Home in time for her birthday!

The answer to whether Kali is solidly an adult now or in her last year of adolescence depends on who you ask. But the hard fact is that she is now 19! And that she arrived home in time to celebrate her birthday with us, which was probably as much a gift for us as it was for her. It is also worth noting that there was so much emphasis on August 9th in our household (welcome home signs, a chain with loops noting how many days until her arrival, etc...) that I didn't do nearly as much advance birthday planning as I normally do. And Kali wasn't around to talk about what she wanted, and the birthday person choosing what they want for their bday is a pretty big thing in this household. Kali did confirm with me just now that she had a nice birthday but also agreed that even for her the emphasis up to that point had really been on the bigger transition of returning home after 2+ months! So here's how things shook out:

Her ducks chores were done for her, so this was her first activity of the day (well, after brushing her teeth and changing). This is not an unusual scene ever since the acquisition of her phone! In addition to her many word games and any number of other things, she now has friends all the way across the world to connect with.

I pulled her away to take a meander down to the ducklings for a visit and to husk corn for her birthday brunch. 

Emily, Jonas and Ivy joined us for brunch centering around Kali's request of sausage quiche. While I was making pie crusts I added funny cake pies to the menu, and then just loaded the table up with veggies. I cannot get over all the colors and textures of this time of year.

She was literally loved upon throughout the day!

She got some new co-op snacks and some coupons to spread out the birthday fun (there'll be a sister movie night and sister game night and a day hike with her parents and watching a show with her dad coming in the future). There was some game playing sprinkled into the day somewhere.

She also found herself a 4-leaf clover!

The big adventure of the day was getting her behind the wheel of our car again. She had wanted to do some driving where she gets to try to find her way around or just enjoy exploring wherever she feels like going. This was very fun for her and Jason and I think Alida enjoyed it well enough and Terah was moderately stressed - at least that is what I gathered from the report. But all arrived home, after 4+ hours, in good spirits. They had three stops to accomplish - a visit to the library, a visit to Sharp Shopper, and a visit to Smiley's Ice Cream. The rest of the time was spent galavanting around the countryside. I happily stayed at home and chopped many veggies, while listening to an entire audio book (maybe more on How to Keep House while Drowning another time!).

The celebrating continued into the next day when we had her birthday dinner with my parents, and also her great, great aunt Eleanor (who had joined us that afternoon for the week - more on that also in a later post!). Another colorful, delicious meal and a new food experience, blackberry cake, that Terah now wants for her birthday even though blackberries are no longer in season then. It was my mother who made the fried eggplant and okra, which is always a labor of love! 

As I type this she is wearing her birthday t-shirt and giving ME a foot massage. I'm writing about her birthday while cashing in my last birthday coupon from September 2021. So if any of this doesn't make sense, it's because I'm half focused on what I'm typing and half focused on the wonderful sensations in my feet!

A long awaited trip to the Benner home place!

Kali wasn't home 3 full days before she had to be packed for the next adventure. That said, this one didn't include 4 airplane rides, multiple suitcases or saying goodbye to us! After not being together at Jason's parents' home since before Covid (and I had not been there at all), we had cooked up a Benner family camping weekend in Pennsburg. What a disappointment to miss out on being with Jason's brother and his family, due to Covid visiting their household just days before our planned gathering. We were so looking to all being together.

The highlights of our time together did NOT include the travel to or fro. I really dislike traveling on 81. On our way up we had to detour onto 11 for awhile due to a really bad accident and on our way home those going north were delayed due to another accident. I felt so grateful for safety on the roads!

It took us until nearly 3 p.m. Friday to get the animals and gardens set for our short absence. So that, along with the traffic delays and a really annoying stop at Chipotle for supper, had us landing in Pennsburg at nightfall (that was not our plan, nor was forgetting the screens for our canopy). We were so relieved and thankful that a large tent had been found AND set up for us to have as a possible alternate sleeping location. Once aired out, it was perfect for the five of us - the roomiest tent I've ever slept in for sure. It all went up from there!

We packed our time there full of gabbing, eating, cousin snuggles and play time, swinging, swimming, more gabbing, more eating, a scavenger hunt, an outdoor movie, Kali sharing photos from her trip, fun cooking experiments over the fire, roasting s'mores and more. And all of this was done with the absolute perfect weather for gathering outside - plenty of sunshine, breezy, cool nights for snuggling in our sleeping bags, very few bugs... We couldn't have placed a better order if that was possible to do! Here's a smattering of images from our time together

The food highlight for us was cooking flatbreads over the fire in our pie irons. Emily and Jonas introduced us to "bread on a stick" which was great! But even topping that was putting some butter in the pie iron and some dough. We will be doing that again! We also enjoyed some more Filipino snacks Kali had brought home to share!

The time to depart came awfully fast, but it was enough fun crowded into a short amount of time to at least wear out our littlest. This is what happened not too far into our journey home! 

There's already a Benner conversation thread going about all meeting up for the 2024 total solar eclipse. :) 

We are completely smitten...and sometimes have a hard time sharing!

This is gonna be one of several posts in close succession because there is too much scrapbook news to reasonably fit into one post! I'm gonna start with the easiest post: a "happy 6 months to Luca" post. I had to reign myself in because I could overload this space with adorable photos. It's amazing that any of them are clear as he is in constant motion much of the time. 

Pretty much any time we get to spend time with Luca at least one kid asks me before he has been gone 5 minutes when the next time is that we get to see/keep him. We had some false starts on a weekly schedule for Luca hanging with us do to covid interruptions, but this week enjoyed spending much of Thursday with our favorite little friend. The world becomes much more joy-filled, fun, and beautiful when he's around. Soon it will get more complicated too as this kid has places to go and he is currently able to go backwards but it won't be long before he can choose his direction. Watch out world!

All in one day we got to introduce him to our high chair, the outdoor baby swing and he gave us a piano concert. He also got to meet the ducklings, of which he was fond. 

I'm gonna have to take back that he sits still to listen to books. That's before he wanted to put EVERYTHING into his mouth. Now he mostly just thinks that books must be delicious and should each be sampled. 

Yesterday, he got to try the "puffs" that Kali had given to Alida for Christmas as a joke, since she loved them so much as a baby. When he could get them in his mouth and keep them there, he seemed to enjoy them a lot. 

Some of us have an easier time sharing snuggle time than others. Jason and Kali love him dearly also, but are less insistent on fair and frequent turns holding him. I admit that I'm in the other camp, though I did give up my spot at the table by him last evening to let Terah and Alida sit on either side of him. There's never a lack of willing arms and I will say that my heart about burst when I peeked into our bedroom the other day to see Alida rocking him while he drank his bottle and singing one of the lullabies that Jason wrote. Here's a few other photos I couldn't restrain myself from sharing!

We love our solo times with Luca, with the perk of giving his parents some two-handed-focused time. But we also love when the whole family joins us, as they did last evening. It's been awhile since we had a table of 9 spanning 4 generations (the 3rd generation - my parents - were missing this time around). Uninterrupted conversations of much depth are a bit hard to come by at this stage of family life, but just being together feels precious. After a dinner of the last sausage gravy over sweet potatoes until the next hog butchering, we enjoyed Kali sharing some of her Philippine photos and stories. 

Ps. I had to chuckle on Friday when Terah complained that she was sore from playing "push up and flop" with Luca! It seems he is a great playmate, an adorable snuggly baby friend, and also her own personal trainer. "Exercise" with Luca most definitely fit in the category of "joyful movement," which is what we are going for around here!

Last evening!

My heart is so full!!! 

It's hard to put into words the many things I feel so deeply grateful for. At the top of the list is for Kali's safe return home and for the many incredible people that accompanied here during her time in the Philippines over the past two months. Hours before she left for her trip in early June she put her popcorn seed into flats. This is what it did in her absence! It may take more time for us to all share with each other the ways we have grown during our time apart. For now, I am savoring being back together!! It felt so right to hear Kali's walk through the house coming in from putting her ducks in for the night and waking to pee around 3 in the morning and Kali being the only one still awake in the house. 

Now to get some bacon frying and nutty sweet potatoes waffles going for our first brunch together!