thewallises

My kids wake up at 6am. They head over to our bed sometime around 5:30 or 5:45 and then we snuggle for the last half hour or 15 minutes before our morning begins at six o’clock. Jacob’s most favorite thing in the world is to get to play with Daddy’s iPhone before he heads off to work. So while he gets his thrills playing Angry Birds and Natalie sits at the dining room crafting something out of our art supplies or coloring, I sloooooowly wake up, head over to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and a slice of toast with something deliciously sweet. I know, I know, probably not the healthiest way to start my day. But it’s a tradition from my youth that’s been tough to break. A slice of bread with Dutch hagelslag sprinkles or brown sugar or nutella. It all sounds so decadent as I type this. Ha! Perhaps that would be the easiest place for me to start shedding the pounds. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it.

This morning I reinstated the rule that before Jacob gets any iPhone app time, that he needs to play through his piano playlist. That means about 20 pieces of music. Let me tell you what a glorious way that is to start off my morning. I love love love love it! 🙂 He plays so beautifully. The sound of piano notes floating through the stillness of our home is one sure way to make this mama heart smile.

Well today even before heading to the lure of Angry Birds, he actually wanted to check the online GPS tracker. He’s hooked (just as I am). He wants to know if Lance Mackey or Aliy Zurkel is in the lead!!! The whole notion of a race and there being a winner has captivated his attention. He loves to move the dog markers on our dining room wall. Just wait until I have him start analyzing Lance and Aliy’s en-route times vs. rest times at the check points. One of the mushers said it’s like a big game of chess- trying to decide what your moves will be. Jacob was intrigued by that- so I’m curious to see if he’ll be able to figure out some of their strategy by looking at their times.

One thing we found out this morning is that Anna Barrington no longer has 16 dogs. Big shocking news to us! At Skwetna she checked in with 16 dogs but checked out with 15. She left one behind at the check point for some reason. We’re really eager to find out why.

And talking about dogs……Natalie continues to be fascinated by Dee Dee’s team of dogs that all wear flourscent pink booties and harnesses. It’s quite the spectacular colorful contrast to the landscape that is blanketed in bright white snow. We listened to DeeDee explain that her 2-year old dog is the youngest on her team and has been a bit nervous. He’s just learning how this race thing works and seems to be picking it up pretty fast. Dee Dee has such a sweet voice and beautiful countenance as she works at caring for her dogs and being interviewed at the checkpoints.

Lance and DeeDee have passed Rohn and are on their way to Nikolai.

The Barrington sisters and Trent are approaching Rohn.

Day 1 (yesterday, Sun. 3/4/12) 2:30pm-3pm. Our mushers left Willow, the official start of the Iditarod

Day 2 (today, Mon. 3/5/12) 10:40 pm

Lance Mackey (#18) & DeeDee Jonrowe (#17) are at Rohn. 0mph

Anna Barrington (#33), Kristy Barrington (#31) & Trent Herbst (#16) are all at Rainy Pass. 0 mph.

Unbelievable! Over 100 miles of sledding with their dogs! Geez I love GPS. This is unbelievable technology. But even more unbelievable is how incredible these people are- how resolute and hardy they are in these conditions that would be just unfathomably cold and lonely to me.

It is just unbelievable to me when I see Dee Dee, for instance, a 58-year old woman who is a cancer survivor toughing out weather of 3 degrees Fahrenheit (that really feels like -6 with the wind chill). Unreal. I’m just humbled. Here she is with her eyelashes laden with icicles, coming in to a checkpoint. Man oh man I really wish I had even an iota of this type of toughness in me!

As we were sleeping in our cozy beds, mushers in frigid cold Alaska were running through pitch black darkness. I can’t even fathom what it must be like to be enveloped in the complete black of the night with only the light of your headlamp lighting the way for you and your pack of 16 dogs.

The kids were super excited and eager to check online for the Iditarod GPS Tracker as soon as they woke up this morning. How much land had our mushers traversed while we were sleeping?

They all passed the Skwetna checkpoint and are on their way to Finger Lake! And this morning as we’re here watching, Lance Mackey just arrived at Finger Lake!!! So incredible watching his speed go from 9mph to 0mph. He’s at a stop. Woohoo! Following him are DeeDee Jonrowe and behind her is Trent Herbst. A further way back are the twins: Kristy and Anna.

Today marked an important day in the Wallis family. It was Jacob’s very first time playing at a baseball game. Considering how much baseball was a h-u-g-e-l-y significant part of Steve’s life, I know that today was a very special day. What a sweet afternoon it was sitting amongst lots of parents on the bleachers, watching our children give it their best. And also to see how sweetly innocent they all are in terms of what they still don’t know. I couldn’t help but have a huge grin on my face for the full hour. It was just sweet fun. Kids playing with the red dirt instead of focusing on the game. Kids running to first base with their bat in hand. Kids not knowing where in the world the bases were located and running haphazardly in the grass. One kid, instead of throwing the ball to home, decided to run all the bases to home with the ball in hand. A kid on first passing a kid who was on second, and then together the two kids running to third. But then when the coach told the one who was initially on first to head back to second, both kids getting confused and both of them running back from third base back to second. Yeah. One of those kids was my son. Pure awesomeness. I just loved the innocence of it all. At one point Jacob was so in awe of the base that he stood there hunched over trying to pick it up and look under it- all the while the game was continuing. Oh my goodness I was loooooving it. 🙂 They were all trying so hard with what they knew. It was such a delight. Here’s potentially to years that lie ahead of us, sitting in bleachers, watching Jacob don his baseball hat. Cheers to the future of a sport that I know holds a very special significance to Steve.

What a satisfying Saturday.

• Breakfast @ Noah’s Bagels

• Watched the live stream from Alaska of the ceremonial start of the Iditarod. Totally cracks me up- Jacob picked Anna & Kristy Barrington to follow in the race. As the commentators said today, “they are not so tough on the eyes.” Nope. They’re gorgeous twins. Hard-core. Fit. Each racing this 975-mile trek across Alaska on their one-person sled with their pack of dogs.

• We all took naps

• Planted seeds; hopefully we’ll have gorgeous flowers soon!

• Gazed at the 4 hummingbirds who call our backyard their home

• Gushed with pride for Natalie as she made her 1st successful shot in our basketball hoop. And then continued to make more for a count of 10 successful shots!

• Tried a new spinach quiche recipe that called for feta cheese and heard Steve say “this is t-h-e best quiche I’ve ever eaten in my life!”

This day has left me feeling quite happy and satisfied.

Okay so I just looked up the word “knobby” and its the perfect word to describe what I saw today. “A rounded protuberance; lump”

This morning while Jacob was at school, I decided to have some sweet time with Natalie at Kenneth Hahn Park. Love going there when I have a basket full of old pieces of bread. Love it that it’s inland enough that seagulls don’t come and terrorize us as we feed the ducks. Love it that there are at least 5 species of birds there: the regular mallard ducks with orange feet, the white geese, the pigeons, the black ones with giant, decorated-like webbed feet that squawk quite noisily and look like “emus” as Natalie likes to say, and the cute smaller sized ones that have a white vertical stripe down their head and squeak like a kid’s tiny bath toy. Sometimes we see a beautiful white crane. Or maybe it’s a heron. I don’t know the difference. Didn’t see that one today. And then there are also the crows. Lots of wildlife. Along with turtles basking on the rocks. It’s just glorious.

But what was not so glorious was when I started noticing the pigeon’s feet. At first I saw one of them- with a missing toe. Well I don’t know if you call them toes. Normal pigeons have these 3 segments of foot-pieces that jut out forward and then 1 foot-segment/toe that juts out backward, for balance I suppose. Anyway, I noticed one pigeon that only had 2 of the front “toes”. Then I noticed another one missing two of them. But then I started noticing how many pigeons had totally malformed feet. I’m talking about pigeons missing all the pieces and they were just walking around on knobs of feet!!! Yes. Literally just these pinkish rounded lumps at the end of their legs. What in the world?!? And then I started noticing that some of them had the most disgusting bubbly-like bulges of skin at the end of those knobbed-end legs. Like all bulgy-blistery looking. It was just sad. gross. concerning. It was like all of  sudden I noticed a phenomenon. We’re not talking about one sole pigeon with some feet problems. We’re talking about a whole grip of them! Is that because they have some genetically malformed feet and they keep procreating amongst themselves? Or is there something in their environment there at Kenneth Hahn Park that causes their feet to end up looking like that? Seriously it was almost like a “leperous” condition amongst the pigeons. I couldn’t help but think back to someone in my life who called pigeons “rats with wings”.

But in the midst of the disgusting knobby feet, Natalie and I kept feeding them our bags of old bread. And I couldn’t help but think of how awesome it is that a bird’s need for food is met unexpectedly to them. They don’t have stores to go and buy their food. They just wait. They wait expectantly for food to appear. Do they just get fed when people in the city feel an urge to go to the park with their bread? Do they have another food source? And so then I started thinking deeper…..I hope I have that ability to just wait. I can’t imagine pigeons consciously thinking of God as their provider. But I know and trust Him to be my provider. To trust in His provision and His timing, that’s what I want to be known for. Just like today we were the hands that fed birds the food they needed, and just like God’s hands sent manna from Heaven that covered the ground for the Israelites when they were hungry, so too God will bring me what I need when I most need it. I hope to tuck that lesson away and remember it when I need it most.

But I don’t really want to remember the knobby pigeon feet. I can let that memory go. Ha!

Sometimes I wonder if I have my priorities all wrong. Today was one of those days that I had conflicting feelings and thoughts racing through my mind. I’m thrilled the kids and I can have a relaxing morning and not rush off somewhere. Wait. No. It’s not good that we’re all still in our pj’s at 11 in the morning, right? I’m thrilled the kids are fully invested and excited about the start of the Iditarod in T-minus 2 days. We’re making banners for our wall, we’re writing out the names of the 24 checkpoints along the Alaskan route, talking about how the word ‘route’ is a homophone for ‘root’ (if you say ‘r-ow-t’ that is), we’re decorating dogs cut out of card stock as race markers to keep track of the progress of our personal mushers-of-choice, we’re emailing our mushers to wish them well, we’re reading books about how this great race ever got started, we’re figuring out how to take 10-feet of wall space and create a scaled map of the 975 mile race, we’re talking about the important features of staying fit. But wait. My house is a mess. A g-i-g-a-n-t-i-c mess! A tornado has stricken once again. Seriously. This is the part when my head starts spinning out of control. There’s glitter…..paint…..tape…..paper…..rulers….markers……a penguin being decorated by Natalie……my dogs walking in and amongst it all……piles of laundry……breakfast dishes……clothes from last night’s bath still strewn about in the bathroom…..unmade beds…..Jacob’s baseball gear in the hallway still sitting there from last week’s practice………..AAAAUUGH! This is when my mind starts to scream that I’m doing something wrong. What can I be doing differently? How do I keep the love of learning and the thrill of homeschooling alive and yet still find a way to keep my sanity and my house a sanctuary of order? Yeah, haven’t figured that out yet. If anyone has, pleeeeease let me know. But this is what I have to show for today. Doesn’t seem like much in comparison to the daunting and overwhelming messes of my house. But tonight I need to rest in the confidence that with time I’ll figure out the how-to-keep-the-house-neat piece and that I should cherish the time I spent with the kids and treasure this road of learning together. But boy do I hope I figure out the home-maker part!

Awhile back some friends came and visited us. They balked at the fact that I was using a plastic steamer contraption; educating me that foods should not be cooked in plastic. When plastic gets warmed/heated up, particles of the plastic enter the food. Oh-geez. So ever since then I stopped using my handy-dandy plastic steamer. I loved that thing! Loved that I could just throw my veggies in there, fill it up with water, and turn the dial. It would automatically turn off and “ding” when the veggies were ready. Loved that thing!

Well, now that I’ve returned to my old-school style of metal steamer basket in a pan…..yeah…..I’ve destroyed 3 pans. Yup. Last night was count #3. I had filled it with a bit of water, filled the steamer basket with broccoli and off I went to the dining room to continue working with Jacob on his homeschool stuff. I was oblivious to the fact that all the water steamed off and the bottom of the pan was turning into bubbly black nothingness. Didn’t realize it, yeah, for hmmmm………I don’t know, maybe 20 minutes. Or maybe it was 30 min. Or maybe 40. I seriously don’t know. I lost track of time. All of a sudden I smelled this D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G smell in the air. Ohhhhhhh no! I ran for the stove. Yup, there was my obliterated pan, with its bottom bubbling. Yes- the very essence of the pan, whatever it is made up of, was right there bubbling in black oozy gooeyness.

Grrrrrrr. Trying to steam and be healthy has come at a cost! I haven’t replaced any of the pans I’ve destroyed, so really my stock of pans has whittled down and now I’m left with just one pan I can boil/steam things in. I hope I don’t make that same mistake again. 😦

So I’m not even going to try to pretend that I’m not weird. I am weird. I know. And the truth is that since I’m homeschooling my children I’m imparting my weirdness on them. I found out that in 1o days begins the Iditarod. Okay, okay, to tell you the truth… before yesterday I didn’t even have a clue what that word meant. Or even how to say that word.

I-dit-a-rod

It’s the famous dog sled races across Alaska.

So Jacob, Natalie and I have checked out the main Iditarod website and we are anxiously awaiting the start of the race on March 3rd. We’re learning all about the rules of the race, what it takes to be a musher (the person who rides solo on the sled for the 1,000+ miles), how many dogs are allowed to pull the sled and how the musher takes care of them. http://iditarod.com/

I’ve already begun reading websites of curriculum to use to teach math, science and language arts all by following this race.

http://iditarodblogs.com/teachers/2011/08/27/curriculum-for-classrooms/

I know, I know. I’m weird.

Yesterday we celebrated our President’s Day Holiday by being in the great outdoors. Drove up the coast to Topanga Canyon and went on a gorgeous hike. I looooooove it that we are in this stage of life….having kids who are excited to trek 4 miles, able to carry their own water bottle and just beautifully content to converse on the trail and observe the small and big of all God’s creation.

I’m thankful that after all these years of college that we are still in touch with the Hardgraves. Steev and Teo are real quality people! It’s just so amazing getting to share life’s stories, be able to pick up in conversation where we last left off a few years ago, and have our kids enjoy each other’s company. We are so stoked we got to spend quality time hiking together before they head off to India for a few years.

And my favorite part of the day, besides soaking in the nature, was when we reached our highest point and we decided to focus on one kid at a time. We began with Katia, their 13-year old, letting each person in her family tell us something about her. Then we focused on Jacob. It was beautiful to see each of them soak up the solo-time with radiant smiles of joy, glad to be known, glad to be talked about, glad to have amazing attributes of themselves highlighted in front of others. That was part 1 of the kid focus time. Part 2 was yet to come…

I love it too that my kids are old enough to take incredible pictures. Love it that I got this cool photo of Teo and I. 🙂 She and I held back and walked the trail behind everyone, having incredible conversations together. Oh that just delights my soul to no end! 🙂

We trekked back to the car and headed to downtown L.A. There we met up with the Yees. Also, amazing quality people- Tim & Kati. I can say that hands down Steev and Tim were incredible instruments of the Lord’s during the formative years of my faith. They were pivotal people in the direction of my life and the choices I made that point forward in how I wanted to live for the Lord. God used them mightily to teach me, shape me and cause me to lean my ear in close to listen to God’s calling and God’s charge to us as Christians. I thank the Lord…..wow…..actually I’m tripping out as I stop to calculate that I met Steev and Tim 20 years ago at the Bel Air Pres college group. I am thankful to God that after two full decades we are still in touch and our families know each other. But above all, thankful that God continues to use both of them to be leaders in what it means to be a modern-day Christian. God has and continues to use both of these men mightily.

In the play room at the church Tim pastors, we had Part 2 of ‘kid focus time’. It was time for Chelsea, their 11 year old and our Natalie to receive the spotlight praise time. They too soaked it up and were beaming with delight as they took turns sitting on the tiny white bench for the kid-sized miniature piano.

And then off we trekked to the Yogurtland in Japan Town, where we focused on Avery Yee (2 years old) and Natalie Hardgrave (age 12). What a treat to be in the company of dear friends while also eating amazingly scrumptious yogurt land. A perfect day.