing ground for a lot of things.
After the prep work we got out the paint brushes and whatever paint I have had the past 20 years and we got to work. My three boys, 11, 11, and 6, were so enthusiastic to paint. That creative impulse perhaps.
They each took a certain section and we tried to keep it from getting too messy but because it was the garage I was not as worried as you are in the house.

When we got one wall completed, we took a break for lunch and Mickael Josef, one of the twins, said to me, “This is so much fun” and that is what made me think of work as an adventure. I have heard of the saying, "work as prayer" and in a way this is the same idea.

Looking at work as adventure - the kids were doing something new and different and somewhat creative and maybe most importantly, together with me. All qualities of an adventure. And, a bonuse of course- learning a skill and feeling good about being important in the family to help with work.
It wasn’t outdoors as my goal for outdoor adventures was, but it was something new, painting.
Yet, as I think of Week 3 of summer, there was another work project my kids were involved with and this one was outdoors- my 17 year old’s Eagle project which all of the boys were part of. Three of my four boys are Boy Scouts and they all helped Ryan with his Eagle project. The Eagle project was to build a new trail off Pimlico Court. The goal for Ryan was to put in 600 feet of trail and they got so much done that first day last Friday that they ended up putting in 1000 feet of trail, making it all the way to the bridge. Which the City of West Linn had hoped for!
It was great fun to see my boys working so hard with a shovel in their hands and a pick ax and the camaraderie amongst the boys and adults helping in the hot summer air.
You could just see and feel the reward of work.Indeed, the adventure of work!

Week 2 Summer 2009 - My Kid-Goal: Every week a new outdoor adventure

My goal this summer is to get the kids back to nature, to get away from neon lights and schedules and life in the fast lane and computer screens and electronic devices. As one mom calls it-to "get away from manufactured fun".

Each week I am making a commitment to do something outdoors, some kind of adventure, some kind of new park, new hike, new outdoor area, new natural area.
Last week was the first week of summer (well, the kids had school on Monday), and my friend Jeanie told me she was going on a hike to Multnomah Falls so we invited ourselves along. It was great fun seeing that amazing waterfall, walking –sometimes running--up the hill to the top of the falls, and looking down, meandering along the trail with the big cliff to our side.

So, this week, the second week to do a new, non-neon light adventure took us to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge just outside of Sherwood, Oregon. I had read about this in The Oregonian sometime back and have been wanting to take my children.

As my friend Nancy Trumbo and I had talked about getting together this week it was a perfect time to suggest going to the Wildlife Refuge. Nancy had first suggested a local park near her Tualatin house but I wanted something different and she was thrilled to go with me.

Wow, amazing spot right by the City. We saw pelicans, bullfrogs, tree frogs, a creek, lots of birds, woods, and our kids walking along the path talking up a storm. It was just a mile walk on the path to the lookout area and we saw another group—a camp for kids- exploring the refuge.