The Beneshes: July 2013

I caught the kids' cold. Except that it hit me far worse than it hit them. Noah just complained that he didn't feel well for two days, and Jane and Clara were cranky and had runny noses. But I have the runny nose, aches, tiredness, etc. Thankfully, I'm not cranky . . . yet. ;)

We skipped church today because of the generally sick state of our family. This morning, I dozed on the sofa and listened to Nathan make pancakes and feed the kids (Clara got her first taste of a chocolate chip pancake, thanks to Jane, who dropped a bite on the floor), and other than that, we've pretty much just been watching TV for much of the day. Noah and Jane haven't put any clothes on--they're just running around in their underwear (actually, Jane is also wearing a tutu at the moment). We are just having a lazy day. At the moment, Clara is taking a long nap, blessed child, Noah and Jane are playing on the iPad, Nathan is at lunch with a friend, and I am lying on the couch after watching a whole bunch of cooking shows and reality TV.

Now, lest you think I've been lazy all day, I'll have you know that I got myself up long enough to shower and make the kids a peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich. And then I found another comfy spot and sank down for the duration.

Things I wish I could accomplish today: painting the last bit around a window upstairs, returning some too-wide bookshelves to IKEA, making the carrot ginger soup and bread I had planned for tonight's dinner, and finishing Jane's flower blanket (only the border left now!).

Usually it'd bother me more that I am not doing those things, but I'm content to just lie here today.

Oh my gosh, I almost just wished you "goodnight." It is only 2:45pm. I'm going to take that as evidence that I must need a nap.

One of the idiosyncrasies of having gone to universities like Rice and Harvard, which attract students from all over the country and the world, is that after you and your friends graduate, you tend to spread all over the globe. The obvious downside is that the community you've built for four, five, or six years is suddenly gone. The fun upside, though, is that you have people you can visit all over the world. Currently, we have friends in Seattle; San Francisco; Salt Lake City; Tucson; Boston; Connecticut; New York; New Jersey; Atlanta; Adelaide, Australia; Delft, The Netherlands, and so on. Over time, we would love to visit them all, refreshing old friendships and satisfying Lauren's constant itch to travel in the process. :) Obvious restraints keep us from doing this kind of frequent and extensive travel, but one can dream.

There are lots of people we love in Atlanta. For a few years, we've been saying we need to take a trip out there so we can visit them all, and this summer, we packed up the kids and finally did it!

Everyone asks, so I'll answer this question first: "Did you drive or fly?" We drove. Yes, we drove. We stayed in three different homes, so we needed to be able to drive around town, and we had a lot of baby gear to bring with us. Yes, it was a long drive. A very long drive. We left at 4:30am and arrived at 9pm the first day. It's only actually about 13 hours of actual driving, but we have a bunch of little legs that need to get out and move, so we tend to make one long stop (usually to have a meal at one of the 100 or so Cracker Barrels we pass on the way) and a bunch of quicker stops. However, it does take us all day long. The kids are actually really good little travelers; it's me who gets the most antsy towards the end. On the way home, we actually split the trip in half. More on that later.

Of the three sets of people we went to see, two were actually family: my brother and one of Nathan's brothers. And we also got to spend some time with one of Nathan's college roommates and his wife.

First, we spent a couple of days with my brother, Ken, his wife, Meredith, and their baby, Luke.

Noah and Jane took to Aunt Meredith right away.

One of the reasons this trip was nice was that we just hung out with people and didn't put any pressure on ourselves to go and see and do. This allowed us to chat and eat Meredith's awesome cooking (I might post the recipe for her awesome chicken pot pie turnovers--stay tuned). However, we did get to get out and do a few things with Ken and Meredith. For example, I snapped this picture on the way in to a huge flea market, where we all found something, ranging from a brownie to some nice 1940's and 1950's Christmas magazines (lots of potentially frameable pages) to a loveseat.

We also made a trip out to Stone Mountain (my geologist husband was horrified at the relief of Confederate generals on the side of it: "That was a perfectly nice granite outcropping!!"), and along with many other attractions, it has a great little playground that Noah and Jane really enjoyed.

As for myself, I enjoyed taking their pictures.

Hang on, Jane!

Playing hide and seek: "One, two, three..."

We also stopped by a farmer's market in Decatur, which was filled with lots of lovely gourmet items. The peach BBQ sauce on Nathan's hot dog was a bit spicy for Noah!

There was someone selling local honey and these beautiful beeswax candles. They actually smelled like honey. I bought one. Five points if you know me well enough to guess which one I chose.

Nathan perched Janey in a tree.

Is she not the cutest?

May I introduce my nephew? His name is Luke. He is five weeks younger than Clara, but he is much bigger than she is. Clara weighs 17 lbs., and Luke weighs 25. You wouldn't doubt it if you could get a good view of those thighs.

We also had a picnic at a lovely little neighborhood lake. And we couldn't very well part ways without getting pictures of all four cousins, could we?

Janey, always demure.

Cute cousins :)

A nice family picture of Ken, Meredith, and Luke.

Daddy and littlest daughter.

My Noah T.

Thick as thieves.

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and after spending a couple of days with Ken and Meredith, we headed a few miles down the road to Mark and Kim's house to commence the next good thing. We knew these guys from our days at Rice--Mark was Nathan's roommate from Day 1 through when we got married. Mark and Nathan were even groomsmen in each other's weddings. Unfortunately, I didn't get to know Kim very well until we had already moved away, so it wasn't until it was too late that we discovered what an easy friendship we have--similar interests, personalities, etc. When we finally moved back to Houston, they promptly moved on to one marvelous professional opportunity after another, so we haven't lived in the same city since college days. Kim and I often say we wish we lived closer.

Also, it's a special thing when you find people who take a sincere and kind interest in your kids; who think that they are funny and smart and worth talking to and playing with. I really appreciate that Mark and Kim can have a real, lively, interesting adult conversation one minute and change gears the next minute to interact with Noah, who is explaining his scientific theories.

This is the same Mark and Kim from She Cooks, He Bakes, and boy does he bake. He had just flown in from Europe the night before, but that didn't stop him from baking fresh bread for us and brioche cinnamon rolls from scratch, which were AMAZING. (Kim's perfectly fried eggs and wonderful home grown tomatoes were pretty awesome, too.) Here's Noah having a turn at icing the rolls:

The funny thing about this picture is that he is mainly icing only one roll: the one he claimed as his (naturally, since it was the tallest and biggest).

We had to get Jane in there to spread that icing out and make sure the rest of us got some. ;)

When Mark and Kim bought their house, it came with a large play castle in the backyard. It is awesome. I took lots of pictures of the inside with hopes that Nathan and my dad could recreate it in our yard. For a little girl who puts on a princess dress literally every day and a little boy who spends half his play time outside in mock battle, I'm not sure there could be any better play structure than a castle.

I love those gothic arches. So fun!

I think Mark and Clara liked each other. :)

We were sad to leave Mark and Kim's house, but we headed on our merry way with enthusiasm for seeing Nathan's brother, and his wife, Meghan.

Aunt Meghan had very kindly put together a craft project to do with Noah and Jane: making stuffed owls! She cut all the pieces ahead of time, then she let them choose the color they wanted for the body, big wings, little wings, eyes, etc., then she sewed them all up, and I stuffed them. I thought it was very sweet of her to think up a craft they could all do together.

Meghan is a quilter, and she and I also pulled out some blocks she has completed and chatted about the ways to put them together, and so on. It was a crafty day.

Our visit with Meghan and Daniel ended with a trip to a local pizza place, where we got one last picture before leaving Atlanta:

Because we left at midday rather than 4am, and because Clara wasn't feeling well, we decided at the last minute to split our trip in half and stop in Gulfport, MS for the night. So we called ahead and found a hotel right on the beach that had only one room available. Perfect! We snapped it up! So when we arrived, Nathan took Noah and Jane to the pool for a while before bed, and we all headed to the beach bright and early the next morning to get an hour of play in before breakfast.

My Janey Beth, building a sand cake.