Memorial Day Weekend

We enjoyed another Memorial Day Weekend at MaryKay’s farm in Pennsylvania; lovely space, quiet and fun. There is something that just slows down when we hit the farm. We sleep in (unless our dog, crazed by the new house, goes around and wakes us each up), prepare large meals, talk about doing work around the farm and sometimes even do a little work. And then we nap!

This year Royce cleaned the barn for awhile and all kids threw rocks from the creek to the shore. This is their standard chore, half getting wet and cooling off and half helping stop erosion. There is some tubing down the river with adults laughing at the tiny tubes the kids used ten years ago when we first visited. The dog jumped in, got carried by the current, managed to get out of the creek- and then jumped back in and did it all over again.

The only change to our routine this go around was driving. The twins, both new drivers, wanted to take loops around a very quiet road on the farm. We all did that many times. A driving loop at 20 miles per hour takes about 10 mins. So all licensed adults did a few loops with various twin drivers. Not as relaxing as the rest of the weekend but all the other downtime helped gear us up for it!

Sweet Sixteen

We are through our flurry of May birthdays (and now resting up for Phil’s birthday and Tori’s graduation)! Phil had a very nice surprise birthday for me on Sunday and we turned around and did the same for the twins the next day. That was our theme this year- surprise! Just when you thought we were too old for themes we came back with a good one.

The twins decided they did not want parties this year and in fact did not want anything this year. We tried to get them excited about a big party for both of them, a baseball game and trip to the beach… They said no to everything. Granted they were mostly focused on getting their driving permits on their actual birthday – and they did. But the rest of us thought we should mark the occasion somehow.

We baked two chocolate cakes and then invited three friends over for each, without telling them. We weren’t totally sure these kids would show up. And there already were kids running around our house and the neighborhood as the seniors at school were playing a water gun game called senior assassin. When I saw Adam’s friends sneaking into our house to surprise him, my first thought- senior assassins! But no, the boys were just being extra clever. They texted Adam and asked him to play an Xbox game with them. He went down into the basement to do so and they popped out! Royce’s friends came around to the back and her face registered total shock. Good low-key times.

It is hard to imagine the twins are right in the middle of their teenage years. We recently had friends visiting from the Hong Kong days and all the stories were of the little twins. With Adam taller than Phil and Royce taller than me, the twins are no longer little. We don’t call them the babies any more, like we did for years when someone told me not to call them the twins. But I do call them the little kids from time to time, just to distinguish between senior activities and sophomore activities. I was just talking to a woman in town who has four kids, all in or out of college. When I told her how old my kids were, she exclaimed – “oh your kids are all still little!” It is definitely all relative, even sixteen.