We are home. We are safe. We have adventured!
I have been trying to think of what to share about our family trip to Burning Man, but I am struggling to find the right words. For now, I’ll leave one photo.

One more day at home
One more day of food shopping
One more day of packing
One more day of costuming
One more day of planning
One more day of waiting

Burning Man: some thrift purchases

Burning Man: chariot for Asher (before picture; it’s way cooler now)

Burning Man: stacks of Lucas’s clothes, folded surprisingly neatly

Burning Man: flags sewing project

Burning Man: painted toes

Burning Man: laser fingers of doom

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

We parents are sometimes allowed to sleep until 7:30 a.m. It has been happening more often lately, especially after a particular recent blowup over the unneccessary waking of Daddy at 5:30 a.m., which seems to have made a difference. Some mornings we wake to find our boys peacefully looking at books on the living-room couch. Other mornings we wake to hear them fighting over something that they both want. We were just telling some friends that lately, more often than not, our mornings have been gentler.

This morning, there was too much excitement in the air. Asher marched around the house shouting, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake UP!” Lucas was a little subtler, quietly saying, “Oh my! Look what the Tomato Fairy has brought us!” He had to repeat it a few times before his sleepy parents clued in.

We came out to the kitchen to find this bounty, this glorious Lughnasadh gift from the Tomato Fairy. (I had no idea there was such a fairy! Imagine my surprise!) There on green and yellow silks rested gorgeous tomatoes from Lucas’s garden, harvested at their peak in the early morning stillness. A little note from the Tomato Fairy reads, “For The Wilson 18 tamatoo.” I’ve never seen anything cuter.

A few of these were eaten with breakfast, then I took the rest outside where the light was better. My little 8-year-old gardener is pleased as punch. Now I’m on the hunt for the perfect dinner recipe for these beauties.

Happy First Fruits!

Lucas is pretty sure that these chickens are meant to be lap chickens—at least Midnight.

Avalanche and Snowdrift graze in the backyard. The hens are enjoying morning and evening ranging hours. Alas, they are displacing the mulch in my flowerbeds a lot. I’m wondering if I could coax them to the school field two doors down and back again (but I would be afraid of off-leash dogs).

Lucas’s garden is about to overwhelm us with juicy red tomatoes. Just this week they are turning red.

A magical moment at Sacramento Waldorf School just before the summer camp play began. The oak tree at the Oak Stage is magnificent.

A backyard visitor graciously paused for my photo. I’m pretty stoked about this shot.

Evening picnics on the lawn are fun. There’s a bit of sandwich-eating, a bit of snuggling, a bit of wrestling, a bit of coaxing the hens to eat out of our hands, and …

… a good bit of airplane rides with Daddy.

We are having full, full days with summer camp and day care and work for Mom and Dad.

Today there was a play performance at summer camp. Lucas was a tax collector in the “Dragon with Thirteen Tails,” performed on the Oak Stage at Sacramento Waldorf School. We also got to see a gymnastics demonstration, as the children have been doing movement and assorted gymnastics in the awesome gym.

Some days, to get out of the heat, we play with puzzles.

And with chalk in the cool morning.

Lucas goes to piano lessons on Wednesdays. This week he noodled around until he figured out the first part of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” When he told his piano teacher, Mrs. Tan, she helped him work on it and learn the next little bit. I love that she goes with his interests!

We swim at Grandma’s and Papa’s house, and at swim team practice and swim lessons. Only four more of those are left!

We watch our garden grow—the things we planted …

… and the things we didn’t, like this volunteer sunflower!

And we watch and care for the chickens. Oh, how they are enriching life around here! Our first week of chicken farming has been going well. We’re all fascinated by them.

At first the chickens slept on the ground in a cuddle puddle, all higgledy-piggledy, piled on top of one another in the corner of the chicken run. They hadn’t gotten the lay of the land yet, I think. Gradually they are claiming this new space as their own. Ian had to pick them up one night and put them on the roost inside the chicken coop, but after that, they seem to get it. Last night we found them roosting just where they’re supposed to be (where it’s safest), without any help from us.

We gathered sixteen eggs in the first four days, after that, I lost count. They are averaging almost four eggs per day. They eat pretty much ALL of our kitchen scraps, including milk leftover from the boys’ morning cereal (for the calcium). I didn’t know chickens drank milk, did you?

The eggs taste wonderful!

These are not the best photos, as I took most of them with my phone, but maybe they give just a little sample of what my lucky, lucky boy gets to do during the day at the Sacramento Waldorf School’s summer camp.

Aren’t these banners lovely? I have a deep love of flags, so these really hit the spot for me! They are paper towels painted with watercolors and stapled onto a string. Also, underneath the trees hang dozens of tissue-paper butterflies, swaying in the breeze.

This is the tepee Lucas made at camp. The first session had a Native American theme, and the kids made bows and arrows, these small tepees, leather bracelets and charms, painted rocks, and sewed headbands decorated with beads.

They also hike, play in the water, eat nachos and other yummy snacks, craft with pony beads and puff balls, and do gymnastics. Lucas says he has even been on a trapeze! At the end of this week, they are putting on a play.

This is the middle of the fourth week and Lucas gets to do two more weeks of this great stuff and more. Some of his best buddies are in camp with him, so he is comfortable, happy, having a great time, and on his own turf. He is also 8 years old now, and generally more comfortable and calm about pretty much everything.

Unlike past summers, when Lucas was bounced around to (too many) different (and sometimes cheaper) camps and had to adjust frequently to new places, teachers, kids, schedules, and expectations, this summer is easy like … well, like summer should be. We live and learn. I am so very glad he is happy to go off on each day’s adventures!

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

This is a peek at our summer nature table, which is really our piano top. Sorry about the flash. It took me a while to get around to changing from spring to summer stuff, but that’s just because we were really busy LIVING summer.

• framed paintings by Lucas (first grade wet-on-wet watercolors)
• ceramic bee hive made by Lucas last summer in our pottery class
• summer Rio Samba roses in crystal vase
• knitted sheep, one by Lucas (made in his first and second grade handwork classes) and one knitted by grandma and sewn up by by me
• picture book called In the Space of the Sky, by Richard Lewis and illustrated by Debra Frasier. The page says, “There—in the space of the sky is a field for the sun”
• ceramic frog made by me at pottery class
• fuse-bead rainbow sailboat made by Daddy
• print of little boys playing on the beach near the ocean, a gift from my parents several years ago
• orchid plant that looks in the scene a little like palm trees
• wooden rainbow arches
• seashells and sea star
• postcard of children frolicking from Ring-A-Rosies preschool, where Asher goes
• tree branches in Clouds vase
• needle-felted blue bird on a nest with eggs, made by me
• play silks for meadows, water, and sand

We all had a wonderful 4th of July holiday this year, with swimming, friends, barbecue and yummy food, and fireworks of course. I didn’t feel like pulling out the camera until nighttime. Maybe it was the good conversation, maybe the perfect temperature of the swimming pool …

After dark, the Fire Sprites appeared and colorful shenanigans ensued. Some of them were so fast and so flighty that it was nearly impossible to capture their images. Often, the best I could do was to photograph their fiery flight paths and trails of sparks.

And then some of the Sprites became so tired from all the flitting about, they fell asleep. Yay America!