Bulleted Hodgepodge

We've been busy getting ready for our trip so I haven't posted. I hope to keep y'all up to date as we travel. Here's a hodgepodge of what we've been up to:

• Owen loves to help in the kitchen. Here he is peeling bananas for frying. He also likes to crack eggs, put chopped veggies into a bowl or pot, pick herb leaves from stems, peel boiled eggs, stir, rinse the dishes and hand them to me to load in the dishwasher, and get out utensils we need for cooking and to set the table.

• Abram went to the medieval conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan this past week. We enjoyed spending Sunday with him - hiking at Susquehana State Park, thrifting at Goodwill, and getting some fabric. He made a wonderful dinner of tuna tartar that evening, and I got a lovely pair of amber earrings.
• We had our third birth circle tonight. I really like it. We had four ladies there and got to hear three very different birth stories - Melissa's, Sara's, and mine. I am definitely a birth junkie; I really enjoyed hearing the very different experiences we all had. I think it really is important for these stories to get told - to normalize birth in our culture.
• I finished a big boy carrier for Owen. A friend lent us an Ergo; Abram liked it enough he bought a used one, but I decided I could really improve upon it, so I made a soft, structured carrier which Abram and Owen have tested. Look for pictures of it on our trip.
• I also made a reversible skirt from this pattern. I think it is a clever idea for a trip so that I can get extra mileage out of the same thing. Look for it also in the pictures of our trip. Owen got a couple of bonus pairs of pants from the scraps of the fabric.
  
• We are mostly packed -just the toothbrushes and such that need to be put in the bags before we head out tomorrow morning. We'll head out around 9:30 am tomorrow.
  
• Owen has books, Crayola foamy dough, stickers, crayons, pompon balls, a small notepad, a coloring book, glowing light sticks, and a Confederate "Johnny" paper doll book (thank you, Tracy - I knew it would come in handy some time) to help entertain him on the plane.