Quotations

Clara is a chatterbox. She straight cracks us up sometimes with her ability to repeat, remember, and display her personality through words.

In an effort to remember and capture some of the funnier moments from our lives over the last week, I've written down some of her quotes. Make sure you also scroll down and check out last night's post for a recent picture.

"No, Clara, that's not Horton (the elephant), that's Jesus!" -Drew

"Clara, can you blow your nose? We need to get the beans out!" -Heather

"Oh Daddy, where are you?" -Clara (in a singsong voice)

Heather: Clara, do you want to color?
Clara: Um, Yeah.
Heather: Clara, do you want to go get ready for bed?
Clara: Um, No.

(Pretend talking on the phone to her Paddy)
"Hello? Okay, okay, okay." (repeat for approx. 5 min.) -Clara

Clara: Color! Color! COLOR!
Heather: Do you want to color?
Clara (casually): okay.

Big Girl

It feels like we blinked and Clara suddenly became a toddler.
Here's our big girl enjoying our beautiful back yard.

More photos to come...

North to Eden and the Jeeps of Wrath

To me, there is something about "packing up all of your possessions and hitting the road" that can only be encapsulated by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. This is one of my (Drew's) very favorite books, and the fact that our trip took us through Salinas, CA, birthplace of Steinbeck and setting of many of his novels and short stories, made it all the more pertinent.

The warm glow of my dissertation defense and going-away party on Monday evolved very quickly into an intensely burning fire of activity, as Heather and I (with much help from Mr. and Mrs. D, and her cousin Ben) scrambled to fit all our possessions into a rental truck by Wednesday night. Like the Joads, our longtime (six years!) pattern of of subsistence had come to an end, and we were leaving town in hopes of better economic prospects.

Skipping forward to a comparison to the conclusions of the stories, ours turned out much happier than the novel's. Heather, Clara and I are now happily settled in our mountain home in Ben Lomond, enjoying sunny days, cool nights, and beautiful time together. Family members gathered around us to make the move-in smooth and make us feel very supported and loved. Contrast this with bouncing between migrant work camps, peach-gorging-induced dyssentary, and an awkward finale in a barn, and we are really doing well.

Sadly, though, our journey did parallel The Grapes of Wrath in the loss of a family member along the way. Don't worry: Everybody made it safely. The loss was that of our faithful companion, the Jeep. Heading out of town in 100-degree heat, a failure of the heater control valve caused a sudden, massive overheating, a burned-up engine, and a reluctant but necessary sell-off. Like Granpa Joad, who succombed to a stroke before the family left Oklahoma, it seems the Jeep preferred death on I-5, just south of Del Mar Heights Road, to the thought of leaving San Diego. Or maybe the Jeep was more like Granma Joad. She held on just long enough, passing silently on the Grapevine so that the caravan could reach its destination of the Central Valley. For the last six years we have prayed that the Jeep could "just make it through grad school," which it did, stoically and successfully. In retrospect, hoping that it would "make it to the postdoc" might have been a better idea.

(As timing would have it, we were at that moment purchasing a "second" car, so we do have wheels, and are hoping to find another car soon. Life is good. )

The Jeep incident aside, the move and transition went very well. I start work next week, and we will post pictures of our beautiful new house, and our excellent stay-cation activities (beach, San Francisco...) soon.