summer lovin'...happened so fast

Remember that week that was summer? Or was it a week and a half? In any case, I decided to post some of the things Quinn and Reilly did, and in sifting through pictures, clips, etc., I realized we packed a hell of a lot into the most fleeting summer in my memory. Sadly the joys of the season were tempered by the fact that our media card broke, rendering the entire camera inoperable, rendering us at the mercy of a libra who just today settled on which camera to buy, arming us with a mere cell phone camera ALL SUMMER! Oh how I wished I had a well-to-do relative whose fancy camera I could steal and pass off as my own so I could post better pictures, but alas, I only steal from stores. D'oh! I should have stolen a camera! Dammit! But Todd might have noticed.

Somewhat sequentially:

The patio Todd built (in one day):

Oh the confessions one can elicit at 3am on a cool patio...

A visit from my ma's best friend Cathy, who tried to steal my children, except it wasn't really stealing since they wanted to go. She was up from CA. So so love you Cath:


Our campfire on the beach in Waldport, waiting for the fireworks:


Todd suiting up in his leather hell to ride his motorcycle. So not jealous:


Quinn driving his papa's Jeep at the coast (which explains the ocean, duh):


Reilly's class at Camp Paw Paw (she's bottom right), a program through the Humane Society that teaches really important skills for handling all types of animals, which your children then come home and beg for (like a horse--not kidding), swearing they can take care of it. It was actually a pretty cool class and Reilly met some nice girls who only live 27,000 miles away and have sleepovers everyday:


Quinn grew four inches from June until now, so he slept A LOT. Seriously, it was a big part of his summer. Hello size 18 Levi's:


My mom found like 28937985 track and field programs for Reilly this summer, and she did them all. She raked in twenty blue ribbons out South, trophies at Bush Park, the kid just tore up the track everywhere she went despite never having competed before. She did not love third place, even out of 109 kids, so that's why she wouldn't look at the camera in the still photo. In the clip, she had just run the brutal two mile run at Bush Park, and placed third again. That was slightly less offensive to her because well over 250 kids turned out for it. I'm just glad this snippet doesn't feature me screaming and sobbing with pride. A lot of them do:


This is how it's done:


This is the t-shirt Rei competes in to support the 10-year-old triathlete we met at our third event. Her name is Winter. Her dad died of cancer, we follow her events (she races nationally) contribute to her cause, and the girls love rock climbing omg:




When I found out one of my best friends from high school, who now has a very successful burlesque act in NYC, was performing in Seattle, I said hells yeah. Quinn wasted no time in showing me this really awesome Comic Con Geek-Out Convention in Seattle this very same day, and wouldn't it be special if we went to each other's events? Man I had no problem dressing him in drag or whatever to get him into Amelia's show but I'd rather die than have Microsoft dorks sign my shirt. Thank the lord Todd and his friend Todd (like my brother Darryl and my other brother Darryl, only he has like twelve) and his boys took the kids. They had matching custom nerd shirts and Quinn even, omg omg omg, took off his hat! Apparently it was amazing and everyone went insane over their shirts (my brother made them), and I didn't have to find fish nets for my son. That's a trifle weird, even for me. But I would have. Instead:

Slacks and everything...GEEEEEK! He applied for a job at Burgerville on the way home and they gave him an application, lol;




Ugh! The hat is back on!


Sometimes Reilly wasn't running. She was on her bike. Her good friend Andrea is on the right, and all the other girls are sisters with some form of the same name, which is totally creepy, not because of the name but because it is so unimaginative confusing as hell. If memory serves, Emily, Emma, and Emmy? I'd have sooner let George Foreman name me. Anyway:


Meanwhile Quinn and Israel coerced me into buying them Slurpees like every single day, and stayed inside reading really obscure survival guides and wry humour(less) books and having long hair, long pants, and effing hats (!!!) and even socks when it was 100 degrees. Holy shit, I gave up. But can you believe Israel is 13 and Quinn is 10:


Obviously it is vital to keep up with one's grooming, especially during the summer, and we did lots of manicures and pedicures. (Reilly paid him a dollar, in case you're wondering.):


Can't take the pirate out of the girl:


Following the first day of art class, these guys immediately banded together and I forced them to make a pyramid. They were laughing so hard they almost died but I told them to take one for the team. These are "the co-op kids," so named because we were all in a co-op when they were younger. Wherever we go, they always feel more at ease seeing one or five other co-op kids. They don't really remember not knowing each other. A really great group of kids. Chay finally grew from four to eight!:


Sometimes friends who have endured unspeakable losses during the summer derive some strength from daring me to do things that range from silly:


...to slightly embarrassing and clinky at the jam-packed Olive Garden. The dare was to eat my entire meal using two butter knives as chopsticks without laughing. Seriously, I am apparently gifted at using random objects as chopsticks. The no laughing, yeah I kind of failed, about one second second after she took this:


...to the seemingly reasonable and very well-deserved drink, which inspired a dare which inspired lore of which I can never speak.


...to the most unimaginable dare of all time, of which there had better be no video/audio/artist rendering/memory/etc. on this earth or I will kill someone. Isn't it funny that despite humiliating myself to the point of you-know-what, I will not post the picture of me wearing that entire pack of headbands? Why are you so unsafe? Ha ha ha. I am so glad you don't drink fine wine.

I inexplicably continue to entrust my kids to Deborah, and she took Quinn to Home School Day at the Oregon Garden. Quinn and Shannon make great friends because they're always hella wearing sweaters and black and everything when it's freaking summer. I let him go because Sam and her kids were there too. Don't tell Deborah:


Can someone toss him a blanket? Can't you see he's freezing?


One night some friends came over and somehow Reilly decided she wanted ten inches of her hair cut off so Susannah, in her perfect work clothes (and I in my cap, and like some paint-stained yoga pants and some other awful garment up top, I hope), said she could totally cut Reilly's hair, and like fifteen seconds later (ten minutes) Rei emerged with the best haircut she has ever had. I am soooo glad to see that five-hours-to-dry-everyday burden transformed into this sassy bob that suits my girl oh so well:

"Are you sure?" "Yep."


"Here we go."


The easier to kiss your neck my dear...


We bid summer adieu with Quinn, um, driving, standing at almost 5'6" (aged 10), with Reilly in a more streamline (gorgeous) haircut that suits her track stardom, the proud owner of like seven zillion blue ribbons and trophies that elicit tears of pride as well as OCD. They've made new friends, re-bonded with old ones, gone on really cool trips with people who are apparently unaware that I require documentation of their every step, hence, no pictures. Reilly eats vegetables now, which means my mom is either magic or formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib. This is a big deal. Quinn and Todd were moved by the spirit of Lance Armstrong or something to ride bikes for hundreds of miles, with me calling Todd, whose favourite experience is for me to call, asking if Quinn has died of heat stroke yet. I loved it because, no, not because it's great exercise and bonding time, but because Quinn had to take his goddamned hat off. Todd's garden got all famous, and everywhere I went people lunged at me with pleas for cucumbers, peas, potatoes, cherry tomatoes (my mortal enemy and my lover), and in Deborah's case, corn husks, to feed her Guinea Pigs. When I took them to her house, Ken asked if they were for the pigs or the kids. I will not mention that he is a pediatrician. I survived the coast a few times, though that last jaunt was extra special, let a friend have carte blanche with my hair in an impossible-to-explain effort to help him reunite with his girlfriend. Ha ha ha, it's so fortuitous that I'm not really vain, omg omg omg.

The rays of sun illuminated every speck of insidious dust in my effing house, but they illuminated so much more than that too. The kids have become blissfully adroit at cleaning the house, and I have become adroit at keeping all things insidious away from me and my family.

And then we blinked and it is fall.