Here is my post from two summers ago — I believe this post gets more search engine hits than any other I’ve ever written. It seems there are lots of people who want to know what “twisted box stitch” looks like, and even more who apparently are looking for material for their own “how I spent my summer vacation” essay.

So we’re in a frenzy of laundry and packing and organizing and of course the biggest decision of all, what books to bring. Oh my gosh you won’t believe this. I was already excited enough about all my recent BookMooch acquisitions, and then what should happen but my sister-in-law, known to you as Aunt Sara, came to town because she is part of the clan going up north. And what should she bring along but a copy of the childhood favorite that I’ve been pining for: Lotte’s Locket by Virginia Sorensen. She found a beautiful used copy with library binding and card pocket intact (the book was last checked out in 1993), with pages slightly yellow and oh-so-soft around the edges and that delicious library book smell… oh! Thank you Sara!!!

Then of course I will bring The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. And what else? I have In Praise of Lies by Patricia Melo, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Prep, another serial killer book, and a few others that are upstairs and I can’t remember the titles. I think Capt. Corelli would be appropriate now that I am the proud owner and plucker of a real mandolin but I am open to suggestions.

I’ll be back next week, and I look forward to catching up when I return. Happy reading, everyone!

There were some unexpected surprises. It turns out that persuading people to jump is the easy part. In fact, persuasion never entered into the equation. As soon as I suggested it, everyone wanted to do it. The hard part was getting people to wait their turn!

No, actually, the hard part is getting people to jump at the right time. The hard part is snapping the shot while the person is actually off the ground. The hard part is guessing how high the person will jump so you don’t end up cutting off their head or feet in the photo.

No question about it. A great time was had by all, but I am one lousy photographer. My original plan was to convert these to black and white, like the ones in the Jump Book, but the pictures were so bad to begin with that I didn’t even bother.

Here are a few of the least worst:

My sister’s in-laws.

My mom and dad!

My “family of origin.” That’s my little sister in the black shirt.

The cousins. Ok, YOU try getting five kids ranging in age between 5 and 12 to all jump at exactly the same time. But what they lacked in precision, they made up with enthusiasm!

My dear hubby. No, he’s not actually an orchestra conductor.

And here we are, the two of us, on our fifteenth wedding anniversary! :-)

* * *

We have a busy day ahead of us. First, a day of D&D with our dearest pals (masochists that we are, we’re going back into the Tomb of Horrors with brand-new characters that we hope will stay alive at least until lunchtime), and tonight, a big party with extended family & friends on Steve’s side. I expect some great photo ops, bwahahahahaha!

And to reiterate: if you’re reading this, you’re tagged! :-) Please take some jump photos of your own, and leave a comment to let us know.

Here they are, six 12yos (the keyboardist didn’t make it into the picture), with their teacher introducing them. They played one song: “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks. And they rocked! Joey broke a drumstick halfway through but managed to keep playing and did an impressive fill (yeah, I know all the drummer jargon now; just ask me what a paradiddle is!) at the very end.

Here’s a close up of our rock star.

A lot of our friends and family showed up, and even those who are not exactly die-hard rock ‘n roll fans (hi, Dad!) seemed to enjoy themselves. It was extremely gratifying!

The younger set had a great time, too. Here are Daniel and Lena with our pals Simon (blue shirt) and Basil (curly hair). Who doesn’t love a fountain? On a warm June evening?

The group lessons were hard for Lena. Her teacher at home does “modified” Suzuki — no group lessons — and Lena really had to struggle to keep up with the kids who review all the songs every week and play them twice as fast. But by the end of the session, if nothing else, she got really good at faking it. And if you’ve never played in an orchestra or band before, trust me: “faking it” is a valuable skill. :-P

I had to put two arrows in this picture because the group teacher, lo and behold, turned out to be good ole Mr. Villasurda, who was my conductor thirty years ago in elementary school and also at Interlochen. He even pretended (?) to remember me. What a trip!

Lena also got to play in her very first orchestra. In fact, this was the very first orchestra experience for about half the kids in it, and considering that they had a grand total of four rehearsals, they did a great job. I admit I felt a wee bit emotional during the performance.

Best of all was getting to spend some time, just the two of us.

1. Reading with hubby

I wish this wasn’t out of the ordinary. Steve and I have similar taste in books and back in the olden days we used to fight over share books all the time. But these days, between work and kids and the demands of everyday life, it’s not often that we get to read and talk about the same book at the same time.

Steve pounced on His Majesty’s Dragon, as I knew he would, because he a) loves PO’B as much as I do, b) has much greater tolerance for High Fantasy than I do, and c) is absolutely crazy for “alternate” history books, e.g. Harry Turtledove. So of course he was not able to resist this one, and it was such a pleasure to discuss it with him as we read it together. At the risk of sounding maudlin: I am the luckiest wife in the world!

I reviewed His Majesty’s Dragon here.

2. Reading email

My first experience with digital books! I heard about this from Myrthe. You go to dailylit.com and sign up for a book to be delivered, bit by bit, a little each day, to your email inbox. Myrthe signed up for Anne of Green Gables but almost immediately regretted it, saying that “Anne is exactly the kind of book to curl up on the couch with and spend the afternoon taken away to P.E.I. instead of reading it one bit at a time from a computer screen.” Oh, absolutely! Nevertheless, I wondered whether there might be other books that would actually work in this format. And sure, there was — P.G. Wodehouse! What better way to start the day than with a few paragraphs of What Ho, Jeeves?

3. Also reading

Ordinary Families by E. Arnot Robinson. I had never heard of this book, or the author, until I came across a review of it on another Saloner’s blog. I am not too far into it yet, but so far it seems promising. The main character, an 11yo girl, is very appealing, and the author obviously remembers very well what it’s like to be that age. Painfully well, in fact.