When I asked my twins what they wanted to do for this week’s adventure, they said hang with their cousins. But, I wanted to go to a new place, to adventure out. So we did what we often do–combine ideas. I told my sister that I wanted to get together and go someplace outdoors to  let the cousins run. So, we went to a new (to me) park called Commonwealth Lake Park, which is near my nephew’s new house in Beaverton. It is such a delight to watch the cousins walk together and chatter and share and run and throw rocks into the lake and climb fences and climb the play structure and just enjoy a summer day together at a park. It is more of a city park but adventure happens in many locations.

When we returned to my sister’s house, the older cousins wanted to play Axis and Allies board game while the younger cousins played the game Trouble. I love board games. Anything to get away from electronics!

My 7-year-old over the phone, his darling pitched voiced, “Hi Mommy,” melts my heart. I can picture him there in our home, with his part-toothless and part grown-up-teeth smile and his piercing deep brown eyes and his brown somewhat sun-bleached hair,  uttering those most beautiful words in the world, ”Mommy.“ I  think about returning home  tomorrow and opening the front door and my brown-eyed almost second grader melting into my arms saying, “Mommy’s home. Mommy’s home!”

I think about that little voice, that voice that changes at some point in the growing up process of our children. There is a certain moment, and you cannot pinpoint when that will happen, but one day you just realize that the voice is not so little any more. It has altered. It is more grown up. It is not a little 7-year-old anymore. Maybe it is at the same time that they do not dash as quickly to the door when you return home as they used to.

My kids leave me messages on my voicemail on my cell phone, and I just do not have the heart to erase their sweet little voices. So, I keep their little messages on my voicemail, and when my cell phone asks me if I want to save the messages in the archives or erase them, I always press the number 9, which means to save it. I do not have the heart to erase their sweet voices. And I will hear again, over and over, the most beautiful word, “Mommy.”

It is a reminder that indeed, right now, I am their world.

And they are mine.

And it is a record of the gift of motherhood and parenting.

And I am blessed.

National Forest Campground to catch the trailhead.   We first ate lunch near the river, and then made our way to the upper side of the trail, looking for the path that goes along the river. I was so happy that Ryan  joined us for this adventure. He had had his wisdom teeth out the Friday before, so I was surprised by his eagerness to tag along with us!

For the first part of the hike, we climbed up hill for over 30 minutes, getting quite the workout, before we realized we were not on the trail that would go along Salmon River. After sweating and climbing for some time, we turned around. It was a very hot day and the kids just wanted to get to the river to cool off.

We returned to the campground and found the river. The kids loved splashing in the cold water. It was so delightful listening to the conversation of the kids as they looked for animals in the water. First, Augustin thought he saw a leech, which brought back memories of Yellowstone Park from last summer and Stefan having leeches on his leg while swimming in the water.

Later, Chris discovered the trail that worked its way along the river and we decided to wait for that adventure until next time.

Link to the Old Salmon River Trailhead: http://web.oregon.com/hiking/salmon_river.cfm

Links to the campground: http://www.publiclands.org/explore/site.php?plicstate=OR&id=3781 

http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/pacficnw/mthcmp.htm

For us, adventure meant getting out into nature, traipsing through woods, walking in a new park, hiking a fresh trail. 

As a parent, I’ve always believed in adventure with children, and I began realizing the importance of specifically calling outings “adventures.” I began saying to my children, “Let’s go on an adventure.” And we’d take off, sometimes with a destination in mind and sometimes just to see what we could find along the way. We’d find new hiking trails on the Columbia Gorge. Or we’d explore parks near parks just outside city limits. My daughter, who is 20, now talks about going on adventures with her friends. She treasures what we did growing up.

And I think as I see my daughter remembering our adventures and talking about how she valued what we did as a family, it made me realize that much more how adventure is something that we need. Kids need it. Families need it. I need it.

I began making a big deal of the word adventure, saying it is a tradition that we do as a family. And especially when school is out. I feel it is important to call our adventures one of our summer traditions. Naming it as such. I wanted to begin a tradition of doing an adventure a week last summer. So, last summer we did just that. We went to a wildlife refuge in Tualatin and we tried a new hike in the Columbia Gorge. Sometimes, if it was a busier week, I would call going to an all-comer’s track meet our adventure of the week. We’d invite others to join us in our adventure tradition.

Kids need tradition. Tradition grounds them and gives them a place of belonging in a family. It gives them direction and a reason to be home. Tradition makes them remember home and makes them want to come back.  

And I love the tradition of weekly adventure as a mom home with my children during the summer months. It gives me a feeling of purpose, of being intentional as a mom with my children. As I work from home and have varied hours, I like to feel like I am doing something with my children that is outdoors and fresh and relational and away from the home and non-electronic. The conversation and laughter and sweetness that takes place as we are doing something new and in nature is music to my ears. I believe God smiles on adventure.

So, I told my three youngest children who are home this summer that we were beginning our weekly adventure this week, the first full week of summer, after swim lessons today. I got on the internet and typed in hikes with kids and got a bunch of links. I needed something closer in time wise and Powell Butte looked intriguing.

So, for the destination of my first adventure with my kids the summer of 2010 we drove to Powell Butte. http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm?action=ViewPark&PropertyID=528&searchtext=powell%20butte

It was very easy to get to. We took Interstate 205 and got off at the Powell Bv. Exit, driving to 162^nd then making a right. Up the hill we went to the parking lot of Powell Butte Nature Park. An old barn was converted into a restroom and visitor center that had maps, which my boys love. I saw a wildlife area on the map that intrigued me. We began on a trail and made the wildlife area as our destination. The birds singing along the way were wonderful. It was fun to see the kids hold their maps and navigating our way along trails, searching for the wildlife area, seeing what we could find or see or hear or “puff” along the way.My three boys looked forward to each bench dotting the trails. We brought cheese and crackers and Mountain Dew, snacking along the way when we arrived at benches. We stopped to photograph birds and I’d snap pictures of my children and they’d want to take photographs as well. At the top of the  Butte, we could see two mountains- Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood. It was a great view.

My three children did get a bit warm on the hike, and my 7 year old noticed that “There are not many trees on the trails on this hike and it’s in the open, and that is why it is so warm.”

But it did not matter. It was some place new. It was outdoors. It was being together. It was an adventure. It was the first adventure of the summer of 2010.

A friend of mine and I were on an adventure hike at Tryon Creek State Park on MLK Junior Day, and our 12-year-old boys and my 6 year old boy plus our family 12-year-old and 13 -year old friends from Sudan

The four 12-year-old boys were meandering off the trail to discover trees that had fallen over the creek, and they wanted to walk over these logs to get to the other side of the creek.

They came up with this idea on their own. Though at first I thought they should not go off the trail, yet I then realized that there were no signs up that said they could not go off the trail, so we let them. Too many times at school and in life, kids are required to stay in bounds and live between the borders of walls and books and desks, and told to color in the lines, but real life is sometimes off the trail and outside of the lines and off the trails.

So, the boys took off down toward the log which had fallen over the creek, and I followed them to make sure they were okay. Then, another woman who was also out for a hike at Tryon that day, stopped to see what the boys were doing, and with hesitation in her voice asked my friend, “Is it safe?”

My friend said unashamedly to this other woman, of course it is safe, and they are just boys on an adventure.

The question, Is it safe? got me thinking about family life and safety and kids living in our suburban culture, where they are so sheltered and not allowed to explore and where they are driven everywhere they go and are not allowed to walk or bike anywhere. Ironically enough because families move to the suburbs to be safe!

I also thought about life  as a believer and how we in the church always pray for safety and protection which is a great prayer and all. But is there more to life than just praying for safety and hence, an easy life.

And I think of the promise that so many people in the church base their Christian life upon, the promise that God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life, and when we think of a wonderful plan, we think of a life that is safe and conflict free.

Of course, being safe and conflict free might be good things to want in general, but it seems that we forget that when life has conflicts and risks and outside the box experiences, that is when we seem to grow the most. And when we need God the most.

When our lives are lived outside the box in the realm of adventure and risk, when we take chances and get out of the safety zone, we live lives where we have not choice but to be dependent upon God and where we look to Him and where we learn new things. And when we try new things and live outside the box in one area of our lives, we will risk and truly live in other areas of our lives.

Adults need this. Kids need this. Kids in suburbia USA need chances to climb across trees that have fallen across creeks, to try to figure out how best to do this, to help one another in the task, to problem solve together how best to do this. To learn to trust in God.  

As my friend and I watched our 12 year old sixth graders, we saw their eagerness to find log after log to cross the creek, and we saw team work as they tried to figure out the best way to make it and we saw their laughter and the challenge that it was and the excitement when they made it across, each time waiting for one another to cross.

And my 6 y ear old also along for the hike wanted so badly to join the older boys and I kept saying it is too hard and he kept getting mad at me for saying it was too hard, so on one log that seemed reasonable for a 6 year old to cross, I said that we could cross it together and we tried, but my 6 year old got scared half way across so we turned around. But on the next log he wanted to join the older boys again, so I took him, and we made it all the way across that time, and it was such a great adventure for my 6 year old.

The challenge, the adventure, the risk, the creativity, the team work, the maneuvering to find the best route were all skills that can be transferred to real life and real faith.

The boys got dirty and the trails were muddy and getting off the trails was even muddier, but the boys did not complain. They kept looking for more logs to cross. 

The next day, I got a call from the mom friend and she said her son had such an amazing time with us, and that is all he could talk about, the adventure with my boys.

Was it safe? It was safe enough and we were smart about it.

And, most importantly, it was an adventure.

The father is the one who first used the term “guardian angel”  regarding this woman and his comment got me thinking about character and how our actions speak so much about our lives, indeed about our faith, if we are truly living it out.

Here’s what the father said after the incident: “We’re not people of faith. . . but I’m starting to think she was some kind of guardian angel. I expected to see her the following morning. I haven’t seen her since.  . . . All I remember is that her name was Oriander.”

Wow, would that not be so nice if people said that about us. If people were looking for us, to thank us for what we do for them. If we do it out of the goodness of our hearts, hearts filled with the love of God.

And, what really stood out with this dad’s words is his comment about how he is not a man of faith, but that the actions of the woman helping his son made him think of a person of faith. Is that not how the character of  a true person of faith should be thought of? As a guardian angel?

Our character is showing. As people of faith, our values are being watched and revealed in the day in and day out of how we carry ourselves around others. Others are judging our faith and the God we serve by how we treat the least of these.  It is what we do and don’t do that people notice. And it is when we least expect it, that someone is noticing. Are we being a guardian angel, Good Samaritan, or something we would rather not be remembered for?

Like this man looking everywhere for this guardian angel Oriander.

Turns out that her name was actually Orianne and she saw the whole situation of the man being separated from his son and she sat there and comforted the 3-year-old until the father returned. Interestingly, Orianne is a student hoping to become a nurse. Her true character is showing.

We might think that this is no big deal. Of course, most people would wait with the little boy. But, the father looked at it as a big deal. Some stranger was watching over his own son. Some stranger took time out of her day. Some stranger was willing to get involved, to be involved in the life of another person, in the culture, to be nosy really.

It takes that. It takes people willing to step out of their own lives, their own struggles and schedules and time-frames, to be willing to have their lives interrupted by the lives of others. To be the guardian angel, even when their names might get forgotten. Or mis-spelled.

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http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2009/11/oriander_are_you_out_there.html

Last weekend I was able to not only talk to my daughter who is spending the year again in Germany, but I was able to see her — and her boyfriend who was visiting her .

You have got to love SKYPE. How amazing is this modern technology?

So, here’s a  modern snapshot of life: All five of  us in our family who are still at home (it still feels weird to say that Rachel and Ryan are away), are standing around my lap top at our kitchen island watching Rachel and Stefan on TV and talking to them. It is so much fun!

Kids growing up in this generation may not realize how far we have come with technology as their worlds are filled with cell phones and texting and the internet and video games and cable TV and facebook and twitter and ITunes, and they’ve never known any other world.

I get overwhelmed sometimes and have written about the importance of learning to use the off button.

But, then again, I have to admit how much I appreciate modern technology now that my daughter is overseas.

Sometimes I will be sitting in my home office writing and I will out of the blue hear my daughter say, “Mom” via SKYPE and there she is. Her sweet voice across the ocean. She has been gone now since September 10 and this year is coming home for Christmas. Being able to see her via SKYPE makes the distance that much shorter, or at least bearable.

My daughter has a  MAC computer with a built-in web camera. I do not. So I have been able to see her, but she has not been able to see me. She says it feels like she is talking to a wall. And, I am still fine tuning how to figure out the video on-off button to be able to see her all of the time.

To be honest, much of how I figure out modern technology is trial and error and just playing around with buttons.

At church on Sunday I was talking to my friend Kristi whose son is at Bodenseehof, the same Torchbearer Bible School which my daughter attended last year. Kristi said she bought a webcam for about $ 40 and is able to see her son and he can see her via SKYPE. And if my friend Kristi can figure this webcam technology out, I can too. So, my husband just this week went out to buy one for our family as well.

This weekend, I look forward to getting the thing set up so that finally we can do a proper SKYPE conversation, where my daughter can see me as I will hopefully be able to see her. If I can figure out all of the buttons.

So, my darling 6 year old is chucklingas I hobble down each step sideways and as I say, Ouch and Ouwee and Oh that hurts a day after my marathon race!

“Quit laughing at me,” I  tease back at him.

Yes, I am sore after completing my 6^th marathon on Sunday, my 5th Portland  marathon. http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2009/10/portland_marathon_jason_finch.html

I thought I wouldn’t be sore as I was pacing myself and walked a bit and went in the jacuzzi afterwards at Shelleys. . . Oh, well, I guess that’s what you get for doing this thing last minute. . .

People ask, how far was the marathon . . . 26.2 miles I say (I thought everyone knew).

Wow, that is far, they say.

Yes it is.

And each time is just as hard as the next. And just as fulfilling.

Truly, a test of endurance.

I told myself I would try to pray the entire time, to make it a time of prayer and at the end I was still praying, for strength to just finish the thing.

The day started with me showing up an hour early to pick up my friend Shelley — her lights were still dark. I called her cell then her home phone. She came out, “Cornelia, it’s only 5:25, you’re an hour ealy.” So, I went back home to relax till 6:15 and when  I picked her up this time she said, “you nut”- we drove to Kristi’s to carpool with her and her sister and cousin (her sister and cousin were running their first marathon. Kristi has inspired so many to do this 26.2 mile feat!) 

[Photo taken before our 2009 Portland Marathon with Kristi in the middle, her sister on the left, then me, then Shelley, and on the right Kristi's cousin. Photo from Kristi Easterlin taken by her husband Bill]

There were so many people at the starting line (9,000 +) and I tried to find a group to pace with and I did, for a while and there were so many people cheering (70,000 +).

I knew the whole time that my husband was bringing our three youngest kids — the only ones left at home right now — to cheer me on with a half mile to go and the twins, age 11, joined me (see above photo) and I was just out of it at that point. I just wanted to finish and at that point I had decided I didn’t need to break last year’s time. I just wanted to finish.

And the twins kept saying, “Come on mom, you can do it,” and I thought about me cheering them on last week at their cross country race, when they were tired and out of it, and how I said to them, “come on, you can do it,” but they were tired. And Sunday I was too.

So, I did it, but just did not break my time. Was a minute off.

It is okay though. To complete it is a good thing, and with my knees intact. That is important too.

It was important for me to have my family there to cheer me on. At first I had told my husband to not worry about it this year. To just take the boys to church as we usually do on Sundays. But then he teased, “Oh and look like the non-supportive husband.” He wanted to be there for me.

And, I am glad he was there.

One woman on the course I was running with for a while said her family was not going to make it to cheer her on, that they had a baseball game to go to for her son. And I thought, you know, for one day, perhaps, the son could cheer on the mom. Here soccer moms are cheering on their kids every week at every game and they hardly miss, and those very same kids could take one day of the year to come cheer on their mom.

To see that mom has goals too and mom can do something physical and mom can complete a very long task like a marathon and mom has endurance.

I saw a lot of hand made signs on the course of the marathon, signs being held up by kids cheering their moms on. The signs said, ”Go Mommy!”  and “You can do it Mommy!”  and that was so fun to see. Kids cheering mom on.

There were others cheering everyone on along the 26 mile Portland marathon course. A worship band singing praises to God. A marimba band along a bridge and other spots. A few oldie tunes, like a Fleetwood Mac song, “You’re just second hand news,” which I do not ever want to be. A Lynyrd Skynyrd Sweet Home Alabama type of song blasting from other speakers. There was a jazz band and other music. There were kids handing out Gummy Bears and people offering up water and Gatorade type drink along the path. There were long lines at the outhouses, which took up too much of my time and was the reason I lost my pace group—bummer—so you learn along the way what not to do (wait in long lines to go to the bathroom during the marathon if you can at all help it!).

But, I am not making up excuses. I should be happy to have finished the marathon and it was the most beautiful of days, not too warm, a little sunshine. A lot of enthusiasm. Out there.

At the end, there were more refreshments – chocolate milk and bagels and string cheese and fruit and cookies and chips. And a medal for my neck and a t-shirt and a tree to plant and a rose…

I met a man who was like 78 and he has run about 350 marathons in his lifetime and about 20 this year.

Wow, and I was happy with just my one this year.

That is the thing about marathons – and really life — It is all about individual goals and dreams and it is just you and the clock sometimes and the road ahead and what you are going to do about it and no one can do it for you… it is about you completing your goal. And even if you did not quite make your exact time that was your goal, you were willing to risk it, to tell people about it, to try, and in end, the goal of finishing and having my family there to cheer me on and God alongside is truly enough.

You would not believe how excited our 6 year old got about making apple cider this year.

It only took my husband mentioning it once and there you have it. Augustin was remembering the past year and just could not wait to make apple cider again this y ear.

Chris went and got apples on his way home from work and dug out the old cider press and we all got our old clothes on on a Sunday afternoon and we were hooked.

Breezy was over as was Justin and we pressed and squeezed and filtered and worked and I of course took lots of photographs.

Traditions are important to family life and it is fun to include others in our family traditions.

And we made a couple of extra gallons to give to special neighbors in our lives.

Collins’ poetry makes the ordinary extraordinary. It makes real life magical. It shows the wonder of the day to day every day.

Here is a poem of his called Flock:

Flock By Billy Collins
It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenburg Bible
required the skins of 300 sheep.

I can see them
squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed.

All of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike
it would be nearly impossible to count them.

And there is no telling which one of them
will carry the news
that the Lord is a Shepherd,
one of the few things
they already know.

and here’s another:

Invention By Billy Collins

Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,

and in a week or so
according to the calendar
it will probably look

like a silver football,
and nine, maybe ten days ago
it reminded me of a thin bright claw.

But eventually –
by the end of the month,
I reckon –

it will waste away
to nothing,
nothing but stars in the sky,

and I will have a few nights
to myself,
a little time to rest my jittery pen.