Perhaps

I’m too tired tonight to write a coherent blog.  Instead, I’ll post random thoughts on our week at Toah Nipi:

1. Sand (or dirt) is perhaps the most important play experience of childhood.  My boys have spent many joyful hours playing in the dirt with children in a squatters village in Mexico.  No one spoke the same language, but everyone knew what to do with dirt and water and sticks: make moats and rivers and fortresses.  This week, they built a castle and a river and a moat and a habitat for salamanders.  (The salamanders seemed to prefer the lake, though, and kept trying to get out of the “habitat” built just for them.)
2. Kids like hiking.  I’ve not met a kid under ten who doesn’t like to walk in the woods and climb rocks and reach the top of a mountain.  No complaining or fighting or whining.  Hiking is perhaps the best family activity ever.
3. I am married to a good man.  On our way out of the camp yesterday, the woman who does the majority of the housekeeping there said to me, “You know you don’t have to clean the rooms, right?  It’s your vacation.”  When I told her that Jeff likes to pick up before we go, she said, “I know.  I always tell the staff that if Jeff was here, you don’t need to clean. He’s the only one who leaves the place in better shape than when he got here.”  That’s a pretty good rule for life, yes?
4. Picking blueberries is relaxing.  We picked twelve pounds in the morning, and the boys liked it so much we went back to get twelve more pounds in the afternoon.  Cleaning and freezing twenty-four pounds of blueberries is the opposite of relaxing.
5. Canning is fun.  This has nothing to do with Toah Nipi or the boys.  But my friend Beth came to town today, and whenever she is here, we cook.  Today we made tomato jam from a Mark Bitman recipe.  It is, perhaps, the best condiment I have ever tasted.
6. Playing cards is one of my favorite activities in the world.  I can’t wait for the kids to get old enough to play with us.  Of course, that will take away from one of my other favorite activities – staying up late playing cards with Debbie and Tom while the kids are in bed.
7. We’re back home, and it feels good.  I love Toah Nipi, but I love home even more.  The boys may think that Toah Nipi is the best place on Earth, but I’m sure that for me that place is home.

I went on vacation to Alaska with my friends Rob and Shannah.  I must have been overdoing it with the superlatives, and after a week, when Shannah could no longer take it, she lamented, “If I had a dime for every time you thought something was AMAZING, I would be rich.”

I know what she means.  Superlatives are like exclamation points.  If you need them, there’s probably a problem with your writing (or speaking).  But sometimes a week is just that good – perhaps one of the best.