dear marta

dear marta,

i dont know if i should thank you
or curse you.
why you ask?
your coconut krispie chocolate chunk cookies,
of course!

we are having a family
dinner tomorrow
and i thought they would be perfect.

these cookies are perfection!
i love them.
they are my new favorite.
my new go to.

i am not sure which
i ate more of last night while
baking them,
the cookie dough or the cookies out of the oven.

so much for weight watchers.

thank you for sharing the recipe.
i think....
next batch i make i might add peanut butter chips too.
ohhhh the possibilities.

xo
luc

happy 4th

we are off to florida.
hot, steamy, sunny florida.
i am looking forward
to the heat.
it has not been very warm here.

we are going to spend
some time with some
dear friends and their two boys.

there will be swimming.
playing in the sand.
watching fireworks.
visting the aquarium.
and lots of fun.

i hope you have a
safe and happy weekend.
see you back here in wednesday!

xoxo

an update from santa fe

we are still in santa fe and
will be until wednesday.
here has what has been going
 on in our world.

chace is still not sleeping well.
both his ears were red and on
their way to infection.
antibiotics is our friend.

he has a new tooth.
i think more are on
their way.
the last time we were here, he got 4 new teeth.

mom and i have been sewing.
clothes.
well mom has been.
she is teaching me.

we are sewing on her
singer athena 2000 machine.
it is as old as i am .
there are no bells and whistles, but it sews great.

we have made chace
a pair of pants.
and are working
on a blouse for me.

i have been working on
the quilt that was set aside last fall.
i forgot how tedious the blocks are to make.

we have been spending time outside.
enjoying the sunshine.
the pond.
and the fish.

we are having a grand time.
but i miss ph,
my bed,
and the dogs.

to the zoo

this morning we went to the zoo.
we have a small zoo.
but it is nice and a great place to spend the morning.
i am sure we will spend some quality time there this summer.

the animals were just waking up
and some of them were still in their houses.
it was a cool morning and they were slow moving.
so there was not a ton of animal action.

the animals always seem so sad.
there is this secret part of me that
wants to return them to the wild.
i wonder what they think and feel.

anyway,
chace reacted just like i thought he would.
he took it all in.
stoic, thoughtful, contemplative.
i wonder if the animals seemed sad to him too?

he seemed to like the sea lions best.
no surprise there.
since his mama wanted to be a marine biologist.
but he got more excited about the trees and the birds
that were not a part of any exhibit.


i definitely know where that came from!

dear finn

welcome to the world baby finn!

this your aunt luc writing. your favorite aunt. ok, your only "blood aunt". i am glad that you finally decided to join us. you sure put your mama and papa through alot when you made your entrance. i know, you were just breaking them into parenthood on your terms.

i sure wish that you did not live so far away. i so long to hold you, smell you and snuggle you. it makes me sad that i wont get to meet you until christmas. you will be so big by then. your cousin chace is anxious to meet you and teach you all the tricks he knows. i can not wait to see the two of you play together. your dad, uncle luke and i had such grand adventures with our cousins growing up. i want that for you and chace.

try to go easy on your parents in the next few weeks. you did not arrive with a handbook and it takes moms and dads a little time to figure out parenthood. be patient. enjoy your time with both of them home. let them snuggle you. hold you. and love you. this is the greatest gift you can give them. oh and let them sleep, as much as you can.

love you always,
aunt luc

for brookins

mike brookins is married to my second cousin.
but growing up he was more like an uncle than a cousin.
when i was little my parents lived in lexington.
mike and his then girlfriend attended.
the university of kentucky.

they were the only ones
who would babysit me.
i was not a pleasant child.
and this act created a bond between us.

and needless to say, made him
very fond of chace when he met him last spring.
he was quite smitten with chace.
so smitten, that he gifted him
his beloved kentucky hat.

chace has yet to understand the
significance of this gift.
he will someday.
but it was not lost on his mama.

i am not a big basketball fan.
but i do get into march madness.
i usually route for the underdog.
this afternoon, before the UK-UNC game
i pulled out the UK hat and put it on chace.
it seemed to be good luck.
UK won.

so brookins, this one is for you!

birthday party

a few favorites

here are some of my favorite photos from christmas.

starting a tree tradition

growing up, we never out our christmas tree up until the 15th of december. i am not really sure why, that was the magical date, but it was magical. my brothers and i looked forward to the day when the frasier fir would arrive freshly cut from north carolina ( there were no tree farms in west texas. hell, there are hardly any trees, so we ordered our tree by mail). 

i never understood the need or desire to put your tree up as soon as the thanksgiving dishes were washed, but in recent years, travel has forced us to do just that. the last two years i have tried to get out of putting up a tree. i just haven't felt holidayish. since cooper died, i can not get into the holiday spirit until the 19th; but, ph has forced me into holiday cheer. 

we head to santa fe on dec. 19th, so it was now or never in the tree department. so this afternoon, the three of us embarked on what i am sure will become tradition, or at least i hope so, and went to cut down our christmas tree. bean wasnt sure what to make of it all. i promised him that in a few years this will be a magical moment. i can not wait to experience christmas through his eyes. i can imagine anything more magical or precious.

when do you decorate your christmas tree?

nelson the neon

shortly after ph and i started dating, he bought a 1997 black dodge neon. gas was at all time high and he wanted something to drive other than his gas beast dodge truck . he bought the neon at an auction for $900. i have to admit that i did snub my nose at the the neon at first, but i understood his reasoning. i ended up driving nelson for about 6 months, so we bonded. so much so, that i named him nelson the neon. and he has saved us much more money than we put into him. so overall, it was a good purchase.

nelson was old, beat up, and rusted. he killed my back. he did not have a working air conditioner. he could be found buried in snow in the winter.  but he always started. he was trust worthy. he delivered pizza. he made ph $150 in tip money one night. maybe its because people felt sorry for him. he carted the dogs to the park. he was a member of the family.

last weekend, ph tried to start him and he just didn't want to run. he had had enough. he could not be donated to charity, because well, he didn't run. so ph did some research and found a salvage company that would pay us to take nelson. imagine that. so last week a tow truck showed up and carted nelson away for his next big adventure. and gave us $200 in cold hard cash.

we will miss nelson. he was a good old car.

guest post: sam: "art and craft in the snyder family"

last but not least, my youngest brother, sam from headwaters.

A fondness for art and craft runs in our immediate family. Starting with our mother, whose pottery graces tables and appetites.  Our father is as skilled a writer as he is a doctor.  In an unconventional sense our brother is the ultimate artist. A strategist, schemer, one who sees the grand plan, pulls it together, and makes it happen.

We share a fondness for artisanal cuisine.  Growing, harvesting, and of course cooking.  This is one reason we love Greece, the food.  And a major reason I am jealous I am not there right now -  Feta, small fishes, flat bread, tzatziki, olives, and capers.

We prefer those arts with purpose.  We appreciate the painting on the wall, but would prefer a ceramic mug, made with love, filled with warm coffee or two fingers of bourbon.

You know, from this blog - Lucy touches fabric, and it defines functional art.  A quilt to keep you warm on a frosty winter night or a wooly hat to protect my ears from the wind off Alaska’s Chugach mountains.

I took painting lessons as a child; I always loved to draw. I play music with my friends, yet never sing a song. Growing food, while hard in Alaska, is a passion for sure, but the preparation is the best part, crafting meals for all to enjoy.

These days, my crafting is a different sort, yet functional all the same.  With a bit of deer hair, colored wool, rooster tail or chenille I make small “flies” – Fake bugs, tiny fish, or nothing in particular at all. Their function - to catch fish.  Big fish, small fish, elegant fish, and edible fish (such as salmon).

For each of us, despite our differences, we all find a bit of healing in artistic ways. Lucy found community through knitting and her blog, our mother finds strength in the spin of the pottery wheel. Art, indeed, can heal. It can also lead us to fight for things important to us: family, friends, or endangered spaces.

My passion for fish has led me into the middle of the biggest environmental fight in Alaskan history – protecting Bristol Bay, the world’s largest sockeye ecosystem from the ravages of a proposed open pit mine – North America’s largest. It is a greedy quest for gold versus the red gold of salmon.

Art or craft steadies our nerves, gives us a focus, and most importantly puts us into action – whether contemplative or engaged. To all you artists out there how has art led you toward healing, or drawn you to fight for your passions, things important to you? 

the journey home

i am currently sitting in a hotel in the dark, with internet access on my own computer, while the bean is sleeping away, and ph went out to get some bottled water.

we are on the first leg of our journey home. there is not an early morning ferry tomorrow, so we had to leave kea tonight. we will fly out tomorrow around 11:25 athens time and should arrive back in rochester around 9:30 tomorrow night. a long day for sure. the flight home seems epic. plus we have a five hour layover in new york city.

we had a great trip. i can not wait to share photos and stories with you. there were a lot of firsts, some were funny, some were milestones, some were joyous and some made our heart ache. 

i have one final guest blogger on monday and will resume my regular blogging duties. until then, i will leave you with some pictures.

live from kea greece

 for some reason my technology doesnt work in greece. so i am blogging from my mother's computer. this means i can not  post photos. but my brother arrives today, so i am hoping that he will be able to figure out why the hell i can not get on the internet with my computer, despite the fact it says i am connected. so for now, you only get words.....

** bean was AWESOME on the plane ride over. let me repeat that a again. bean was AWESOME on the plane ride over.  he slept most of the way and when he was awake was very happy. 

** what a relief this was for ph and i. so many people commented on how wonderful he was on the flight. and believe me they were skeptical when they realized they were sitting near a baby.

** in fact the woman in front of us was such a bitch, despite the fact she has 3 children of her own, i am quite certain she will never fly coach again.

** we did not get the bulk head seats. hopefully, we will on the way home.

** bean has adjusted to the time change, is napping and sleeping well at night.

** he loves the sea. loves it. and has charmed everyone on the island.

** he is however, teething. i am quite certain he will have one if not two teeth when we return home.

** i am taking lots of pictures, drinking lots of wine and working on my tan

** it is warm, but there is a nice breeze, so it is not unbearable heat.

** ph and i are enjoying watching yaya and pappous with chace. they get the biggest kick out of him.

** that is all for now, i am off to take a nap.

we are off....

our bags are packed.
packed full of clothes, swimsuits and sunscreen.
full of books, formula, and toys.
full of sea kayaks, strollers and backpacks.
if we forgot it, well we don't need it.

this is our first family vacation.
ph and i have talked about this moment
for a long time.
before we were married,
before cooper,
before chace,
before we were a family.

i am so looking forward to our time away.
to seeing the journey through my son's eyes.
to watching him discover this new place
that is so dear to our hearts.

i will post pictures along the way
so that you feel like you are with us.
until then.....

xoxo

week in photos

just drainage-

there are benefits of having a doctor as your father. he can call you in a prescription in a pinch, can confirm that you do not have stomach cancer, rather since you just gave birth it is probably hemorrhoids, and even write you a note to get out of class when a big hunk candy bar is thrown at a pep rally, hitting you in the back of the head and requiring stitches ( true story). but there are also some disadvantages too, particularly when your father treats people who have cancer. not a lot of sympathy when you do not feel well. 

growing up my brothers and i had to be on our death bed to get to stay home from school. i am talking puking your guts out, as long as it wasn't related to alcohol consumption, burst ear drums, extremely high fever or puss on your throat. it was hard core in our house. i think all three of us had broken bones  at one time or another and my dad was pretty convinced otherwise. thankfully, mom took us to the doctor to have an xray to confirm that they were indeed broken.

the most common phrase we heard when we didn't feel well was "its just drainage". didn't matter what it was, if it wasn't life threatening, it was "just drainage." 

i found myself using that phrase last night and laughed to myself.

you see, the bean has his first cold and we were up most of the night trying to comfort him, sucking snot out of his nose and hoping he would fall back asleep. at one point, i think it was 3 am, i looked at ph and said the following " well, he doesn't have fever, his snot is clear, so it is probably just drainage."

frightening!

i took bean  to the doctor this am, and while she did not use those words exactly, she might as well have told me it is "just drainage."

road trip

saturday we went on a family road trip to ithaca.

we visited cornell, ph's alma mater.

it is a beautiful campus.

i see why he loved it.

lots of green space.

cool architecture.

and its an ivy league school.

this trip was a trial run for our upcoming trip to greece.

ph practiced getting the bob up the stairs.

we repeatedly told the bean 

"we are almost there."

we dined out.

changed diapers in small spaces.

were flexible with the schedule.

and found creative ways to keep chace entertained.

does eating lunch on an ivy league campus increase

your chances of attending an ivy league school?

does it make you smarter?

it was a fun outing.

a nice change of pace.

we survived 

were no worse for wear.

and are looking forward to our 

next family adventure.

sunday moments

happy fathers day

i imagine that father's day is a bitter sweet day for you..
having lost your father, and then your son..
but hopefully this father's day there is some joy...

i love watching you..
with chace..
i do not know whose eyes light up more..
who smiles the widest..
or who giggles the most..

but i do know how much love..
you have for both your sons..
that a father's love is deep..
that it is forever..
and that cooper and chace are very lucky..
to have you as their papa.

happy fathers day love!

a whole lot of love