Bluffton

We went to the Savannah area to see my brother Brad!

Yes, on the road again. Just a few short weeks after being on the road for many many many days. But it was worth it, because he has a new house and new job and he lives near the beach! Yay!

Y'all, it rained. Boo.

(Charlotte was basically reduced to abject weeping by the time we left town and she still hadn't seen the beach.)

But Uncle Brad was still sweet enough to take Nathan out to the Savannah harbor where he works, and show him his boat, and the container ships coming in and out, and even let him sit in the captain's chair. Which probably isn't called a captain's chair. That's what they call it in a minivan. I assume on a boat it has a better name? A bridge maybe? Is this even a boat, or is it a ship?

I don't know the lingy loo. I am not boat savvy. WHATEVER BOAT NERDS.

And we spent the rest of the weekend lounging with coffee and snacks and Netflix and target toys, which was just fine even though it wasn't the beach.

On Saturday night my sister came down with her whole family too, and one other brother Collin from Hilton Head nearby, and we threw the kids in bed and drank a lot of Draaanks and played Cards Against Humanity and here is what I have learned about my family while playing drinky card games:

1.) Brad has a super sick sense of humor. Not sick in a good way. Like, sick in a wide eyes way.
2.) Ashley's husband John cannot make a joke without explaining it. CANNOT.
3.) I miss Marky when everyone else is hanging out and he's not there.
4.) Collin's girlfriend has no idea what she's getting into if she wants into this Bumgarner mess.
5.) Brad and Marija were champs to have all of us in their house at once. Champs I say.

CHAMPS, I SAY.

It was a weekend of bad sleep and I came home exhausted, but I am so glad we went. It's fun whenever we can all be together, and it doesn't happen enough. Also, the kids and I didn't mind at all being on the road even more. We have gotten good at it! We listened to The BFG on the way down, and Matilda on the way back, and the kids loved both of them. I had forgotten how either of them ended, and was startled on both counts.

And now I need to crawl in bed and sleep for many days. I am officially traveled out.

First Day of School!

Welp, the big kids are off to school. Nathan is in third grade, and Anneliese is in kindergarten, and I am... verklempt.

Look at them! They are such big kids! How did this happen?? I feel like I even had an "extra" year at home with Anneliese, because she's so much older for her school year than the others. And still, it wasn't enough. I miss her.

My heart is squeezed very tight, and my thoughts are across town in her little classroom, and my memories are full of this whole first era of her childhood that's... over. Yes, she is still a child, yes, I will see her all the time, etc etc etc I KNOW. But it really is the end of an era, and that always comes with feelings. Feeeeeeelings. Capital F. You know.

When she was born is when I officially stopped working and became a stay-at-home parent, and now we are entering a season where I will start work again, in some capacity, and there is still so much unknown and unplanned but it really just feels like an era is ending.

Anyway! Brisk clap! Look at this sweet picture of the two of them three years ago, on Nathan's first day of kindergarten and Anneliese's first day of preschool. They are the same! Yet so grown up! Yet still my babies!

2012 and 2015

OH MAH GAH Y'ALL. My heart.

Brb I need to hug my last baby at home and cry weepy mom tears and wait for the bus.

(The bus came. It was the best part of Anneliese's day, she said. After all those years of waving to Nathan, she finally got to ride with him.)

Anyway so yeah. School is back. All the other moms can throw a party but I'm not there yet. Someone send me a hug and a cookie please kthx.

Summer Basket List

Summer is over. Well, not really, there is still a month of summer weather left, but summer break is over, and school starts this week, and so we have crossed off as many of the remaining bucket list items as we can. I needed this summer to be something redemptive after last year, which was a sh!t show of emotions and baby soothing and feeling like I was failing everyone around me, and then feeling resentful about the failing, and yeah. This year was better.

I had a page in my notebook where I jotted down ideas the kids named as things they wanted to do this summer (a few times, someone got ahold of a pen and added ideas himself), and we got to almost all of them.

We also renamed it The Basket List because at the beginning of the summer Anneliese could never remember what it was called, so she kept saying that, and it stuck for the rest of us even though she rolls her eyes and refuses to partake of the cutesy rename herself. HER LOSS. CUTESY IS FUN, YO.

And truthfully we didn't even look much at the list because we were busy just hanging out and having fun. Montreat was a freaking delight. Our family road trip was more fun than I ever could have dreamed. And lots of little fun things in between the travels too:

1.) Ride on a ferry. This list was born in April when Nathan, indignant that I would go to Seattle and ride on a ferry without him, made a page in my notebook and put FERRY as the first thing on it. We... didn't actually get to this. But we have Outer Banks camping plans next month, and we will ferry to Okracoke and then Hatteras. The ferry will happen! I promise, buddy!

2.) Visit Northfield. Check and check. 'Twas delightful. Here are all the kids at St. Olaf:

Oh Charlotte. I don't even know, y'all. She just doesn't stop.

Road trip blogs still to come. (They are all half written and still need pics and there's a lot to sort through so eh.)

3.) Crayon A. This is a craft I have been intending to do for years with Anneliese and we finally did it, and it turned out great, and she loves it, and I love it.

NAILED IT. Suck it, Pinterest, I own you.

4.) Go camping. Not yet - this will be with the ferry ride next month.

5.) Eat purple carrots. Okay so Anneliese asked for this for weeks, and I wrote it down for her, even though you can't get any carrots at the farmer's market, much less purple ones, until fall. So this is still to come also. We did, however, make several stews with parsnips, and Anneliese has a new favorite vegetable. (She is an odd child.)

6.) Strawberries. There were no carrots, but there were strawberries, and Anneliese used them to bake her very first dessert for all of us. Bisquick shortcakes, and warm strawberries, and cream she whipped herself, and oh she was so proud.

7.) Cinderella movie. Anneliese saw this with Grandma. That counts, right? (I still haven't seen it.) (I am totally interested, but secretly more for the Frozen short than for the movie itself. Don't judge me.)

8.) Rise Biscuits and Donuts. This is a place in Durham with apparently really great breakfast treats. We never made it there, but I am counting our Duck Donut outing as a check mark on the list for new treat places.

9.) Learn ponytails. Anneliese did it! This is a life skill, I mean really.


(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

10.) Learn shoe tying. Yeah, no. This did not happen.

11.) Watch Jurassic Park (not with the girls). Yes finally, Nathan, of years-long dinosaur obsession, has seen the original Jurassic Park movie. It totally scared him. But I think he thinks it was worth it. (It still is delightfully scary to me too.) We have listened to the soundtrack a thousand times this summer since then. Currently the girls' favorite song to dance to. We are That Family, apparently.

12.) Tropical Pick'n Chicken. It's a new (to us) local chain restaurant near our house, with Caribbean food and such. Nathan is enamored with it. It's just okay for me. But! We went! Summer dreams coming true over here y'all!

13.) Build legos. Um, duh. Done and done.

14.) Sleepovers. Yes, Nathan and Anneliese, every Friday, all summer (all year actually, but the summer was no exception). These two are best buddies, and never moreso than on Friday nights. We don't understand how they spend all day every day together and still have things to talk about into the wee hours. They say more to each other than they ever do to any of the rest of us.

15.) Baking contest. This got added to the list in summer's eleventh hour, and we still did it!

16.) Read lots of books. CHECK. We have been very library busy. And library days are the best days, aren't they? Let's not forget the afternoon I found the kids all outside reading their library books sprawled on the sidewalk WITH THEIR BEDDING, why children, why?

Master Chefs, Goettsch Junior

We are home from our long road trip (seventeen days, eleven states, very fantastic) and I will do lots of blog catchup about that soon, but in the meantime, there is a cooking competition to tell about.

On the last leg of the last day of driving, we rented that American Girl movie about Grace who goes to France to be in a cooking show to earn some prize money to save her French grandparents' French bakery (or something?) (I don't know y'all, I was in the front seat and only halfway listening) and somehow because of that story, the kids have been very into Master Chef Junior now that we are home.

Which means they have been begging for days to have a cooking competition here in our house.

And apparently all those days of family togetherness made me nuts, because I said yes.

So they made their lists and we went to the store and we picked out groceries - they needed things like ice cream and berries and various candies and syrups and cookie crumblies. YES COOKIE CRUMBLIES. The secret ingredient, duh.

So we made the most ridiculous grocery run of all time, I put All The Things on the counter, set a timer, and let them go at it.

(It was super cute actually. Nathan even made a big show of being RULL BUSY/IMPORTANT in the final seconds -- which he insisted I count down for them -- and then throwing his hands in the air when he was done.) ("Done.") (It's not like any of these actually reached any stage of completion, per se, they just... stopped adding more crap in when I told them to stop. Nuanced chefs, they are not.)

Anyway, I'm the sole judge and juror here, so somebody kick off my drumroll and I will present to you the results of GOETTSCH MASTER CHEF JUNIOR, FIRST ROUND (also last round, because yeah):

Entry 1: Blue Ants on Moss, by Anneliese.

(Just going into it, I hated the name and the look of this. Food should never be this color. Food also should not have bugs in the name. I MEAN.) Okay so this was like 90% sprinkles/candy/coconut, and only one tiny spoon of ice cream (and food coloring) to bind it together. (Mmmm crunchy.) This is fit only for Buddy the Elf. Even he might not be that into it. She was terribly proud though. Mostly an F, but an A+ for the smile that she presented it with.

Entry 2: Pinkalicious, by Charlotte.

This is ice cream with softened cookie pieces, lots of strawberries and blueberries, some coconut, a splash of milk, and more food coloring than I want to think about. She, too, gets an F for plating, but at least it had a pretty color. Also it had an excellent name and was surprisingly delicious. (I voluntarily took a second bite, so.)

Entry 3: Kids Playing In Snow, by Nathan.

Okay first: that name, I don't even know. (Is that a 'rhea diaper under the snow? I think it is.) This is chocolate ice cream with insane food coloring decisions, layers of fruit and coconut, melted chocolate chips that got hard again (legit mmmm), and m&m's. I would have eaten the whole bowl of this if it didn't look so gross. I mean, layers! Fruit! Chocolate! WINNER!

So then they ate their desserts (none of them stomached more than a third of what they created) and were very kind and praised each other's work. Adorable.

Oh and they each also made a beverage for me to taste with their entries. Mostly it was milk tinted odd colors, so I just closed my eyes and said mmmmm.

Motherhood is exactly like I pictured it'd be.

Days 12-17: Ohio, Grandpa's, Wateree, HOME

{Even more backdated now, etc.}

Day 12: Driving southward

After our sad teary goodbye, the kids and I embarked on the long journey south. We had no real plan except to... drive south. We made it back through Wisconsin and then halfway through Illinois we were invited to stay with Mr. David's parents in his childhood home. Sadly though, Nathan had a bit of carsickness, so we needed to stop about an hour short of getting there.

While we were stopped for some fresh air (while Nathan spent some quality time in a gas station bathroom), we noticed that right smack dab in the middle of nowhere, next to a cornfield (of course) and a random hotel, there was... a bomber plane. In a parking lot.

Like, a plane. In the parking lot. Of a gas station.

It was at this point in our journey that I decided I had seen so much that America was getting a bit punchy on me.

I don't even know.

We made it to the next town and crashed. Hard. It was our longest day of driving, and to end it somewhat green-gilled was not our favorite. But Normal, IL welcomed us just fine and we were all great come morning.

(Charlotte knows how to make the most of a hotel bed.)

Day 13: Cincinnati! Hillary!

We slept late and swam a few minutes in the hotel's pool, and then hit the road for Cincinnati. I had made plans with my friend Hillary months earlier, that we would come stay at her house on our southbound drive, whenever we might get as far as Cinci. And we did! She cooked us dinner and we had beers on her beautiful porch, and our friend Becky also came over, and it was great!

My children were nervous with her kids in their attic bedroom, so they all ended up in/around my bed in the guest room, but it worked out fine. Her house is beautiful and Cincinnati is a lovely city, right on the river.

Day 14: Carolinaside

We kept driving south, through what (to me) is some of the most gorgeous driving parts of the country: through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Kentucky and West Virginia.

We stopped for lunch in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, and had Mexican food wearing fancy hair. Why, what do you wear for roadside lunch stops?

We listened to an audio book, we stopped at a grocery story to refill the cooler (and laughed so hard we cried, because of the horrid smell in the stinkiest bathroom in America -- and let me tell you, it has to be a very specific special terrible smell to become funny instead of just horrid), and we stopped for a dinner right near the Virginia state line. Our last rest stop of the trip!

We texted my dad to see if we could crash for the night, and we made it there before bedtime. We did a little jig for being back in our home state, even though actual home was still many days away. The kids were very giggly and so happy to see him and be somewhere familiar.

Nathan also did a USA puzzle and it was more exciting than usual, after all the states we have just been through! Cue map obsession. He makes his grandpa proud. :)

Days 15-16: Lake Wateree, South Carolina

We made it to Opa and Oma's house in time for his annual birthday gathering! Even more importantly, we were reunited with Marky!

Sadly the vacation! yay! portion of the trip had mostly faded by this point; visiting with in-laws, mere days from our own beds, felt less road-trippy than the rest of our trip. But their house is completely gorgeous, and we had fun on the lake (me: with my buns in the hammock, reading).

And! I finally got to meet my friend Emily! She is a friend of my friend Kelley's, from their years in India together, and we have "known" each other online but never lived near each other until this year. And she drove an hour from her house to come and meet me and my kids and she is wonderful.

You know that feeling when you meet someone and they are exactly as lovely as you knew they would be? That.

Day 17: HOLY CRAP DAY SEVENTEEN (Homebound!)

We hit the road. Homebound. Mark had his own car so it was one last leg with the kids and me. One last pool hair selfie, one last Starbucks, one last snack from the cooler, one last redbox DVD, one more chapter of audiobook to listen to.

And then, the sweet sweet sight of our sweet little house. WE ARE HOME.

The whole trip was fantastically fun and wonderful and exhausting and I would do it again in a hot minute.

Days 6-11: MinneEFFINGsota, Take Four

{Still backdated, are you still with me?}

And on the sixth night, tired from the water park and after one small carsick rest stop, we rolled into Northfield, Minnesota, hugged Another Nathan, and there was much rejoicing in all the land.

A year to the weekend after he moved away, the kids were so excited to see his new house, and play in "their" room he had set up for them in the den downstairs, complete with shelves of toys and trinkets and plastic animal snouts and other Welcome Prizes, and air mattresses, and snuggles and legos and happiness.

And then they crashed, and Mark and I played allllll the pictures from our northbound journey as a slideshow on the Apple TV in the living room, because we are adults who know how to partaaaaay.

Day 7: The Sather Farm

The next morning we drove with Another Nathan to his grandparents' farm a few hours away, in rural Minnesota (even more rural than where he lives, which is basically in the middle of corn, if you'll recall). His mom had been sweetly inviting us to come visit the farm where she grew up, if we ever came to Minnesota, and, well, here we were.

The Sather Farm

(She drove from Iowa to hang out with us for the day. Another Nathan's mom. At her parents' farm. Isn't is just the coolest thing ever when the people you love start meshing into your family, and then they share their family with you?)

The universal preschool method for eating corn on the cob.

We had a such a lovely time with them, a lunch with fresh corn picked that day (it was basically all of Mark's corn dreams come true) (yes he has corn dreams, and has for years) (HE ATE SIX), and we got to see their horses, and Nathan got to play hide and seek with me in the cornfields, which, I won't lie, secretly scared the sh!t out of me. But he was cute.

At one point, while shucking corn to feed the horses, Charlotte proclaimed that her hair was the color of the cornsilk, which it was! Exactly! And now I can never see it any other way. At another point, while exploring all the giant* tractors and combines and trucks in their barn, we looked up and Charlotte had hopped up on a tractor with Grandpa Sather, and was waving to us happily, and oh man I just love that she makes friends wherever she goes. It also made me feel a bit sappy and miss my Grandpa, so yeah, that's the story of how I cried in a barn in Minnesota on our family road trip.

Also, Mark and Another Nathan piled the kids into a Gator (?) and drove across to where their big silos bins are (I have been informed they are not silos but bins, so okay), and Mark climbed to the top of one to look inside, even though he is scared of heights, so excited was he about this giant commercial farm.

And then we had root beer floats and heard funny stories and peeked in their ice fishing house, which apparently just sits in the garden during the summer (Minnesota is baffling and delightful to southerners like us, y'all), and played games and accepted a big crate of kiddie books from Another Nathan's mom, for the rest of our stay, because of course she thought ahead that we might be strapped for new material after a week on the road. She is just... that person. (Lovely, is what I'm saying.)

I insisted we eat at Pizza Ranch for dinner on the way home, because I had never been to one before, and, you know, covered! wagons! with pizza! But it turns out that was a dream I had put too much stock in (YES I KNOW, EVERYONE WARNED ME: NOT THAT GREAT) but I am glad I can say we did it, although I don't need to again anytime soon.

Day 8: Nerstrand State Park Waterfalls, and Northfield by Night

We fiiiinally had a slow day on our hands, so we went to a state park near Northfield and took a short walk and saw waterfalls. Was sweet and pretty.

Also, there were swings. When you're a kid, what's more delightful than swings, except grown-ass men who also will swing with you (bonus points for Daddy and Mr. David).

That evening, Another Nathan had one of his youth choir kids come over to sit, so finally Mark and I could have a break for some grownup time. We all went downtown and had burgers and beer by the river.

And then more beers at another place on the other side of the river, and oh man, Northfield is just so dang charming.

Day 9: Charlotte Booler's Birthday!!!

In the morning we went for a walk around Northfield's downtown market, and we had coffee cocktails (mine was delicious, other people had mixed opinions) and baked goods and the kids picked out various hair ties and bookmarks and both big kids got lanyard bracelets which they loved.

Okay so, by far, the hardest thing about planning this trip on the dates we did (which were basically the only dates we could make it work, all summer, was that we would be away from home on Charlotte's birthday. I haaaaated the idea at first, although she seemed fine with it (she wasn't asking for any particular friends or themed party at home, nor has she ever had that anyway). I made peace with the idea that as long as we weren't actually in transit, it could be okay. We could have a cake and a little party, and it would be sweet. And we did, and we did, and it was.



My friend Miriel came from her town close by, and brought her baby, and we drew with chalk outside and then made superhero capes, and we opened a few presents, and had cake.

It was very simple and sweet and easy, and that's about all the birthday chaos I would be comfortable throwing at someone else's home.

There were a few moments where I felt really far from home, and I also cried when my cake frosting fell apart (David helped me fix it, because there is no end to his sainthood), but by the time the day's chaos had settled and we were all snuggled on the couch watching her birthday video, I felt so warm and sweet and happy. Birthday feelings all intact, even while abroad. Ha.

Oh! And also! When Charlotte woke up on her birthday morning, Sheepie was suddenly wearing a birthday shirt, just like the cupcake one Charlotte had packed to wear all day!

Someone must have put it on her in the middle of the night! No one will ever know who. (Edit, backdated: this remains a much-discussed mystery of our family, even months later. Haaaaaa being a parent is sometimes the best.)

Day 10: Another Nathan's Church, Mall of America

We had to hug and kiss Marky goodbye first thing in the morning, since he had to fly back to Raleigh for work (the kids and I had plans to drive home slowly and see more friends along the way, but he didn't have that much time off), and it was surprisingly sad considering we would see him just a few days later. We didn't want the whole-family portion of our trip to be over. It was so fun! I never would have dreamed that driving across the country with three kids could be so fun  but it was! Fun and easy! We had had lots of adventures already and we were sad to send him to the airport.

But we waved goodbye and then went to church in Northfield. Anneliese had been waiting for years (literal years) (in the correct use of the word literal) to sit at the organ with Another Nathan in worship, something she didn't get to do when he was here in Raleigh (she was jealous when big brother did). I think it made alllll her dreams come true. So sweet.

After worship we had a delightful Cracker Barrel lunch (oh, how we have missed post-church lunches with Another Nathan!) and then drove to the Mall of America. The rides and such were too chaotic and busy for us that day, but we did go to the very giant and impressive Lego store, and Anneliese had a gift certificate for the American Girl store, and she had a delightful time wandering around forever, choosing a back to school outfit for Kit.

Another Nathan was also delighted:

Day 11: St Olaf, and a Hymn Festival

We took the kids to St. Olaf in the morning to walk all through the campus and chapel and see all the places where Another Nathan went to college, which was very sweet. I think he liked seeing them run all around outside in a place he loves so much. It's really pretty in the summer!

We shopped in the bookstore and ate grilled cheese at the student cafe, and it was actually a totally delightful little excursion.

The kids and I spent the afternoon bumming all over town, we went to the library and a few shops (Northfield has fun quirky shopping! Beautiful pen and paper stores, and fancy candy, and even a little shop that sells handmade doll clothes in that delighted all of the children but maybe especially Nathan, who has a hard time finding boy things for his tiger to wear), and also playing on a swingset at a park. It was sometime that afternoon that I realized how delightfully awesome summers in Northfield are, and understanding why people have summer homes in small towns away from home.

Just. So. Charming.

We lounged around in the library at Nathan's church and listened to him practice a bit, which sounds like a silly dumb thing, but it turns out it's totally a thing I miss from when he lived here. He plays beautifully, and when your best friend is a beautiful musician, it turns out you should not take that for granted, because it's lovely to listen to, and someday he might live in MinneEFFINGsota and you won't be able to listen to it as often as you used to.

ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

Anyway. Charlotte danced while he played. It was sweet.

That evening, we drove all the way up to a town north of St Paul to see a hymn festival from two important music teachers of Nathan's, they do these lovely little worship/festivals with readings and beautiful music and a choir, and he has wanted to show me for years what they're like, and here I was in the same town where they were doing one, when they were doing it, and so I was not passing it up.

It was a lovely last evening in Minnesota. The drive back through the cities was gorgeous, although you can't tell from this picture. It's blurry but pretend it's blurry with my tears, because I hate saying bye and I'm not very good at it.

Afterwards we had a beer and popcorn at a bar in Northfield before we went back to the house, because beer and popcorn is a thing one does when one is in Northfield.

And then we really did cry the next morning, because having our whole family together, and all of us together there with our dear friends, was so wonderful.

You're welcome, friend, for posting the pictures we took before your cry eyes got bad. (Mine were even worse, which is mostly why I'm not posting it, but let's pretend the decision was purely altruistic.)

Til we meet again, Minnesota.  <3 p="">