last night and last month...

We had our first home camp fire last night. (Is it still called a campfire if it is just in your backyard?) And Jason started the fire with a bow drill, one of the many amazing skills he learned at Tracker School.

Once he got the coal started in the tinder we all helped gently blow on it to get it going a bit...


and then into the fire circle it went.

Warmth, light, a space for family gathering!

I also wanted to introduce you to my new friend. Ms. Henny Penny. I am seriously in love with her. She sits on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, I say hello to her every day, we spend a lot of time together. (You know, cause of all the time I spend washing dishes.) Ms. Henny came to be with our family at the end of last month. October 25th was our 10th wedding anniversary! Chessa and I went to the antique shops in town to see if we could find a special family treasure as a gift for the day. And so we did! Without realizing it, I found exactly what I was looking for. We had one just like her when I was little. I feel like she was missing from our home. And now here she is. Can you tell I really do love her?

Perhaps I should have been instead talking about how much I love Jason, that most wonderful husband of mine, whom I have now been married to for more than 10 years. My kind, compassionate, handsome soul mate, who is also such an amazing father. We were married at my dad's house in Washington, on Whidby Island. It was a tiny wedding. We couldn't invite everyone so we invited no one. It was also kind of last minute. We had known for several years that we would get married, have children, be together forever. But in September of 1999 we decided that we did not want to wait any longer, for any of it, baby included. We decided we had to get married the next month. We chose a date. My dad and his wife arranged everything. We flew to Washington. We were married on the water. It was a rainy day, but cleared up just in time for our ceremony. The woman that my dad's wife found to marry us was wonderful! She helped make our wedding magical. You know what is so funny.... about 5 years later I was looking around on the internet for festival ideas, I don't remember which festival, but I came across this woman who leads what she calls "a festival life". It was the woman who married us! And she used to be a Waldorf teacher! She even trained in England with Margaret Meyerkort. I always knew she was a special woman, I was so happy to find out more about her. Super neat, I thought. Now, if I was more technically savvy I suppose I could scan some pictures of our wedding day and post them here. But I tried the scanner thing once, about 6 years, didn't work. Hmm, I see people doing it all the time now. Oh well, trust me, it was a beautiful day!