Dining out

Reed is very expressionate. At a family reunion recently, Caleb's Aunt Debbie, said "he's quite melodramatic, isn't he?" When he's upset, his little face will crumple up and he'll wail in despair. When he's proud, he'll clap his hands together and shout "I did it!" while jumping up and down. When I bring him home from preschool, he'll often run into the house with his hands up in the air shouting "Daddy, where are you?" Except that his speech isn't perfect yet, so it's more like "Daddy, ERE ARE U?"

I think his melodrama might be slightly compensatory. When his hearing was impaired due to chronic ear infections, Caleb and I would use lots of expressions and hand gestures to try and make our points. So as a result, he talks that way now, and I really love it. He's an awfully cute little performer.

Last night, we went to eat at Madeleines. We like Madeleines because the walls are purple, and it's filled with vintage furniture, but they also have a kid's menu and crayons. So we can feel like we're on a date, but we get to have Reed with us. Still, while Madeleines is child-friendly, it is no Chucke Cheese, so I expect Reed to be well-behaved when we're there, which usually isn't a problem because he's very good in restaurants.

This night, when Reed saw food being delivered to another table, he turned towards the swinging doors of the kitchen and yelled (loudly) across the restaurant with his hands quizically raised in the air

"GRILLED CHEESE, ERE ARE U?"

The moment was both mortifying and wonderfully priceless at the same time. I guess that's just life with a two and a half year old.

Life in the Fast Lane

Well, I've been gently prodded by Ab to update our blog, so here I am. I've been thinking about writing something for a while, but as a general rule, I assume that people are not interested in either:

A: Kelly's blood pressure or

B: Reed's potty training

(the two might be closely related, and are about the most interesting things happening in our household right now.)

So what else is happening with the Sundberg-Winters? Well, Caleb has received his contract, and is now an official Lecturer of Humanities with WVU rather than an adjunct instructor. At the same time, I'm receiving lots of information on graduate programs and salivating over the thought of the Monterey Institute in California or New York University, while knowing fully well that we can't move now that Caleb has his first real faculty position. I feel pretty confident about my chances of receiving a Teaching Assistantship for an MA in Tesol here at WVU. However, I was just informed by a Linguistics professor that the Foreign Languages program here is a mess and possibly in danger of losing it's accreditation. This has thrown me into quite the tizz since my attending graduate school here has been our plan all along. I'm trying not to panic and come up with other options, but since my options aren't likely to include relocating across the country again, I'm really hoping that those linguists get their act together.

I've also just started volunteering with Literacy Volunteers, a United Way partner that focuses on ESL (English as a Second Language) and basic literacy. I'm completing a self-paced training, and when I'm finished, I'll be paired with an ESL student who I'll meet with every week. It's a really exciting program, and they'll give me a lot of freedom to come up with lesson plans and a structure that fits both of our needs. I'm looking forward to interacting weekly with someone from a different culture. Right now, I interact mostly with my husband and 2 year old, and I love it, but I could use something new.

Besides that, nothing in our household has changed much. My parents came to Morgantown for 10 days, and that was really nice. We relaxed, and my mom did a lot of cleaning, which is pretty normal when she visits. We also went for plenty of walks and shopping. It was a great visit, and we were all sad to see them go. My dad had some pictures on his laptop from our trip to southern West Virginia last Fall, so I'll post them here even though I'm about 9 months too late.

Caleb and I went canoeing in Seneca State Forest.

This is a funny picture of Caleb. Our cabin didn't have electricity.

Here's my Dad with Reed. I guess I just think headlamps are funny.

This picture is from the latest visit with my parents. My dad and I were enjoying the Belgian beer that Caleb brewed himself. At some point, Caleb will probably post a blog about brewing beer. I hope you're interested in pH levels, because that's all I've been hearing about for weeks.

Here is Reed playing in the car that his grandpa and grandma Winters gave him. I posted this picture even though it shows the sorry state that our siding is in right now. I fully expect to pressure wash that moss off this week. I promise that we're not slobs. We live in a very wet climate--it's the kind of climate where moss grows on the walls.

A few days ago, Caleb tried to post a blog on our trip to Greece, but he got so frustrated with the picture posting that he gave up. He promises to try again, so hopefully, I won't be the only blogger in our household soon.

Cathedral State Park

As promised, some photos from Cathedral State Park. We don't really have any good ones from within the Hemlock grove because it was so overgrown that it was quite dark inside, but we have some from around the park. We had a good time, and Reed and Hank loved it.

Hank ran all over and pooped twice. The first time we were prepared and promptly disposed of the offensive matter. The second time came as a surprise, and we didn't know what to do with it. In a classic Hank move, the poo was spread out over a 3 foot radius. Caleb was frantically trying to sweep leaves over it while I said "Don't do that, then people won't be able to see it." Suddenly, a huge family full of kids came happily trotting around the corner. "Just leave it and pretend like nothing happened," I told Caleb. However, as we were trying to nonchalantly slide by, the kids yelled "Doggie," and they all had to take turns petting him as I looked anxiously at the dog turds just a foot away. After the kids were done and had moved on, we hurried away, but I could hear the family commenting on the little present Hank had left in the middle of the trail. It was quite embarrassing. On the way back, we swept it out of the trail with a stick.

On a side note, Hank had another great Hank moment on Friday when he dug himself under the back porch and got stuck. Caleb had to dig him out. Now, there is a 2 foot hole in our backyard. To put it lightly, our dog is a character.

Now on another side note.... Reed likes to write songs now. Right now Caleb's playing the guitar, and Reed is singing "Cookie monster, la, la Daddy, la, la Elmo, Mommy, Mimi, la, la Pappa, Mama, la, la Cookie...." He's our little budding musician.

And finally, some photos. And yes, Abbie, that's not a flower that Reed is smelling. It's Rush Skeleton Weed, but how was I supposed to disappoint him?

National Lampoons Front Porch

We live in a very nice, residential neighborhood here in Morgantown. It's not upscale, but it's firmly middle class, and people take pride in their homes and their lawns. A lot of our immediate neighbors are retired, and they seemingly have nothing to do but mow their lawns. One man mows his lawn every day without fail. Another mows his lawn at any time of day. He mowed at 9:45pm the other night. It was dark, and Reed was in bed, but hey, I guess if your lawn needs mowed....

Growing up in Salmon, I never really experienced this "Keeping up with the Jones." Back then, Salmon didn't have any "nice" neighborhoods. Every neighborhood was an amalgamation of fancy houses, nice houses, and clunkers with yards full of trash and a lady who likes to feed feral cats. My friend Megan's family had a beautiful house and yard, but right next door was a semi-trashy complex complete with a little redheaded kid Megan's mom dubbed "Denise the Menace," who was always lurking around trying to sell us her toys.

My parents had a very nice house and yard, but it was flanked by a house in the midst of a huge weed patch on one side, and a house with the old couple Ken and Lucy on the other side. Ken liked to yell at Lucy A LOT. Thankfully, Lucy was profoundly deaf in one ear, so when Ken would yell at her, she would pull out the lawn mower and mow the yard blissfully unaware of what Ken was yelling as he followed her around shouting obscenities in her faulty ear.

My parents really did have the nicest yard on the block, but they weren't super diligent about cutting the grass. My dad mowed the yard, but he mowed it once a week, not once a day, and he just left the clippings in the yard. He called them "fertilizer." I remember visiting my Grandma in Kansas and being amazed at how, not only was the grass cleanly mowed and clippings free, but the lines from the lawn mower all fell into a carefully thought-out vertical pattern. That kind of meticulousness in lawn care was just completely foreign to me.

So now, I own a house in one of those neighborhoods like my Grandma's. Unfortunately, Caleb and I aren't meticulous people. It's not that we're lazy. We both actually work very hard, but our yard isn't first on our list of priorities. We do a lot of yard work on the weekends, and we've planted a huge vegetable garden along with a flower garden, a lilac bush, and a hydrangea bush, but during the week, we sort of let things go.

All of the neighbors have pretty potted plants on their front porch, so I decided we should do up our front porch with flower pots that would be easy to maintain. For Mother's Day, Caleb surprised me with three lovely flower pots on the front porch. Our neighbor, Georgia, an elderly lady who has become like family, also gave me a ficus start to transplant. Our porch looked great for a couple of days. Then I don't know what happened.

Now our flower pots look like this:

And I guess I didn't transplant my ficus soon enough:
And if you look across the street, the neighbor's porch looks like this:
These pictures were taken a week ago. The neighbors have even more beautiful flowers in front of their house now. Despite my hardest efforts, our flowers actually look worse. I guess you can take the girl out of the Salmon, but you can't take the Salmon out of the girl. I'm just not cut out for keeping up with the Jones.

Two year olds

Reed has discovered whining. When he wants something now, his first mode of communication is via whine. It's really annoying, but I think it's a pretty normal stage for 2 year olds to go through. A book I read said that it's important to demonstrate to kids what whining sounds like, because they might not hear it themselves, so when he whines at me, I try whining back at him. He actually thinks it's really funny, and it seems to help, but I feel kind of cruel--like I'm making fun of him.

He really loves Caleb's guitar, and the other day, he wanted to get at the guitar on the bed. It's a big wooden bed that he can't climb up on, so he threw his arms up in despair and whined "guitaaaar." I said, "Reed, I don't hear your whiny voice, can you talk to me in your regular voice?" At this, he quieted down and said "guitar, ME?"

Well, at least it's an improvement. I'm not ready yet to start talking about issues of possession and how not everything in the world is "MINE." We'll get through the whiny phase first. He's awfully cute though.



He's going to be a musician like his dad and both grandpas.

This picture is blurry, but it shows how he likes to play slide guitar. Also, I swear that he owns more than one shirt. It's just coincidence that he's always wearing that shirt when I take photos.

Hillbilly Americana

Yesterday, Caleb, Reed, and I took a drive to Cathedral State Park in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Cathedral State Park is located in Preston County, which is admittedly the redneck portion of northern West Virginia. As we were driving there, I was getting more and more nostalgic, because for the first time, West Virginia looked like Idaho to me. For one thing, the sun was shining.

It rains A LOT here. Morgantown's annual precipition is 43.2 inches. In contrast, Portland's annual precipitation is 37 and Seattle's annual precipitation is 39 inches. I would be lying if I didn't say that I've been a little peeved at Caleb for failing to mention this critical piece of information about the rain before we moved here--especially since, in the past, I had told him that I "could never live in Oregon because of the rain." However, he claims that he didn't remember it rains that much here, and I must say that West Virginia is lovely. I'm sure that has a lot to do with all of the rain, so I'm trying to look at the bright side.

So the sun was shining, and we were winding along the Cheat River, which is wide and clear just like a western river. In fact, it reminded me of parts of the Salmon river, and I felt very at home.

At one point, we passed by a tourist shop with a big sign that announced in red letters: MOLASSES, BUCKWHEAT FLOUR, MAPLE SYRUP, SOUVENIRS FROM EVERY STATE, LEATHER INDIAN MOCASSINS.... Well then, I got really nostalgic. When I was a kid, my family made the national park circuit, and we would often stop at places like that for ice cream. They usually looked like a Cracker Barrel, with lots of tacky souvenirs and an ice cream counter. I would always beg my mom to buy me an overpriced plastic Indian girl doll, and she would inevitably say no, but she would usually give me a dollar to spend, so I would pan for gold or buy a shiny rock or something like that.

The last time I was at one of those places was Loretta Lynn's Ranch in Tennessee where I bought an autographed keychain of a picture of Loretta Lynn. Love Always, Loretta Lynn.... it read. I had pretty high expectations for the kitsh, so I told Caleb we had to stop on the way back for an ice cream. I thought it would be fun to start a tradition with my own family.

When we pulled in, I wasn't disappointed. In the parking lot were tons of plastic animals. My favorite were little planters in the shape of baby lambs. I thought that this was going to be just like the places from my childhood. However, when we entered the store, after my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized it was nothing like I had anticipated. It wasn't a tourist trap at all. It was a locals hangout! There were tons of people packed in the place ordering fast food, and they were all staring at us. The souvenirs were crammed into a dirty corner with other, more functional things like baskets and milk. The floors were cement, and behind the touristy facad, the building appeared to be a converted warehouse.

Now, in theory, the fact that this was a locals hangout should have made it more interesting, but it didn't. The people there were REALLY staring at us. I felt very uncomfortable. I have a pretty high tolerance for hillbillies. I did grow up in Salmon, Idaho, after all, but these hillbillies looked just plain mean. We got in line to wait for our ice cream, but the line wasn't moving very fast, as the place was packed. The longer we waited there, the more uncomfortable I got. I finally said to Caleb, "let's just go." We got in the car, and Caleb told me that he was uncomfortable too. Then he promptly ate a half a bag of potato chips in the car. Apparently, thin people can emotionally eat too.

All that being said, Preston County is by far the prettiest part of West Virginia that I've seen, and Cathedral State Park is beautiful. It is a stand of ancient hemlocks, so thick and overgrown, that it's slightly dark inside of them even in full daylight. We had a wonderful day, and I'll post some pictures soon.

Married Life

Caleb and I have now been married for 3 years, which feels like forever and nothing, all at the same time. We celebrated our anniversary early in Greece at a place like this:

Now that we're back in the real world, we celebrated our anniversary by buying a screen door. It's not very romantic, I know, but useful. Hopefully, we won't have flies buzzing around now. I was starting to think I'd need to start making shoefly pie.

Here is a picture of our view from the front door. As you can see, West Virginia is very green in the summer.

Reed's favorite place to play is on the front porch (which needs a new coat of paint, I realize.) That will have to be another summer project.

I also made a Rhubarb pie for our anniversary with fresh Rhubarb from the Farmer's Market. It was quite lovely and tasty as well.
I guess we're real country folks now.