Lopez in Photos and News About Graham

Over Memorial Day weekend, we spent a couple of days on Lopez Island.  Our kids are now getting to the ages where they remember things from the few past years of their lives.  We are no longer dragging them around without them knowing where they are, they are really creating memories.  It is exciting and moving to witness.  They remember Lopez.  It isn’t just another place where they sleep in a bed that is different from home.  They remember the pretzels on the ferry, that our house has a hammock and a great rock-throwing beach.  They remember that the drugstore has milkshakes and that there is an incredible bakery.  (Hmmm.  Most of these memories involve food.  I wonder why that would be.)

Because I have written so much about my almost life-long love affair many different times here, I thought I would more or less let the photos speak for themselves.

The hammock.  It is silent out there.

Every time we go up to the island there are different shells on the back porch.

Lopez has this amazing rugged coastline with mountain views and eagles soaring across (sometimes) blue skies.  It also has a gorgeous pastoral interior where lots of cows, sheeps, and horses live a pretty good life.  This year, because of all the rain we have had, the hay is so green.  By August this will be brown.

Speaking of rain, I don’t ever remember, in 30 years of going to that island, the fire danger sign reading as “low”.

Speaking of rain, again, we spent a rainy morning at their lovely perfect library.

Fortunately there was plenty of sun for rock-throwing on our little beach.

This photo pretty much sums up his personality these days.

No words.  The cuteness…

And because I don’t think I have a single photo of Randy and I together on this blog, I thought I would include this from our Napa trip in early May.

I have good news on the school front.  In the spring I wrote about our predicament with our neighborhood school.  We sent off our application to an “option” school not too far from our  neighborhood.  Option schools are public and they draw from all over the city.  They tend to have a specific focus and the one we hoped to get into has a technology focus.  While that was a compelling reason for Graham to attend, the main reason we wanted to send him there is so that he could follow his amazing resource room teacher, the exceptionally kind librarian, and the all-important gym teacher.  Just a couple of weeks ago, I got word that Graham got in.  Randy and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

But now, as the school year is winding down (2 more days left), I feel incredibly sad about leaving our neighborhood school.  There are so many nice children in Graham’s class and some wonderful parents with whom I can imagine forming friendships.  Everyone just got their immersion language assignment (Spanish or Japanese) and there is a buzz as parents and children alike contemplate their next year learning a new language.  We are not and will not be a part of that.  I feel angry that we were basically forced to leave this school, these children, and these parents.  Our city has let us down.

I know that the new school will be terrific.  Graham will make new friends, I will get to know a whole new set of parents and children – we will form a new community.  I’m glad we have the summer to heal and gear up for first grade.