ah, summer

 mr. twinkle eyes

The baseball season wound up with success. The main success in my mind is kind coaches and good spirit of the game, plenty of runs, catches, surprise double-play unassisted (!), even a rainbow. A very dear young fellow who was sometimes kicking flowers and dirt and other times making some awesome plays, best smile on the team! And my very own sweet guy was a team leader, praised by his coaches for his sportsmanship and manners.

We spent the day as a family on Mount Desert Island to celebrate 13 years of marriage. We hit all the high points (ha!): Pirate's Cove mini-golf (I got a hole-in-one!), then lunch at our favorite beach with plenty of rocks to skip and balance, then one of our favorite hikes up Parkman Mountain, catching up with friends, ice cream, dinner, and a surprise chance meeting with a dear, dear friend on the street!

 these two beauties were collected, then lovingly grudgingly tossed back 

when informed of the "remove no rocks policy" of the park

 he listens to the rocks

 kiss sandwich!!!

And now, summer vacation. I made it through my first teaching year! WooHoo! And as it turns out, I have a new adventure coming for the fall... I will be the school librarian at a school for 8th/9th graders in the same district as last year. This is thrilling on a couple of counts. 

 red leather chairs for reading: 

yes please.

First, middle school (early high school) students are my favorite age group. They are prickly and interesting and hilarious and it's sort of a precious time in their lives, one that can be awkward and awful sometimes. (And I love reading YA literature.) There is so much that is possible in middle-ish school that becomes harder with older high schoolers.

Second: ONE SCHOOL instead of five! One learning community that I can be part of on a day-to-day basis! Hoorah! This is quite exciting, to think of the possibilities for spur of the moment exchanges and developing relationships with teachers and students that I will see every day. I feel so lucky. And am devouring a lot of YA books this summer, which is awesome.

I visited a very venerable library in Boston this past weekend and I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I took some before I knew... It was a librarian's geek-out holiday.

And finally, because we've had a lot of rain and gray already this summer, I wanted to show you something blue and summery. Rafter's delight and lots of silliness and the water was warm enough so I could even stay in and play and be part of the shenanigans. This was a rare moment of calm...

Big City Adventure

s. drives the amphibious vehicle in the Charles River

Sometimes we get out of the wilds and into the city. Things like escalators and public transit are as exciting as museums and zoos. And oh, do the boys ever love the sidewalks at their Grandpa's and Mimi's house---Scootering is possible! It's the little things.

We did touristy things like go on a Duck Tour with our extended family, and our clever driver was Disco Dan. We crawled through Boston's notorious traffic, feeling oh-so smug that we were the most massive thing on the road amongst all the tiny little SUVs, and heard about some of the city's history. And then we crawled into the river. I got a good shot of Disco Dan's amazing platform shoes: a little pretend goldfish is in there! Love it.
And we visited the zoo. Which I am more than a little ambivalent about, philosophically. But it was a gorgeous fall day and we decided to go for it. Of course certain members of our party particularly enjoyed it when the gorillas vomited into their hands and then ate it. I preferred the colorful birds and the tiny pygmy falcons who were eating their lunch of bits of raw meat.

The lion was pretty impressive, in his fully relaxed snooze position, letting it all hang out, so to speak.

It was really the perfect time of day for a nap and I think the Grandpa was jealous.

Oh and no visit with our extended family would be complete without a little ubiquitous computing on handheld devices. It's so fascinating that someone could be born digital, but even when deprived of daily contact with media devices, could still be more proficient with handheld devices than many of his elders. Without the distractions of media in his daily life we are raising a voracious reader, artist, thespian, problem-solver, strategist, collaborator, and most especially, a boy who at almost-twelve who still knows the value of play.