Camping Glacier

     I love camping for so many reasons.

(Me with three reasons right here.)

       Sleeping outdoors, even in our own backyard, can be an amazingly refreshing experience, but I've found when I can sleep outdoors in the wilderness, where no lights outshine the stars, no human-made sounds overpower nature's own nocturnal soundtrack, no machines change the temperature of the night air, I am more than refreshed. I am inspired. Cooking and eating outdoors always makes food taste better. And, for me, organizing a space for my family to live in, a space to meet our needs, is like playing Little House in The Woods. I get giddy with nesting, homesteading excitement when we find the campsite that, for a few days, becomes ours.

(Our little campground home.)

     We all get dirty, letting soap-free lake or river swimming serve as our only baths, but despite the dirt, camping always makes me feel beautiful, natural and clean.
     I love to see the effect of wilderness on my children and my husband, and to feel it in me; to know, when we are stripped of our phones and computers and toys and comforts, who we become. Laurelei and Riley never fail to inspire me with the things they find to do; the play things and places they make in forests and on riverbanks and lake shores. Brian and I work together without effort to plan and cook and tend, laughing, seeming suddenly to have energy and patience we have only on the best days at home. Is that the distance from worries? The lack of deadlines and schedules? The not knowing what time it is and having that be okay? And sleeping on the hard ground (let's face it, camping pads and air mattresses don't really do all that much) is okay. Even that squirrel who throws pine cones at our tent every morning before dawn is more than okay.
     Whatever it is about camping that does this to me, I crave it. And we, as a family camp at least once a summer; more often if we can. This last weekend we spent four days camping in one of the most beautiful places God ever put in man's fumbling care: Glacier National Park.

     The last time the kids and I were in the GNP, it was two years ago with Nanna and B couldn't be there. I fell in love with the park, and, even though I don't think L and R have very clear memories of that trip, the vague impression of familiar beauty and wonder was still upon them as we explored this time around.

(This is my favorite shot from that long-ago trip. Look how little they were!)

     

   I've wanted to take B there ever since. He's a loyal Yellowstone groupie who vowed his affections would not be swayed, but by the end of our four days, I think a soft spot for Glacier had made its way into his bison-and-geyser-loving heart. And me? My heart was full. 

    How could it not be?

    We came home with sunburns (Mamma remembered sunblock on three out of four hikes--no one's perfect), tired legs and feet, sleeping bags to be aired, coolers to be scrubbed, and roughly eight loads of dirty laundry I almost didn't want to wash. I didn't want to lose the smoky, piney, forest smell. But as B and I unloaded our little car and cleaned up the remains of a trip not to be forgotten, all I could think was: When can we go again?

   What places and family trips have filled your heart this summer?

xo

The Summer Before

     For our family, this is the summer before everything changes.

     In the spring, I had a plan. I wanted the summer for my own--time to finish the final draft of my novel, long, lovely days spent stitching fall wardrobes for my little ones, afternoon naps with my growing baby belly. The children would play in the backyard, wild and free. No plans. Just play for them and my own time for me before...And then I remembered. Fall will come, and something will happen in our homeschooling family that has never happened: Laurelei and Riley will go to public school. And this Mamma bird will have no children in her nest or under her wing for a good chunk of each day. And then, more changes: the baby we've hoped and prayed would come for the last three and a half years will arrive. These are good changes for us. They are right for our family at this time. But when I really stopped to think about how precious these summer days with my little ones are, my plans went out the window. 

    
    That novel? It's been in the works for four years. It can hang on until fall. The stitching? We'll do it together. Naps? Those stay, but in mountain meadows on blankets with storybooks scattered around us and a little one on each shoulder, whispering to the baby (whom they call Little Sprout). We've been riding bikes and exploring forests, packing picnics and cooking over campfires, snatching up cabin weekends and diving into everything in Missoula's summer scene. 

      We've been doing, doing, doing...living, living, loving... and making memories that, sometime, I will start to write about more often again. 

    I sleep a little more these days, and clean house a little less. And I'm trying to spend as few hours of my precious summer as possible on the computer, but I still have stories to tell. They'll come. And so will fall. But for now, I'm cherishing every moment of us as we've always been; Mamma and little ones, Daddy when he gets home, loving nothing in this world so much as being together.

xo

Better Than The Best

     Our Sunday drive this past weekend took us to the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge down the Bitterroot Valley, where our intended one-or-two-hour outing turned into a five-hour, linger-happily-in-the-wilderness family adventure. With the golden light in the shadow of St. Mary's peak, the lush green grasses of spring in the riparian zone, and piles of soft, white, washed-up-by-the-river sand to play in, no one wanted to go home.

     Red-winged blackbirds, which are my favorite for their throaty, warbling song,  danced around us on the cattails, warning us from their reedy nests.

     All the female Yellow-headed blackbirds gathered together to chat while their mates remained vivid guardians at the water's edge.

     We watched a Great Blue Heron catch fish, patiently waiting, tilting his head and bob-walking slowing through the water, then striking with a speed that was thrilling to see. The kids jumped and cheered, then gasped as a larger bird of prey (Golden Eagle?) swooped at it in an attempt to steal the hard-won meal.

     There was a moment, as we walked along the swollen Bitterroot river, the kids running ahead, finding treasures among the sticks and rocks and wildflowers, Brian and I strolling behind, when I thought, "It only keeps getting better, doesn't it? This Mammahood thing." And then immediately I knew that thought wasn't quite right...because if I deemed the moments that came each new day as better, wasn't I then somehow discounting those that came before? And those moments--baby on my breast, tiny hand clinging to my finger, little sleeper on my shoulder, preschooler proudly reciting ABCs-- those were the best.

     But these moments I have now--thinkers who tell me about their inventions over breakfast, bookworms who beg to go to the library, naturalists who keep pet worms in an old dirt-filled rain boot on the back deck--they are the best too. I think it's the fact that the old moments never leave me; the memories simply become the root from which the new moments grow. The babies who are our children who will someday be our teenagers and our grown-ups will always, at the heart of everything that is our family, still be our purpose and joy. And for Brian and I, that means that every moment (even the hard ones!) can be better than the best.

     Hope your Mamma moments are better than the best.

xo

Winter Picnic

   We woke up yesterday to sunshine. Bright, glorious sunshine. That may seem normal to most people, but in Missoula, where we have a scant 75 days of sunshine a year, that warm light triggered a forgotten primal reaction: the need to be outside. Our Sunday drive plans immediately changed. Less driving, more exploring. And a picnic.

A We-Can't-Wait-For-Spring picnic.

 
    We drove to Rock Creek (famous for fly-fishing, yes, but also perfect for snow picnicking), and set out down the Spring Creek trail, reveling in the almost-balmy 54 degree fresh air. Mamma hesitated and nearly called it quits when we spotted a whole trail of these:

 (Yes, those are mountain lion tracks. I should have set something else in the picture to show the size--those bad boys were huge.)

   ...but we decided, with the number of noisy people in our little party, the bright sunshine, and the abundance of fly-fisherman in the vicinity, to keep a wary eye in the trees, stick together, and forge ahead.
    I'm so glad we did.

    Not only did we not see any mountain lions, we also did not see any cabin-fever grumpiness, it's-too-cold-shivers, or let's-go-home long winter blues. We got hot. We (at least Brian and I) got a little bit sunburned. And we spent the day basking in the magical crossover of winter's beauty and the hope of spring.

I hope your spring comes soon.

xo

p.s. Thoughts on spring from my favorite poet, William Carlos Williams.

p.p.s. A couple of people have asked me about the boots I am wearing in these shots. They are the Joan of Arctic by Sorel and if you are a winter outdoors kind of girl, they are the Best. Boots. Ever. A little pricey, but I got them on a screamin' mid-winter sale at REI. Worth it.
   

Christmas Magic

We live in a magical place.

Saturday was Missoula's annual Christmas kick-off celebration, and, though we hesitated when we found out that Brian would have to be working that day, Laurelei, Riley and I decided to go as a threesome anyway. I love our downtown neighborhood and all the businesses, both quaint and quirky, that fill it (whenever we're going there the kids and I sing a rather raucous rendition of 'Downtown' by Petula Clark on the way), so I was excited to have an excuse to spend the better part of the day wandering the city sidewalks (which, by the way, were dressed in holiday style). 

We stopped here and there, at the organizations participating in the day's festivities: making ornaments at the Missoula Art Museum, eating lunch at a yummy sandwich shop, petting ponies at the ambrosial local ice creamery, Big Dipper, riding the carousel, making another ornament at Selvedge Studio (the hippest little fabric store in town), getting hot cocoa at our favorite cafe, watching the annual parade of lights and then joining the throng of merry-makers gathered for the lighting of the town Christmas tree. 

Which seems like a lot. It was a lot. 

When I think about it, the day could have easily turned into one of those forced family fun outings, during which the parents drag the children from one activity to the next as the children grow ever more overwhelmed and weary and the parents keep repeating, "Isn't this fun?" with a manic look in their twitching eyes, but, for some reason, it wasn't.

It was a slow, moment-by-moment, magic day. Maybe it was the break we took after lunch to attend the baptism of a friend; the quiet and renewal of that small hour. 

Maybe it was that we came home for a few minutes mid-afternoon to change into warmer clothes for the parade, thereby avoiding the crankiness that inevitably comes with cold toes. 

Maybe it was that we all just really wanted to be there, in our community, doing things that we felt a part of.

Celebrating Christmas. 

Whatever it was, as the Christmas tree lights went on, silvery-white snowflakes began to fall.

We each caught our breath for a moment in the night air, tilted our faces to the sky and smiled.

Magic.

xo

Open the Door

This time of year is always hard for me.The mornings hold the promise of autumn in their brisk chill, but (apply dramatic martyr voice here)  how quickly the sun burns those hopes away! It's hot. It's dry. And by the end of August in Montana, the valleys all hold the swirling smoke of a half-dozen wildland fires; a sooty haze that only intensifies the heat.

Water has become our refuge. 

Last week, before the smoke set in too heavily in our town, we spent  two days at one of our favorite little mountain beaches; a spot on the Bitterroot river where a marsh-willow covered sometimes-island splits the current and, on one side, the water slows to a kid-friendly pace.

There's something about rivers that speaks of stillness and omni-presence to me, despite the constant motion of the water's flow and gradual change of it's path.

To quote Norman Maclean: 

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters." 

A couple of days later, we found ourselves hiking in the Bitterroot Mountains, alongside a body of water with a different kind of voice: a cold and rushing, change-is-coming voice. 

The voice of a mountain creek.

We stripped our feet bare and washed the summer dust away, wading into the water deep enough to let the icy water redden our skin and nearly numb our legs with cold. Then we sat on the rocks in the sun for awhile, warming up just enough to want to do it again.

This week, however, the smoke arrived. Bringing with it itchy eyes and sore throats and leaving a much-anticipated-but-now-cancelled camping trip in its wake.

I can't wait for fall. I want an excuse to wear sweaters and boots, eat soup (lots of soup!), and every morning, wake up and open the door- if for no other reason than to breathe in the cooling earth and clean sky.

Until then, I suppose, we will just have to hunker down in our (thankfully) air-conditioned digs and make plans that involve knee-socks, leaf piles, and copious amounts of apple pie.

What part of fall are you most looking forward to?

xo