the best weekend ever

Saturday: The sister who made me a sister! I hugged Tori, talked with her, cried with her - for the first time in almost a year and a half. We took the kids to the park and lay in the grass under a wide oak, discussed dreams for the future while the older ones played and the little one crawled around, gnawing on sunglasses and empty Starbucks cups drained of lattes. We stayed up late, sipping blackberry wine and talking in hushed voices while the children slept. I am so proud of her - that pride and sense of protection and utter love I felt in my chest as a young girl as I watched my baby sister run on young legs, her straight, dark hair whipping all around across her face, a fierceness in her brow and humor behind her eyes. It's the same. I love her. I want to protect her. I cheer her on. I adore her. I am so lucky.

Sunday: A three-hour drive home through (mostly) gentle rain and beautiful farmland. We stopped halfway at a gas station, grabbing snacks, sugar-laden and indulgent, and ran back to the car where it was parked at a corn field behind the mini mart. Rain fell on my back and we all giggled as I changed a twisty baby on the floor of the driver's side; he played with the gas and brake pedals - an interesting view. Then he slept the rest of the drive. We drove through Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania, past victorian bed & breakfasts, Amish furniture stores, bakeries advertising strawberry pies, hand painted signs for plump, fresh-picked peaches in the lawns of white farmhouses with forgotten laundry on the line. This beautiful land we live in never fails to fill me with such a sense of nostalgia and happiness. We arrived home just in time to attend the friends-and-family picnic on the grounds of the farm market where my sister Emma works, just down the road from our house. Brats and burgers were served, fresh veggies and pasta salad, tea and fresh-squeezed lemonade, with locally-made ice cream sandwiches and apple cider doughnuts for dessert. After a few games of Bingo, my girls got the autograph of Joe, the manager of the market, before we headed home. Joe has red hair and a warm smile as permanent as his freckles. They adore him, dissolving into giggles every time they see him. 

Monday: We perused the quiet, dusty aisles of an antique store in downtown Shrewsbury with Emma and her best friend Anna. My favorite find was a pair of butter-yellow leather baby shoes. I always wonder whose little feet wore the baby shoes of antique stores. A beautifully bound pocket-sized Victorian book, a work of fiction by Henry ---'s wife (I can't remember the last name). The woman had written the book 20 years after the death of Austen, and I mused the irony of the accomplishment of being a published female author at the time, yet still having to use her husband's name. I bought a vintage copper kettle, likely from the 50s or 60s, and a German porcelain Mary for my mom. I forgot to keep my eyes open for turtle things - Wilder's nick-namesake. We made our way down the block to a little coffee shop that takes up residence in a 19th-century bank. The kids shared a lemonade and I got myself a white chocolate mocha latte. We sat outside and enjoyed our drinks in the warm breeze under a large oak tree before walking home and having ground pork tacos for dinner.