MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk

Home Again, Jiggedy-Jig

This is the summer of mini-vacations for us, which is turning out just fine (easier for DH to get the time off for a day here and there). There was Con-vergence, the sci-fi convention in town here in early July, which we got a hotel room for, a strange fun getaway on our own turf. A few weeks later, it was 4 days of South Dakota, driving-driving-driving and seeing lots of amazing landscapes.

And now we just got home from our 4-day trip to Davenport, Iowa, to visit DH's birthmother, who we are close to and who just moved there from Tennessee, and his half-birth-sister who has lived there awhile. Davenport is a mid-sized town with quaint older sections and expanding newer sections. We really didn't try to DO anything there--- we wanted to relax, so we hung out together playing games and watching the Olympics, cooking, talking, shopping a bit, going out to a movie, and visiting bookstores. The Sleep Inn hotel was nice with a good breakfast and a little exercise I managed to use twice! We let our twins with their permits practice driving on freeways there and back for awhile, and that was okay too.

DH and I even managed to go to a service at the little Unitarian church in Davenport. We happened to drive by it and thought we'd give it a try... it is always something we mean to do when we visit another city but usually sleeping in or doing something else is too tempting. But this time we let the kids stay at the hotel and veg out and we went. It was a little awkward to make small-talk in the social hall for coffee before the service. People were friendly enough but there were gaps when we stood around unsure of ourselves. The service was very nice and reflective, with an okay speaker (ministers are often on vacation in summer), good readings, songs from the same hymnals we use back home, and the great feeling of being at home in a new place because we all share the same religion. We really have only been to one other UU church besides our own, so it was interesting to see how another church does things. And the small building was gorgeous, with so many windows around their chapel with a view of their woodsy property.

August came on with such a whirl-wind for us, maybe now I'll have a chance to cool it down a bit. We had DD in the kid-section of the Uptown Art Festival the first weekend in August, showing and selling her work (she does drawing, painting, photography, mixed media and computer art). She has never done this kind of thing, so there was a lot for us to do in helping her get ready, like figuring out how to display work, what to sell, figuring out how to make prints of her work, putting together greeting cards made of her photographs, etc. In addition to that, she and her brother turned 17 that weekend, so there was birthday stuff to prepare, a birthday barbecue we held to have friends and family over... too much to do!

Now we're down to a few weeks of summer... it feels like a blur all of a sudden. We haven't gone to the beach even once (teens don't seem to be big on this). We'll have to see if I can get them there sometime...

Posted by sapphire at August 11, 2008 9:47 PM