The Best Medicine Around

Our trip to the keys this year was a balm for all of us. We fortuitously picked the most frigid, arctic week of the winter to escape New Hampshire, but even more than that, we all needed a mental and physical check-out badly. The kids were so wound up to go to Florida the week before we left, that Aiden's teacher had to have him work at a table all alone so he could have some chance of focusing with his "vacation-brain" working overtime. Haley didn't have any work to do, but she was still crazy to get to the water and sand. Actually, Haley wouldn't agree we that we were even IN florida until she hit the sandbox and beach at the Conch House. THAT is Florida for our little girl.

Key Lime Smoothie from Robert Is Here is a must before we hit the "stretch" to the keys

Mom and Haley at Robbie's

Dad's absence was felt keenly everywhere I turned (how could it not be, he was such a part of that house and the little tropical garden oasis my parents have created there) but I wanted to be nowhere else in the world for that week. Mom hosted us perfectly- she slept in the tent with Aiden to give him an adventure and regale him with stories about his Hapa each night. We could hear them laughing out there every night from inside the house- probably the best sound I've heard in a very long time.

At Mahogany Hammock in Everglades National Park

Mama gator with a baby on her back- there were at least 30 all around her

Haley with "izzy lizzy" which we got her to calm her fear of seeing gators.  She eventually relaxed about them.

The week was full of fun and adventure for Aiden, with his first-ever snorkeling trip on a coral reef, animal watching in the everglades, and a guided backcountry fishing trip with his Dad. The snorkeling trip was out of Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, and because the weather was pretty calm, we got to snorkel on Key Largo Dry Rocks, the reef with the giant Jesus statue. Aiden was probably more impressed with the big statue than any of the fish he saw, though those were impressive too: filefish, parrotfish, seargent majors, tangs, jacks, and a french angelfish, to name a few. He did amazingly well for about 20 minutes of snorkeling, but then started to freak out a bit (a combination of barracuda trepidation, saltwater in his eyes, and some seawater snorkel intake)... overall a good first go at real snorkeling for a 6 year old. It's an overwhelming feeling to look down at a cavernous reef teeming with sealife and keep your calm... some of the adults new to snorkeling were freaking out too!

About to hit the water

Heading out of Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

Seafood Lunch in Key Largo

Aiden and his new friend Aiden- spelled the same way.  They spent 3 days in the pool together goofing around!

Sunrise over the ocean

The backcountry fishing was windy and cool, but yielded 10 keeper mangrove snappers, some of which we oven-fried for supper. Aiden and Andy had their "good luck" ice creams at 7AM, so Aiden didn't seem surprised that they were successful. He's definitely "hooked" on fishing in the keys and is already asking his Dad when they can go deep-see fishing for mahi-mahi sometime. (Hey, a boy can dream....)

Aiden with a sheepshead that he caught...they have teeth like horses, for eating coral and hard mollusks

The highlights of Haley's week were daily swims in the ocean and pool, and lots and lots of tea parties. Tea parties with seawater and sand-sugar, tea parties with pretend "air" tea, and tea parties with grandma and real hibiscus tea and orange juice and sugar! Grandma taught Haley how to pour a cup of tea without spilling, and how to be a gracious host and ask if your guests would like sugar, spooning and stirring it slowly into a teacup. We tried to get Haley to lift her pinky finger while sipping, but that she drew the line on that one- no way. She does love a teaparty though!

Tea, anyone?

Grandma and Natalie share real tea with Haley

Of course we got a bit of birding in too, here and there, and sampled some delicious local seafood, including fried lionfish, alligator schnitzel, mahi sandwiches, lobster BLTs and conch chowder. On our last night, we had a pizza party using the outdoor clay oven Mom & Dad built several years ago. Mom did an amazing job preparing the oven and baking the pizzas, which were solidly Dad's domain in the past. Everything came out perfectly though, and we had a lovely evening shared with Dora, Bassi, and Bassi's girlfriend Ella.

Aiden gets his fried lionfish dinner

The real deal, in a tank at Pennekamp

Now it's back to the frigid northlands, work and school. We'll daydream of our week in the Keys for quite awhile, I'm sure... until the weather finally starts to turn here and we can dream of summer once again.

Haley at Founders Park

Aiden pulled out his loose tooth- and got a "gold dubloon" from the Florida Tooth Fairy!

"Is this Florida, Mama?"

A flowering tree in the yard- I forget the name but very spectacular. These bloomheads are as big as your face!

Morning coffee on the dock

Cool at Bahia Honda Key

Bahia Honda

More Bahia 

Our last day- goodbye to Founders Park

King of the huge sandpile @ Founders Park

Back into the Stream

Well, I am back at this. After my dad died, everything just seemed too raw. It didn't seem fair or even possible to write about our daily life or post pictures of our smiling kids...who are kids after all, and incapable of staying in a state of devastating sorrow over a single event for very long. I didn't want to write about what we were up to, because for a good while there I wasn't feeling much of anything about anything. I also didn't seem to have the energy to write as eloquently as I wanted to about my dad and what his love and his life meant to me and to my whole family. To be honest, I still am not at that point yet.

But it is amazing how life goes on. It's amazing how something like a death can so totally devastate your life that you expect the whole world to crumble in on itself. It shakes your confidence and it leaves you in some alternate world where everything is standing still. But the world around you continues on. People are still shopping and pumping gas; the mail is still being delivered, Christmas still comes, and your dog still wants to be fed. At some point, you step back into the stream. The kids pulled us back in before we would have gone ourselves. It's one of the things kids do best.

I have missed blogging, though. And I am newly thankful that I've created this digital history of our family over the past 6 years. One day, if Aiden wants to, he can look back over these posts and find evidence of just about every significant chunk of time he spent with his Hapa since he was 6 months old. Every weekend in Vermont, every vacation in Florida, every sugaring season. This is a slight comfort to me, though it also makes me panic just a little about getting this blog into a hardcopy format too, in case the whole of internet cyberspace crashes into oblivion someday. I plan to tackle that project in the coming year, one of many New Years resolutions.

Aiden and Haley have been active and growing these past few months. They had a good Christmas holiday and are thriving, as they should. For the adults- between my dad's death and superstorm Sandy- Andy and I, my mom, Micah and Becky, and also Andy's Dad, brother Dan and sister-in-law Paulette have had a difficult stretch all around. I still feel like we are staggering about like a bunch of zombies most of the time, going through the motions of life with very few of the emotions besides grief and depressing sense that nothing will ever be the same again. At the same time I feel sure that life will improve, slowly, slowly, slowly... it already has gotten a bit easier.