If these old trees could talk (Daufuskie edition)

The most identifiable flora of South Carolinian geography is the Live Oak Tree with Spanish Moss.  You notice it as you drive south, with it's hauntingly eerie presence in centuries old cemeteries and along stretches of tired road which have seen such history played out.  As our ferry docked on Daufuskie Island, and I saw the familiar trees, I was curious about all that had happened under their watch.  The Indian Massacre out at what is called Bloody Point, the plantations that produced cotton crops, and, the Gullah, who stayed on Daufuskie after slavery ended and build a church in 1881.  Ryan and I had been intrigued with Daufuskie Island for years since we read Pat Conroy's, The Water is Wide, a story of his year teaching there.

From the time we landed at the dock those Daufuskie trees bore record of our adventure.

Max, Madeline, Emmy, Ella and Tony on the Ferry to Daufuskie

Our family boarded the ferry with 5 Bodilys (Sarah's family), 5 Greens (Flossie's family), 2 Mcleans (Bethany and Eric), and 4 Dalias, along with a myriad of other people heading to the island.  We boarded at Hilton Head Island and headed south, loving the warm 65 degree weather.

Sam on the Ferry 

 When we docked an hour later, we were met by Bryan and three golf carts, as there are very few cars on the island (one of the reasons it's a safer island for so many of us to go to). One golf cart malfunctioned immediately, the one Ryan was driving with all our luggage, and Bryan ended up pushing it with his golf cart the 3 miles to the other end of the island at Bloody Point.  It was unfortunate the the golf cart went faster once I hopped off, so I ended up running to the house, greedily sucking in the warm air and memorizing the breeze blowing through the spanish moss.

Sunrise

Our house was magnificent. A part of the old country club, it was perfect for our ginormous family.  It consists of 8 bedroom apartments, each with it's own bathroom and tow queen beds.  So, each married couple got their own apartment.  We had enough space and privacy that we were able to stay mostly polite the entire week.

As there are no stores (with the exception of a small general store), we brought all our food with us, so once we got to the house and unpacked, we were done with our work for the week (that's a fallacy, but we didn't have to leave to work).  We fed the 14 grandchildren who were there, and left them in the care of younger Dalia kids and Grandma and Grandpa and headed over to the old Country CLub restaurant, a short 1 minute walk from our house.   We feasted on seafood and caught up with everyone.  We were there so long that everyone started getting phone calls from mom, who was tired and wanted us to come home so she could go to bed.

From me:  Jenn, Flossie, Chris, Bryan, Tripp and Rhonda, Sarah and Adam

The next morning, several of us headed to the First Union African Baptist Church, over 130 years ago by freed slaves.  This was my first trip to church via golf cart and wearing pants.  I enjoyed driving by the old school in which Pat Conroy taught grades K-12 in a 2 room school house.

 We strategically sat near the back, where a kids table was set up with crayons, puzzles and books.  Ryan felt nervous about the audible negotiating of the cousins not used to playing together, and 15 year old Seth who is the rowdiest of them all.  The preacher noticed his trying to quiet the kids and from the pulpit encouraged him to come listen to the words of Christ, as all in the church were familiar with children and were not put off by their noise.  As the service ended, the chorister announced a children's choir she was putting together for the Christmas program the next day.  She was looking for children to participate.  Mom volunteered her 22 grandchildren to sing, and suggested that Madeline and Ella would play a violin duet.  

So, back we headed on Monday, Christmas Eve for the Christmas Eve service.  Due to the importance of the children, the church sent  a van to pick us up.  We crowded 24 children and adults into the 12 passenger van.  The children sang, "Let there be Peace on Earth", and Madeline and Ella played, "The First Noel".  I enjoyed the words and music, and appreciated the brevity of the hour long service.

Dalia Grandchildren

The 22 grandchildren and youngest of mom's and dad's kids were so excited about each other and the beach and the pool table that Santa bringing stockings was secondary to the fun the inhaling.  After the service, the kids all changed into their pajamas and came to the living room for story time.  By this time, Joey, Crystal, Mark and Erin had arrived with their children, and everyone was their except Hannah and Johnny.  With 16 kids, 7 spouses, 22 grandkids and 2 parents, there were 47 people there.  

Talia, Ella and Max listen to storytime

That night, Santa left stockings only for all the children.  My siblings and I, in order to help out, lined all the chairs from the 5 family tables and hung stockings 2 to a chair.  We set a time of 7:30 am to reconvene.  In the morning, we opened presents and kids ate candy.  In the afternoon, we asked Ella if she was going to follow through on her plan to get baptized in the ocean.  She had previously planned on this, but as she had played around on the waters edge the previous three days, she was nervous about how cold it was going to be.  If everyone hadn't been telling her how excited they were for her baptism, I think she would have terminated the plans. 

Ella and Katie listen to a talk about Baptism

 But, at 2:00, we all met up, where Grandma gave a brief talk, Madeline played, "I am a Child of God", and then we headed outside.  

It started raining as soon as we went outside, so we were bundled in our winter coats. Ella asked her grandpa and her uncle Joey (who let her drive the golf cart by herself) to be the witnesses.  At the waters edge, Ella started whimpering, so Ryan picked her up and headed into water chest deep, where he put her in and quickly baptized her.  When they got out of the water, I put a blanket and towels around them, and they headed inside where Ella had a long bath.

The rest of the week was full of fun.  I was amazed to see 10 little boys aged 2-5 who loved the same things.  Those boys were either pushing balls around on the pool table, playing soccer outside with Uncle Tripp, or playing angry birds on iPads and iPhones.  They loved looking for sand dollars at the beach, and digging in the sand.  

Max takes a turn at bat while Tony leads a distraught Sam to wait in line for his turn.

Grayson, Colbey and Max play and watch Angry Birds

Colbey, Max and Uncle Bryan

Ryan and Sam walking out to the beach

The older girls and younger Dalia kids lots of fun playing games, playing on the beach, and making bottle cap jewelry.  The girls had a few sleep-overs.  They came up with their own games and created their own gangs, battled the wicked forces on the frontiers of the beach and in the jungles of wild oaks.  The alligators that roam the island were hibernating, much to everyones relief, so they didn't have battle real enemies.  After we put the kids to bed at night, the adults would congregate in the main room to play Catch Phrase, Twister, Phase 10, etc, or to debate gun control, feminism and religion.  We left at night exhausted and laughing.

Karleigh, Ella, Baylee, Tali, and Chloe

Karleigh and Ella

Jenn overseeing Twister

We spent some time together as a family unit, but the kids didn't seek us out very often.  Right in front of the house were clay tennis courts, so Ryan and I were able to play tennis three of the days there.  The clay slowed Ryan's balls down a little, so we were more evenly matched than we usually are.

We took the kids on a golf cart ride to see the island a little and invited Eric and Bethany to come with us.  We visited a family graveyard from the 1700's where one of the first white families to settle were buried.  The kids weren't very impressed with it, or with the 500 year old oak tree down the road.  They asked us to return them as quickly as possible to the main house, as they were certain they were missing out on too much fun.

McLeans and Swapps at the Mary Dunn Cemetary

500 year old tree

The meals and the sickness were legendary during the week, as was the adult time each night.  Each couple took a night and prepared food for 50 people with huge appetites.  We had fantastic food to eat every night, Italian, Mexican, traditional Christmas, and soup.  Desserts were in abundance, and herbal tea was commonplace before we battled it out at Catch phrase and phase 10.  The second night there, three kids vomited, a worst case scenario in such close quarters, and considering how many candy canes, cups and spoons had already been shared.  Amazingly, the sickness stayed mostly in mine and Sarah's family.  Sarah's two oldest vomited the whole time we were there, but only at night.  Ella vomited two nights.  Max vomited 10 times our second to last night, and Sam waited until we were de-boarding our airplane in the twin cities, where Ryan slipped the legendary barf bag under him seconds before he let loose.  In utter graciousness, as I heard Sam gag seconds before, I grabbed our luggage and ordered the three older children to follow me, telling Ryan I'd meet him outside. 

Swapp family in front of the 500 year old tree.  You can't see the scowls from this vantage point.

We left the island a week after we came, getting back to the ferry in a variety of methods.  I ran the 3.5 miles, pushing Max and Will in a stroller.  Chris and Adam rode their bikes.  Ryan and Eric drove the golf cart with our luggage, and got lost, but made it to the ferry in time.  We were so sad to leave the company, the beach and the trees, but glad for the memories and stories we would take back with us.  As I ran to the ferry those trees kept me company on the solitary trip, and I thought that if they could talk, having seen all the events that transpired in one week with my family, if those old trees couple talk, they would have some tales to tell.

Happy 8th Birthday Ella

Here's a little about Ella at 8 years old:

Favorite Friends:  Ginny, Reagan (both live in our neighborhood, Reagan lives behind us.  There are some sparse trees between our houses, and Madeline, Ella and Reagan spent many days this summer with duct tape and stalks that they used to build a shelter in the trees.)

Favorite Activities:   Apple Bobbing(never tried it before, but she is sure she will do it sometime and will love it), baking (her and Madeline recently made their first batch of sugar cookies entirely on their own)

Favorite trip during her 7th year:  Dominican Republic.  She loved going to the sea and finding sea-shells, which we have sitting in our closets.  She loved the buffet choices at the resort.  And of course, she loved spending time with her grandparents

Favorite books:  Rainbow Magic Fairies, Geronimo Stilton, Chronicles of Narnia

Favorite foods:  Mashed Potatoes with gravy and Turkey

Favorite Dessert:  Apple Pie, Cinnamon Rolls (At the dinner table every night, in an effort to encourage our kids to sit for longer than 3 minutes, Ryan asks an open ended question about different things.  One night he asked what makes a house a home, and Ella said, "Smelling cinnamon rolls every day makes a house a home".)

Least Favorite Thing:  Curries (which she must smell because that's what we are having for dinner. Yum.)

Ella has become a pinterest fan.  She scoured websites and pinterest exploring different birthday cake ideas, ranging for wedding cake to cheesecake.  She settled on a  couple of cakes that looked like they would take about 3 weeks on full-time work to complete, and I told her those were beyond my capability.  She finally decided she would be happy with a rainbow cake, which was within my commitment level.  

Ella and her friend Ginny

Ryan's favorite memory of Ella's 7th year:  Watching her crouch down in the sand on the Jacksonville Beach, scouring the sand for sand crabs and seashells.  And, having Ella grab his face between her hands, and say, "Daaaad, are you serious".

Jenn's favorite memory of Ella's 7th year:  Ella triumphantly telling us at the dinner table that she skipped her reading class by jumping out of the line, and hiding in a toilet stall in the bathroom for an hour.  No teachers found out about her escape.  Ryan and I are worried about teen years.

Madeline's favorite memory:  trick or treating on the trailer with Ella's friend Ginny, and neighbors Sawyer and Declan, and getting to go over to the extra neighborhood after canvasing our neighborhood.

Sam's 3rd birthday celebration

"Those are Max's fingerprints in the crepes" --Sam Swapp when told that no one would get any crepes until whoever pushed their finger through all the crepes confessed.

And so continues the adventure with Sam that started more than three years ago.  Quick-witted and warm-spirited, he gives me a "morning hug" followed by a "morning kiss" every morning, and a running bear hug every night.  He asks for a kiss for every boo-boo, and he acquiesces when I ask him to wash his hands and then I'll give him a kiss.  He yells when he doesn't like something.  He loves to play on Starfall, loves to watch Diego and Little Einsteins, and likes to be with his siblings over playing with toys.

Madeline made a beautiful mural for him, Ella bought a movie for him, and Max, who discovered last minute that he was the only one without a present for Sam, gave him his favorite present, a sucker his primary teachers had just given him. 

To celebrate, we went to Whitewater State Park.  The kids played on the sandy shore of a lake for a long time, the kids transporting tiny fish they caught to a makeshift pool.  Another boy started catching fish with them, but his mom, rather blatantly redirected him to return his fish to the place they originally came from, "so that we don't kill them.  They are too cute to kill them".  I wanted to let her know that the fish weren't cute, that the kids weren't killing them, and that kids learn to care for the earth and the things on it by engaging with them, but I kept my mouth closed.  After Madeline and Ella killed all the minuscule fish, we went over to grill our hamburgers and s'mores where undoubtably, the kids found other creatures of God to terrorize.  

Finally, we lit the sparklers, those ones that I had bought for 4th of July and forgot about.  Madeline and Ella tried to teach Max to write his name twirling the sparkler.  

By this time, it was dark, which was our intent, we had a fire ready to go, we lit it, and sat around as long as a three year old will amiably allow.  Ryan told a ghost story, which the kids begged out of him. Then Madeline told a story, finally Max told a mostly unintelligible story.  

Everyone is nervous about what is going to happen in the story.

Ryan reveals the crux of the ghost story.  Everyone is relieved to still be alive after the anticipation.  After the stories, we put out our fire, and headed home in the dark, a satiated and satisfied crew quietly listening to the music in the back.

On Sam's birthday, we had crepes for dinner, which someone- we think Max, punched holes through the entire stack.  Still, we enjoyed them.  We ate them with Apricot Jelly- Croatian style, and with Nutella, and homemade strawberry jam.  

We had apple crisp for dessert.  The day was prolifically filled with carbohydrates, which is the only food Sam eats with any amount of enthusiasm.

Sam's favorite present was a lollipop Max gave him.  

He was very excited about his baseball mit.  Our one left-handed child has had a struggle, when we put mits on to throw balls, he insists on putting on a right-handed one, even though he's putting it on his right hand.  Now he and I will have the two left-handed mits.  We've enjoyed a couple of games of baseball since Sam's birthday and the hit is a winner.
Three year olds sure love their birthdays.  They talk about it beforehand and afterwards, and want to know every day how long it is until their birthday again, and who gets to have the next birthday.  It's always a pleasure to be part of the enthusiasm.

The inevitable has begun, we have returned to another year of school. A week before school started we went to turn our paperwork in, and see who Madeline and Ella would have for teacher's this year.  Madeline made a hierarchal list of whom she wanted in terms of teachers (and hence, whom she didn't want) Ella was just excited to see friends.  Turns out Ella got Madeline's favorite teacher ever:  Mr. McClure, and to add insult to injury, Madeline got a brand new teacher, Ms. Knoll, who according to her ranked below all the known teachers simply because she was unknown. Madeline was certain this would mean terrible things for the coming year.  Tonight though, when we went to the back to school cookout, Madeline wanted to find two people, Ms. Knoll, and her friend Sarah.  Ryan asked her if that meant that she liked Mrs. Knoll, and Madeline looked at him like he was a dunce, "Well, yes dad, she does lots of really neat things you know".  Ella has been disappointed to discover that Mr. McKay is the strictest teacher she has had.  

It's pretty fun to see what these girls are thinking about.

Ella and Madeline 2nd and 4th graders

Max has been excited to start preschool.  A week into it, he nonchalantly told me that his teachers were so nice, he didn't think they would ever get mad at him.  Every day he walks into preschool with a huge smile on his face, and every day he leaves with a huge smile on his face.  Sam was asking so man¥ questions about who his teacher was, and where his school was that I decided to try and set up a play-date for him.  Luckily, he has recently become friends with Eric, they have been in each other's company since they were born, but have always just bristled around each other, until recently.   So, Sam has a place to call his own now as well.  When Max talks about going to play at Eric's house, Sam quickly let's him know that Eric's house is his domain alone.  

Max and Sam preschool and playmates

With the return to school, I have been focused on discipline again.  I talked Ryan into taking a love and logic class with me.  I like the idea of love and logic discipline because I think our ability to make choices, regardless of what happens around us is one of our greatest blessings.  Like money, I think kids need experience learning how agency works.  I think often of God when I am focusing on setting limits for the rules that we have, and then allowing the kids to make choices and following though with the consequences of breaking the limit.  I imagine this is something we'll be working a lot on as we start this school year.  

Sanofsky/Hannah visit to Minnesota

A few days after we returned from Utah, Erin and her family and Hannah came to visit us.  The kids were just thrilled to over excitement at going from one fun trip to another to another.  They were really happy to have their cousins come to visit our home.

Hannah was climbing on the tire swing when all the kids saw her and asked her to push them.  We were in beautiful little Lanesboro to bike along the Root River.

Hannah pushed Katie, Sam, Madeline and Ella.  Then she pushed Max, Marcus and Sam.

All seven kids heading on our bike ride.  

Sam and Addy 

Marcus 

After the ride, Sam was climbing up some rocks

Madeline and Katie ran through the sprinklers.

All the kids love Hannah.  She was so entertaining and so nice.

Waiting for ice cream

6 of the seven kids choose superman ice cream.  Ella got Caramel delight.

A man who looked similar to Santa, and gave the kids pictures of Santa and his reindeer.  Marcus was enthralled the entire time.  

Ella and Katie loved the special breakfasts we had:  German Pancakes, Biscuits with homemade jam, sugar cereal.  No one complained.  Later that day, we went to our third cave in a month.  Max was still apprehensive, but wanted to keep up with Marcus.  The girls were pointing out the cave formations of soda straws and cave bacon.  

The girls enjoy one of our favorite activities in Rochester. Every Tuesday in the summer, the track club hosts races for the kids.  The races are divided by age and gender, and the kids can run 50m, 100 m, 200 m, 400m, 800m and 1 mile.  After that, we went to the YMCA and went swimming, which made everyone happy.  then we stopped for pizza on the way home.  Late bedtime for everyone.

Addy loves Hannah.

Sam loves to run, and loves his ribbon for running. Many of the kids his age have a parent run with them, but Sam wants to run by himself.

Max is lined up with the 4 year old boys on the left hand side.

cousin Katie running with the 5 year old girls.

All the kids loved our quiet time activity of building something with marshmallows and toothpicks.  

Ella build a 3 dimensional house.  The children didn't let any of the marshmallows go to waste afterwards.

We had a few sleepovers, which kept the girls up late and up early in the morning.  We had fun showing everyone what we like to do here in Minnesota.  We loved visiting with Hannah and talking about her mission to the Dominican Republic.  The kids loved riding their bikes in the culdesac, and playing in our back yard.  

Their last night here, Ryan watched the kids, and Erin, Hannah and I went out for Vietnamese food followed by a Dalia specialty, shopping at Goodwill.