Birthday!!!

Happy birthday Peepaw Mike!!! Looking forward to seeing you soon!!!

Mucha!!!

Happy 150th birthday to the king of hippie band posters, Alphonse Mucha!!!

Thursday!!!

Bob Dylan with Joan Baez and Mom : )





Springsteen & band 1972:





Too weird:

Have a great Thursday!!!

Two Pretty!!!

Exteriors 2!!!

Here are some more hobbit houses for you!! It's funny because most of these houses would probably be really dark inside for actual living, but their sooooo cool, it's nice to just dream :)

And here are a few that are a little more realistic! I love this first one, although the interior isn't quite as cool.

Another view:

More places:

And finally, a house that would have been my total dream house when I was thirteen - and still looks pretty awesome :)

Have a great tuesday everyone!!!

Mother's Day

I know, I know, it's nowhere near May. I've been meaning to do this post since, well, Mother's Day, but I keep procrastinating. I could blame it on my work, or the kids' busy schedules, or all sorts of things, but the truth is, I was coming to terms with my own Momma moving far, far away and I just wasn't in the mood to write a mother's day post.

For anyone out there who doesn't know, my Mom moved to Ecuador earlier this year. Their move was really chaotic and difficult. I don't think any of us was prepared for the reality of being so far apart. Luckily, my Mom had to come home for brief visit right around Mother's Day. When I picked her up from the airport, I was immediately struck by how much happier she looked. She was tan (something that NEVER happens in my family) and her whole face and body just seemed so much more relaxed. I think it's hard on her to be so far away from us, but aside from that, the slower pace of life right by the ocean seems to suit my mom and Larry perfectly.

If 'The Atlantic' underestimated the importance of fathers, it would be hard to overestimate the importance of mothers and of the extended mothers in all of our lives. I have been blessed with so many wonderful women in my life and I was very lucky to have most of them there with me for this past Mother's Day (or very soon thereafter.)

Here's to my sister Bell, my fearless leader throughout our childhood. She taught me to read, saved my life a few times, and plays Slimey Sherman and the Slow Horse like nobody's business.

Here's to my sweet boys who picked this shirt out for me for Mother's Day. To all my Mommas, aunties, girlfriends, grandmothers, mother-in-laws, and sisters, it's true, you are all beautiful people.

Here's to the little people, who drive us a little batty sometimes, but make our lives much richer for having them in it.

Here's to my lovely Mother-in-laws, Kathi and Molly. Molly couldn't be there with us for Mother's Day, but both my Mother-in-laws are such sweet loving souls. You don't see people who are truly radiant very often, but that's the word I always think of when I see Molly and Kathi.

Here's to my own Momma, I miss you terribly. Thank you for making the world seem like a magical place.

Here's to my aunt Holly, who puts all of us Monahan girls to shame. My sister Rosada, who has always been a beautiful enigma to me. My sisters-in-law, Amy, Annie and Sonjia....see the 'beautiful' t-shirt comments up above, because it is so true for all of you guys, both inside and out!

You can't see them very well in any of these pictures, but my best friends Julie and Michelle were there that day, too. Julie lost her Momma when we were in high school, Michelle's Momma lives far away and my own family kind of imploded in high school, so we did a lot of work helping to raise one another. Here's to you two! I hope you guys know how I love you.

Hi Momma. I hope you get to read this. We miss you and hope you are happy, healthy and well. Love to all the Mommas!

Dye My Hair Blue

My wonderful wife has really been doing the lion's share of the writing on our blog lately! I'm sure that this is partly because I'm still recovering from the school year, but I was recently looking though our archives (alright, it was at a school professional development), and I was amazed at how much writing I was doing a year ago!

I think that this has a lot to do with our new place. Em and I really like it, and it seems like we might be there for a while, so I've really been putting a lot of work into getting it together. I'm sure that we have about as many plants now as you can possibly have without actually having any ground to put them in!! And overall, I've just been feeling more visual than verbal lately. I love looking around our place and trying to figure out what should go where!

Em probably thinks that I'm being obsessive about all of this house stuff - and this is possible - but it's just very rewarding for me right now. And along with this, I've just been really interested in pictures and images, as you may have noticed from my posts! Anyway, you never know when things like this change (and this post kind of disproves my point!), but for the time being, I hope you guys enjoy the pictures, and thanks to Em for being such a great writer - especially after doing it at work all day!!!

Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma Kathi!!!!!

Finn's 7th Birthday Trip to Catalina

Catalina, here we come! It looks terribly grey and dreary here, but it actually wasn't too bad.

Finn and Jack loved being on the deck.

Eventually, it got too cold for Jack, but Finn was a trooper, he stayed up there the whole trip. He looks like a salty old sailor in this picture.

Here we are approaching the island.

Ta-da! Totally nautical boys.

Hanging out around the campfire was one of our favorite activities. We toasted marshmallows...

...or caught them on fire.

The only downside of our trip was a group of rowdy guys who were in the cabin next to us. All the others campers near us were mellow families and groups, but these 24-year old guys were there to whoop it up and whoop it up, they did, into the wee hours of the night. Luckily, aside from being thoughtless at night, they were mostly pretty decent guys. Finn thought they were his cool new friends when they let him play soccer with them.

Here's another campfire picture. Amy and Jamie gave us an awesome book called Mr. Muddle that always makes the guys laugh. Instead of scary campfire stories, we told Mr. Muddle camping stories. "Mr. Muddle got up in the middle of the night to use the port-a-pottie, but he forgot his flashlight and sat on the grill instead. Oh Mr. Muddle!"

We took a nice long hike alongside the ocean.

Birthday boy Finn!

Jack! Everywhere we went people said, "That is one happy kid."

Me and Jack. Jack was getting tired, so Finn and Patrick went on and I took this picture myself while we were waiting for them to catch up with us.

Finally, we saw them come around the bend across from us. Sorry this picture isn't that great, but they were farther away here than they look.

Finally...

Finn...

came....

back! Yay!

And Daddy too.

Two Harbors.

Pirate Jack playing on some anchors. "Ahoy mateys!" Note the pink purse. All the most dread pirates are carrying them these days.

Jack's first time in a wet suit and first time contemplating going into the ocean. Is he going to do it?

Yes!

And Finn went snorkeling for the first time. Here are Finn and Daddy living the life aquatic.

Our tent cabin. Not luxurious, but we liked it.

We took the guys to a very grown up dinner for Finn's birthday on Saturday night. Unfortunately, we forgot to take any pictures at the dinner, but the boys were both great. The next day, Patrick took Finn on his favorite (hard!) hike up into the interior of the island to see the buffalo run.

This picture reminds me so much of a great picture that Amy had framed for Finn when he was a baby. It's a picture of a little boy walking with a pack strapped across his back and there's something about the boy's pose that is so essentially boy.

There are many pictures of Finn on this trip that I think somehow both capture the essence of childhood, while at the same time showing a glimpse of what he will be like as a grown-up. I'm not sure why, but I think it might have something to do with his turning seven. Seven is supposed to be an important number in a lot of religions and cultures, but I always think of the documentary series 7-Up. I think they took their title from a Rudyard Kipling quote; "Give me a boy until he is seven and I will give you the man." (or something like that.) Happy Birthday Finn! I hope we did okay by you, little man.

Tired daddy.