Our Sweet Ruby Girl

In June, we spent a week with Colin, Kelly and Ruby in Northern Michigan, and the matter is settled: it's a family tradition. The boys had an amazing time playing at the beach, going on nature scavenger hunts, roasting hotdogs and marshmallows over the fire, listening to Uncle Colin play his guitar on the beach and just hanging out. Their relationship with Ruby is pretty special, and it was so beautiful to watch them make all those sweet summer memories together. Here are the photos I've been meaning to put up.

Boring Glass Musuem

I took the boys to the Glass Pavilion and Toledo's art museum last week. After about five minutes, Ollie declared, "This is BORING!" And I had to agree. I was so excited to go, walk the grounds and see all the work they're doing in the glass-blowing shop, but woah, they don't spare anything in the boring department. Almost every single thing in the place is behind glass, and a bunch of guards were following us around to make sure the boys didn't lay a dirty finger on a single pane of it. Even the workshop presentation was behind a big gated-off area and the artist giving a demonstration was so far removed that she had to wear a headset microphone--which was extremely awkward since there were only about five of us in the audience. When the boys stood up and asked to leave, well, I said OK, let's get out of here. We had more fun goofing around outside, rolling in the grass, running up and down the stairs and climbing on all the sculptures, which were, thank god, not behind glass. We had a blast out there. It doesn't take much with these two goofballs.

The Climbing Tree

This is the climbing tree. It sits at the end of our block at the corner. Cass started asking me to put him up there to stand in the low-hanging cradle about three years ago, and now he can climb all the way up her branches by himself. Ollie asks me to lift him--just like his brother. Only he's a lot more daring than Cass was back then, following Cass to heights he probably shouldn't be scaling. But that's the universal dynamic, right? Younger brother follows -- reaching higher, climbing scrappier, angling bigger, hustling faster, daring farther -- but always looking up.