Prince Edward Island

I'm a big fan of Anne of Green Gables.  I remember when I was about 9 or 10 our family was at a Scholastic book fair at our school, and we were each allowed to buy one book.  I had narrowed it down to two -- Anne of Green Gables and something else.  I was just about to choose the something else when my mom said, "You should get Anne.  You'll like it."  Very wisely I took her advice, and of course she was completely right.  I loved Anne right away and have read all the Anne books many times.

About six years ago I found out the University of Prince Edward Island houses the L.M. Montgomery Institute and they have a conference every other year.  So I started looking for a year in which I could submit a paper.  Last summer my friend Kiera Ball, who is an adjunct English professor at USF, suggested we propose a paper together for this summer's conference.  We did, the paper was accepted, and so off we went to PEI just a couple of weeks ago.  The paper we presented was called "Orgies of Love-Making: Female Romantic Friendship in the Work of L.M. Montgomery."  We argued that in the Anne books, Montgomery flips the almost exclusively male community envisioned by Augustine and creates an almost exclusively female vision of community.

I knew I would like the island, and I knew I would think it was pretty, and I knew I'd enjoy the Anne stuff.  But I was amazed at how beautiful it is!  Montgomery described it as the sapphire, ruby, and emerald island, and that seems just about right.  It's full of colors, all rich and intense, and landscapes juxtaposed against each other which normally aren't.  The roads and the beaches are red, but the sand is sugar fine and soft.  The wild flowers are everywhere, and the sea food is fantastic!  We had a great time.

Charlottetown -- the main town on the island and the home of Queens College in the books.

The harbor in Charlottetown.  The water was incredibly clear.

These beautiful houses lined the harbor.

Kiera finishing her icecream cone.

The town was full of things named "Eden", which, given the setting, made sense.  We didn't stay here, but we wished we had.

Charlottetown Harbor.

There were jellyfish in the harbor.

Jellyfish, and a cloud reflected in the water.

We didn't know what this was a statue of, but we figured it was Captain Jim looking for Lost Margaret.

It looks like Kiera is playing Margaret's role here.

The beaches in the national park were beautiful, with soft, red, sand and water warm enough to swim in.  The really amazing feature of the beaches is that they were dotted with fresh water streams flowing from inland to the ocean.  A perfect playground.

We were at the beach on a Sunday and this is how many people were there.

A fresh water stream full of minnows, winding its way to the ocean.

A little place to change and have some lunch.

We at lunch here and had a great lobster roll.

Green Gables!  This house belonged to relatives of Montgomery (she lived with her grandparents), but apparently she was often here to play, and this is the house upon which she based Green Gables.

Matthew's room

The kitchen

Anne's room

Lover's Lane

The babbling brook.

Given the topic of our paper, we decided it was appropriate to be on Lover's Lane with each other rather than our husbands.

This beach is also in the National Park, but much closer to Green Gables.  Like the other beach, it had these gorgeous streams cutting across the beach, but this beach was rockier (big rocks), and looked more like the description of the "rock shore" in Anne's House of Dreams.

"'I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight,' Anne told Gog and Magog one October evening.  She loved the gentle, misty harbour shore and the silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to this shore she hied herself tonight. . . . She scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.  'I'm going to dance and sing,' she said.  'There's no one here to see me -- the sea gulls won't carry tales of the  matter.  I may be as crazy as I like.'  She caught up her skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam.  Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east if the cove; then she stopped suddenly, blushing crimson; she was not alone; there had been a witness to her dance and laughter.  The girl of the golden hair and sea-blue eyes was sitting on a boulder of the headland, half-hidden by a jutting rock."  (Anne's House of Dreams)

The tide was out and exposed this big rock covered in some kind of vibrant green sea grass.

We imagined Captain Jim's lighthouse on that point.

The rock shore, with its cliffs and caves.

Piles of surf-worn boulders.

The salt made beautiful patterns on the rocks.

All the snails had little plants growing on their shells.

A surf-worn boulder.

The water cut a canal in this rock.

A Primer in Brotherhood

Another Lazarus quotable:

“Eden, drink the ketchup.  I’m eight years old, and I give pretty good advice most times.  And this is one of those times."

Omaha Zoo Part 1

In August we went to Omaha to visit the zoo.  We stayed at a nice hotel which had the BEST cake we've ever had.  I'm not kidding -- I'm not a big cake person, but this cake was awesome!

We spent a good bit of time watching tv.  We don't get cable at home, so the kids love watching Teen Titans Go and various other things on the Cartoon Network.  Eden is completely fascinated and sucked in by every single advertisement.  At one point she was sitting on the bed in her sleepshirt, sucking her thumb and rubbing her face with her string, when an add for Eliquis (an anti-stroke medicine) came on.  The ad shows a 60-something man running around a college campus as the narrator tells you all the benefits (and drawbacks) of the medicine.  At the end of the ad he says, "Ask your doctor if Eliquis is right for you."  Eden turns to me with eyes as big as saucers, removes her thumb from her mouth, and says, "Mama, I think Eliquis is right for me."

And of course the zoo!  We had a great time there.  When we went to see the rhinos Z got there first and yelled out to me as loud as he could, "Mama, this rhino has the biggest penis EVER!"  A good time was had by all!

"Idiom" and "idiocy" share a common cognate, you know.

Nathan and Z are walking around the Riverside yard, picking up fallen twigs, putting them in the red wheelbarrow. 

Nathan: This tree drops so many branches every time there's a storm.

Z [in his own world again]: WHAT?

Nathan: I said, this tree drops so many branches every time there's a storm.

Z [furiously at work]: You don't need to tell me twice.

"Let There Be . . ."

Tonight I was reading the first chapter of the Jesus Storybook Bible to Z and Eden.  It is, of course, the creation story, so we read how God says, "Let there be light!  Let there be sky and water!  Let there be sun, moon, and stars!  Let there be fish and birds!  Let there be animals that run, walk, and creep!"  Eden interrupted the story here and said, "And after Adam and Eve sinned, God said, 'Let there be mosquitoes!'"

Too true.

Christian Education

Nathan again.  It has been a surprising experience doing Christian education with my children.  So much of what you say sticks with them - just not necessarily what you plan.  So much of what they articulate back to you is fresh and real yet totally age-appropriate.  Here's an example from this morning.  I drive Z to school, and our morning commute is when most of our substantive interaction takes place (the rest of the day is grunting and wrestling).

Z: What's a private school?

N: It's a school that's not run by the government.  A government-run school is called a public school, and it is paid for with tax dollars.  Private schools are paid for by parents.  You have a good public school, but someday you will probably go to a private school.  What mommy and I like about private schools is that many of them talk about Jesus there openly.  And they teach subjects differently, with God in mind.

Z: Oh.  I though a private school was where students got taught privately, one on one.

N: Another great reason for going to a private Christian school is that there's a good chance you'll have Christian friends.  I hope you have non-Christian friends too, but that you are sure to have some Christian friends.

Z: I have a Christian friend.

N: You do?

Z: Yeah, J.

N: Of course.  I can see that J. is taking his faith seriously, which I respect about him.

Z: I don't know if E. and B. are Christians.  I think they are.

N: It's possible.  But sometimes people call themselves Christian, even go to church, but don't really know about Jesus.  That's why it's important that you talk to them about Jesus.  They need to know God.  [Adding a serious tone.]  And life is short.

Z: Life is short.  I thought [my cousin] Ethan's birthday just happened recently, but it's coming up in just a few weeks.