Whidbey #7

This was our 7th trip to Whidbey - the same unassuming cottage on the Keystone Spit near a ferry dock. While Michael in a crib & high chair on the Puget Sound, Jack was 4 or 5 months old in Deyang City, Sichuan.

Now look at 'em. Giles Bond behind.

Our love for this place was affirmed again, luring Tacoma locals and Camarillo visitors, as well. Gideon and Jack shared a table for breakfast cereal.

The children were old enough to really have fun at Fort Casey, the abandoned garrison nearby, matching our Piet Prins' "Scout" series, wartime stories of the Dutch resistance.
The sound of freedom. Hornet F-18s, top of the American fleet, practiced their deafening lift-off/landing exercises.

There were discoveries this time, like this story about Hokusai,

a prolific Japanese woodblock artist featured at the Coupeville library. A crazed genius by myth, a la Amadeus Mozart, his influence on the Impressionists animated Chris' bedtime reading:Our library card was active, building a sense of return, as did local merchants recognizing the boys.

Also new, Michael and Jack took part in a theater workshop in Langley, a town with more shops and creative galleries, like this glass blowing hot shop, producing a beautiful red & yellow, swirling bowl and Jack's blue paperweight.

Michael made a table arrangement of beach findings,

leaving the jellyfish

and crab pincers behind.

Earlier in Tacoma, a magnificent lowtide at Titlow Beach invited clam, crab diggers and novice explorers.
while on Whidbey, attracting a rare afternoon visit by the resident bald eagle, no doubt hunting for prey.
Another discovery was participating in the Whidbey Children's Theater (forgive the poor quality!)

a high quality outfit celebrating its 30th year, with seasonal offerings, such as last year's Robin Hood. A musical rendition of Treasure Island doubled for M & J's camp theme. Lacking resources of higher cities, this community invests in low tech imaginative play and work for its young people.

Jack lost 3 teeth this trip! A true Jack O'Lantern.

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Whidbey Highlights

our favorite hike along the water overlooking the Olympics, with purple alfalfa in bloom.

kayaking!

watching the weekend cruise ships - floating hotels - and local ferry from Pt Townsend.

Earlier on, M & J checked out Aunt Suzanne's honey bees, whose honey won 1st place at the county fair. Delicious for others, but overtaking the lovely garden, since these bees crawl around the grass.

Mt Rainier came into view for July 4th

We had an unusually satisfying visit with Michelle, on her lovely organic farm on Vashon Island, with daughters Valencia and Annie - our inspiration for international adoption. Jerram Barrs introduced Michelle to gardening while at the English L'Abri.

A July of much time away sandwiching 10 days before our Swiss departure. We are packing and saying our good-byes to a variety of communities with a bittersweet air, as we've become attached to our church and school.

Year End Program

Michael's speech kicked-off Beacon Hill's program, featuring less recitation and more singing this time!Little cherubs raising their voices is great, but I was most impressed by the scope and depth of Biblical knowledge and even theology for this age. Many feel the strongest feature of the school.

Mrs. Meza's kindergarten class featured an ode to springtime.

Jack was recognized for his love of math facts.

Michael for "exotic interests." He has a love of life - not always booklearning - in a hands-on approach. Classical Christian leans on the academics, so we tend to favor methods stressing the "discovery of God's creation" a la Charlotte Mason - a kind of classical Christian meets Montessori.
While the wisdom of citations for everyone is uncertain, the parents marveled at how well their children were known by faculty.
The music will be ramped up next year with choir, theory, and appreciation classes, hoping to teach music literacy (ie identifying fugue, choral, symphonic structures). There's a lot of thinking going on these days connecting God's people with singing, music, and poetry:
Christopher Page's book has been really fascinating, linking the Church's identity with singing (praise) and dining (the communion table).

In sum, BHCA has taken a major leap forward in its second year. We wonder how our vision of affordable private education will produce a viable secondary school. Things to work on: service opportunities for the children and teaching seminars for parents; a true feeding into the community.

Even a rubric on table manners, etiquette, having conversation, etc is being considered - the kinds of emphases ridiculed in the 1960s' drive to level social difference. My own observation is that men with Catholic upbringings are more likely to help another man with his coat; ie gentlemanly behavior. So, in a circuitous, Protestant way - like our liturgy - we are discovering practices long established by other traditions. Better late than never.

With great field trips, much parental involvement, I trust that next year will be very exciting, as BHCA plows through a more fluid curriculum - allowing kids to move according to aptitude - while ramping down the academics to a more appropriate pace. My observation is that Christians - in an adversarial, defensive posture towards the world - compensate by aggressive academics; "We may lack resources, but we're smarter than you!" Albeit, there is the "We don't mind being yahoos" posture, as well.

We plan to keep up with developments via Skype while in Switzerland for Pepperdine's abroad program - our return trip, which started this blog 4 years ago!

Music Family

We have weighed in on the music side as a family, partly owing to Carolyn's upbringing - mother sang weekly in the Sweet Adeline's barbershop group, dad's master chorale work in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony forms a powerful memory (C almost weekly requested "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" at our Minneapolis pre-Wed night, Bible study hymn sing).

So, despite the boys' natural athletic interests, music plus church plus academics will probably make them less culturally American, ie a family culture revolving around sports.

M & J at their spring recital. Michael opened the recital. His love of performance really came through.

The breakthrough was Jack, however, who can really play now.

We're a little unsure how smoothly Suzuki will move to Switzerland, but we'll try. Lausanne has a music conservatory and opera - unthinkable for a town that size in the States - and Switzerland has a high place for the arts, so we're hopeful.

This year had a very entertaining group number: "boom-whackers"!

Next came Michael's choir concerts and Heritage Festival competition - both very satisfying experiences for child and parents. The choir direction and music selection is high quality, always aiming to enculturate the children with serious chorale traditions.

One venue was Ventura's Community Presbyterian - a beautiful space with murals and CA Spanish architecture.

Michael exhibited nervous embarrassment, which I can't quite figure out, given his natural ham approach to life.

The Heritage Festival awarded the choir a gold! Well done and

off to the Magic Kingdom for rides. Elle joined us on Sat for one of our last times together before the summer splits us apart for a year.

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The discipline and deferral of pleasure involved in learning a musical instrument is daunting for everyone, but the pay-off is tremendous; the child's joy and energy are bridled. With classical Christian education, there is a lot of bridling going on, so we are hopeful for its ultimate fruit, too, not only for informed custody of a tradition, but the shaping of a soul's pleasure.

In search of a well-rounded, educational project, desire is being rehabilitated these days, eg James Smith's look at liturgy and the emotional life, philosophically critiquing the lack of formation in evangelical higher education in its pursuit of institutional status in a competitive market:
or Alan Jacobs' strategy for returning to reading via enjoyment, countering the traditional Great Books approach on the ethical life and moral high ground of the classics (remember Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind?:
and, of all things, a rediscovery of puritan heavyweights, such as John Owen - typically known for classic treatment on sin - who writes on the subjective experience of the Trinity and the love of the Father among His children:

"Consider the company they keep: it is with the Father -
who so glorious?
The merchandise they trade in, it is love -
what so precious?"
J. Owen.

GRC's book study a year ago on this was a complete revelation.

In sum, the life of the mind - as well as the pleasures of the heart & body - now appear as different attempts at getting at the same reality.

Spring in Conejo

It's been a cool, relatively wet spring with pockets of beautiful weather, as on Mother's Day. Carolyn weaves arts & crafts through holidays and curriculum; the boys happily return the effort:
One tremendous gift of family life are the occasions - a calendar of events mostly unique to each family, adjoining the feast days of the church to give shape to days which, otherwise, run full-steam ahead on an economic logic at odds with human or divinely ordered time.

One thing I really anticipate in Switzerland is living in a setting where all these calendars (solar, harvest, theological, family, school) more or less powerfully align, at least formally.

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Beacon Hill honored Grandparents last Friday morning; we all descended.

Our boys only have one surviving grandpa and he is out-of-state, so our children joined other groups for interactive sessions. This great-grandma only spoke Spanish, so lots of cultural exchange going on here.

Michael at an unguarded moment during the assembly:

The Santa Monica Aquarium was a great find, as was Bay Cities Deli, where I found the most comprehensive selection of Italian imports,

such as freshly made Dove Cake (4 kinds!) for Easter. The prepackaged boxes, btw, seem to drop in quality much more so than, say, their Christmas counterpart, panetone.

Apparently only the English speaking world, for some historical glitch, uses the term, Easter, to mark the Resurrection of the Savior, apparently naming an ancient, pagan goddess (given the eggs and bunnies, is this surprising?). Some believers (eg at GRC) have switched to "Resurrection Day," but that just doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Prepared a crown roast of lamb this year, only catching the symbolism of the paschal lamb crowned as a mockery - seems tighter as a Good Friday ritual:

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We made a quick stop to the Conejo Valley Days fair, near the TO Library, for some rides, such as the ferris wheel:

and this stomach-churning (highest portable version of this ride), which our thrillseeker son loved. Nascar instincts. Fun linked to, on some level, feeling out-of-control, helpless and, ultimately, baiting death:

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Took the boys to a nearby breakfast joint run by Greeks - good quality food at decent prices. Can't think what our home life would be if M & J didn't enjoy food!

Then a rare hike up the TO hills, retracing steps taken 2 years ago. Michael wanted to play the storymaking game we played on the return journey, each person adding a line to a tale. Recycling memories & the value of repetition - even at 8.

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After a Sunday lunch in Santa Paula with a family from church, I led the children to the local river bed where they threw rocks and just got dirty.
The children of GRC seem less parentally managed, ie more willing to let them just go, explore, accepting the consequences. Given my exact opposite orientation, I think it's usually a healthy antidote. Then again, I quit college & left LA for L'Abri and didn't look back, not grasping the life-pattern I was disturbing.

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Ojai is a western CA town and valley, where Carolyn arranged a beautiful tenure celebration party at the Ranch House:The Japanese bridge leading to a bamboo shelter. Ojai is a tiny artist colony of sorts; local notable, John Nava, designed the large scale tapestries hung in Our Lady of Angels Cathedral downtown.

Bart's Books, an outdoor used bookstore, has become a favorite spot.

Overtaking an actual residence and grounds, the different sections surround the former kitchen where I found, appropriately, cookbooks:

such as, Rosa Beranbaum's Cake Bible.

So, our lives are full of events these days, including last night's final AWANA program. The dedication of the staff - over many years - is humbling and I see some of that volunteerism pouring into Beacon Hill, which has become, kinda, our AWANA? M & J were recognized, as every child is, but didn't receive ribbons or Baskin & Robbins certificates because this year, they basically just showed-up.

My childhood was not as specialized, my gifts - whatever they are - not as developed. There is a generation of us, now adults, holding jobs and also trying to figure out what we're good at, I suppose.

Jack turns 6!

Our little Snoopy turned 6! Hard to believe.

Hard to believe that Peanuts is officially vintage and not the animated lingua franca of childhood any longer. For my generation, the Schultz cartoon was part of print culture, the Sunday morning ritual of pouring over the LA Times' Calendar and "funnies" section. A ritual entirely foreign to Michael and Jack.

Even the merchandising was hard to come by.

Carolyn made the dog house while Michael - loving performance - dressed in his Snoopy costume without embarrassment, reminding me of last summer when he refused to change out of lederhosen in downtown Lausanne. What costume will he be refusing to change out of 10 years from now?

The cake! SoCal heat - even for spring and fall outdoor birthdays - always tests my frosting.

Several games: Egg and Spoon Race, Linus & Lucy Freeze tag,

Flour Snowball Fight and, the favorite, the water shooters!

Carolyn's parties are elaborate and simple; loads of work but the games are socially interactive.

Big Lots had 60th Anniversary Peanuts mugs for sale!

+++

On the actual day, we had a smaller gathering

Michael is quite generous and has a hole in his pocket, I'm afraid. Loves to give away.The Kwongs hit the target with a Peanuts lunch pail

and Yahtzee -his game, since Joanne B. taught him two years ago.