Community

We had a great weekend in our neighborhood, kicking off the summer season at our community park.  Our park is quite unusual from other parks in town, being that it is not a municipal park nor a park funded by a homeowners association.  Our park is a grassroots effort created and maintained by like-minded people that live in our neighborhood.

Egg hunt at the park

 

 

Just an early spring Sunday at the park

 

Our neighborhood is filled with so many interesting people and the park is the epicenter of it all. For the past decade Dave and I have built many relationships through volunteering and socializing with people supporting the same cause--community.



Volleyball on Sundays

It seems unreal that Dave and I have actually settled somewhere for 10 years.  Roots have spread, history is being made. We have seen friends move away, get divorced, get married, have babies, etc.  There have been many ups and downs in our lives as well as our friends' lives.  The ups are great, the blows from the downs are just a little easier, just knowing we have a network of support just right outside our door.  We did well, he and I, we ended up living in the right place at the right time.



Family camp out at the park

 

 

 



Memories are always in the making.  In years from now the gals' view of the "good old days" may be different from Dave's and my view of the "good old days" (drunken shenanigans, anyone?) but they will all originate from the same place. The place where we put forth the effort to make it a community worth living in, the place where we will go the extra mile just to have some fun, the place we are proud to call home.

 

4th of July at our house last summer











Wrapping it up

This past weekend the girls finished dance for the year. A recital at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium marks their last time on stage for the season. They did fabulous and are looking forward to both being competitive dancers next year.

I'm looking forward to the days ahead of slowing down as our activity schedule is becoming less demanding. School's out in 11 days and I welcome the days ahead of clear agendas, loose structure, days in the sun, and lazy afternoons. 

May Day!

Months ago I was reading a chapter book with Marlee and there was a little blurb about a girl making May Day baskets.  Marlee wanted to learn a little more about this day and those baskets. 

So we referred to our favorite book of holidays "Festivals, Family, and Food".  It's a wonderful book that explains holidays that nobody really celebrates anymore...except for us, it seems.  <insert eye roll here!!> Click here to peek at the book.

Marlee and her bud Hayden put a lot of work into this project the past few weeks. The baskets were to be filled with spring flowers (ahem, weeds), but pretty yellow and purple all the same.  They made little May Day greeting cards and slipped a few pieces of candy in each one.

 

We found some old baskets at a thrift store for 20 cents each.  When we were short a few baskets, the girls did not lack in creativity on how to make additional baskets!

 

 

 

 

According to tradition, the baskets are to be hung on friends' doorknobs at dawn.  The basket is meant to be a surprise, so our friends were not supposed to know who delivered the baskets.

 

The big morning arrived.  We left the house at 6:10(!!), in our PJs of course, to tiptoe through the yards of friends to deliver these pleasant surprises.

 

 

 







There was quite a stir by the time the neighborhood kids loaded the bus that morning.  All kinds of musings and theories were floating around.  It seems not only the givers, but also the receivers got a little lesson about May Day.