Mary's Excellent African Adventure.

  

Mary just returned from a most excellent trip to South Africa where she did a lot of posing in natural splendor with her arms up.

And leaping for the Joy and Happiness of being with twenty other teenagers instead of her way less cool family.

Yipppeee!

 

She did some other stuff too... she assured me that she helped the guys paint this school instead of just posing for photos... once again, with her arms up.

The other things that she did included...

 Organizing some craft projects at a rec center. She has years of crafting experience and was happy to share her cutting and pasting talent.

She also got to play with and hug some cute kids at the school where they volunteered.

The little ones gave her a new name..."Zinhle" which Mary pronounces with a click. Our girl can speak with a click! She said that a lot of the older kids spoke English but the younger kids spoke Xhosa. Since my girl doesn't speak a ton of Xhosa, the clicks are pretty challenging- she had to fall back on her pantomime skills to share her craftiness with the little guys.

 

It's a good thing that hugs are the same in English and Xhosa... Mary grew very fond of this fellow who called himself "Lucky."

Lucky had a map of the USA and asked all of the delegates to put stars on their home states. Then he put butterfly stickers on the lonely states without stars... the final product was an inspired map covered in stars and butterflies...just lovely.

Mary took the big digital Nikon and really had fun with it. She took over 2,000 pictures and as she put it "tried to be artsy" and find some interesting shots.

I love this one of her little pal slapping her a high five.

Also, this one of the mirror in the school bathroom... 

She got a kick out of the Papa, Mama, and Baby toilets at the school. I think that she spent a considerable amount of time in the bathroom with her camera.

Then there were the beasties... nope, she didn't have a telephoto lens... she really was this close to a big ole wrinkly elephant.

And this polygamist man lion and one of his proud sister wives.

Hip-hop hippopotamuses...ready to break into a muddy rap.

She said good bye to Africa from the Cape of Good Hope... the Southern most point of Africa- where this little beach guy wished her a safe journey home.

More likely he is saying something less kind- like "get off my beach" but as she  speaks no penguin, she is free to interpret his stare as well wishes.

Swagger Angel.

Jamie has been working his little tushie off all summer so as a fun incentive (read: bribe) I promised him that on his final day of summer school I would take him to Chicago for the weekend.

 Turns out, Jamie is a Chicago kind of guy... 

On Saturday evening, Jamie and I enjoyed dinner on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. 

Handsome fellow.

Our fabulous dinner view.

By the end of the evening Jamie was quite fed up with me taking pictures of him... to bear such photographic hardship was upsetting.

But then... he found his swagger.

This is how it happened...

Jamie and his fun mom (me!) were riding the elevator up when the doors opened and a in pops a young-ish, professional-ish and definitely fashionable fellow.

He nods to my son and says "looking sharp, but you need a lid," and takes his own hat off and plops it of Jamie's head. Looks at him again, and says "almost there,"pulls some shades out of his jacket pocket and puts them on Jamie.

Then the elevator stopped and he jumped out.

"But wait, your accessories!" I shouted after him. 

But he waved me off.

And then he was gone.

Like a fashion angel.

And Jamie assumed that this was typical of riding elevators in a big city... cool, and fashionable stuff happens all of the time, and you just go with it when it does.

So he took his swagger to the streets.

 

And to the Bean...

And was troubled and a little bit frightened by this guy, so I did what any sensitive parent would do and gave Silver Guy a couple of bucks to pose with my son.

 

Before the swagger became too obnoxious... we caught a cab for the airport.

Here are Jamie's final moments in his windy city.

My son the dude.

Bachelor Hamster

Henry asked me if every adult in the world was married.

"Like, does every grown up man find a woman to marry?" 

I told him that a lot do, but that some men don't and stay bachelors.... then I needed to define "bachelor" as that is a new (and now very cool) word for Henry.

"Can you be a dad and still be a bachelor?"

"Nope, once you are a dad, you are a dad and no longer a bachelor."

Hmmmmmm.....

"Well... I'm worried about Wesley, (his beloved hamster) because he might like being a bachelor now, but he might like being a dad later, and I don't see how he will ever meet a woman hamster to marry while he is living all alone in his aquarium."

Good point.

Sorry Wes.

Then Karl, who has some personal experience in bachelorhood, suggested that hamster-guy brains aren't the same as human man brains and if there are no lady hamsters around he probably doesn't think about it  much.

And that made Henry feel better about Wesley's current lifestyle. This is a good thing as Wes is no spring chicken amongst hamsters and I am afraid he is getting a bit rattier by the month. We love him, but a lady hamster not see his inner beauty and break his little rodent heart.

As evidence... these were the cutest photos from the recent Wesley photo shoot- I wouldn't recommend using either for a hamster profile pic.

Vulture Wings.

Shopping advice from Jamie... age, almost 9.

If you are ever given an opportunity to buy yourself a pair of vulture wings- grab it. 

You will suffer no regrets.

In fact, every reflective surface will give you much happiness as you check out just how unbelievably cool a nice pair of vulture wings make you look. 

It's the perfect accessory, really.

Your personal space increases dramatically as a result of your new wingspan.

 

 Helpful in elevators too... you can see how fun it is for my brother and sister.

 

Every family needs a winged vulture boy to bring them happiness and excitement and Jamie's wings are his very best summertime investment.

Katy

 

Katy, Mary, and Anna Summer 2011

Every girl needs a big sister. 

If you aren't lucky enough to have a biological one in your life then, if you are wise, you recruit.

Our Anna recruited wisely.

Katy has very generously become Anna's big sister and Anna understands from the bottom of her 19 year old heart, how incredibly fortunate she is to have Katy as a part of her life.

We have been friends with Katy's family for many years but they live about eight hours away. This made it tough to get together very often while the kids were growing up. However, each summer Katy and her family would come and visit the farm for a week. 

 Their friendship began when Anna was six and fell into awe of 11 year old Katy. At the time, Anna was a big sister to two year old Mary, but didn't have a big sister of her own. She was looking for someone to look up to and Katy became just that person.

 

Anna was a smart little girl...

Here is Katy at age 11, looking every bit the cool chica then that she is today.

Last weekend we were able to relive some of those summertime memories...grown up Katy came to visit!!!

Katy is without a doubt, the most energetic, optimistic and completely fun person ever... she is a wonderful role model for my daughters and all of my kids adore her.

 

She can also be completely goofy, which I consider an essential ingredient in humankind. 

 We had a fabulous weekend, full of laughter with some healthy reminiscing...

 

here are Anna and Katy summer of 1997.

And Anna and Katy in summer of 2011.

Oh, and in case you were wondering how hoofprints outfits are created, here is Yoder the hesitant but artistic pony in action.

Thank you Katy, for being a good friend to everyone in my family but especially for being there for Anna during all of those crucial times when she needed a big sister more then a mom.

You are the best sister-by-choice, and my girl is very fortunate to have you to look up to.

As the signs in the airport say..."Yay, Katy!!!"

We Love Michael Franti.

Michael Franti is a seriously cool singer/songwriter dude. And through good fortune and kind of cosmic alignment- and the fact that he and "his people" (manager+ tour manager) are really kind, my whole family was able to meet him at his concert in Pittsburgh last week. The thing is, he was adopted when he was a very little dude and has tons of positive feelings for his family.

Which is a great thing for us adoptive parents out there.

And my family loves him.

Here are a few reasons why.....

Michael is a really big guy...like 6 and a half feet tall- so, a big dude with super long dreads and tons of tattoos. And, as a point of social activism, he hasn't worn shoes in something like 15 years.
Ok so, ginormous, tattooed, deadlocked, barefoot fellows have the potential to be kind of intimidating, especially if you stand only 38 inches tall with an afro.

,

But when he met us,  he couldn't have been more approachable.. he sat down right away so he wouldn't tower over the kids and asked us about our family.

And that's the first reason of why we love him....

Rosie was so comfortable that she shoved the camera under his nose and took this photo... "smile!" she demanded of him.
And then there's another reason- he kindly humored our bossy little girl.

 

Then he signed her cute little Power to the Peaceful concert t-shirt.

He even took the time to draw his circle of love person signature on 6 t shirts.

Actually 7 shirts.
Move over babygirl...

Do you know how hard it is to suck in your stomach, squat and not become overly bedazzled and pass out when your favorite musician signs your back?

Yep... I was sweaty, and way far dorkier then typical, even for me... my kids were embarrassed...whatever. They should be used to me by now.

 

Jamie told him that Rosie went nuts whenever she listened to "Shake It" and with that, 

he asked

his tour manager to "bring me an acoustic" and played Rosie her song, modifying the lyrics to "Shake it Little Rosie..." which she loved, of course. 

(Because I was a little bit beside myself- I made the not so great photographic decision to video this on Anna's  phone and didn't get a single photo to post- I stole this off her phone- hence the lousy quality)

Then he played his most popular song-"Say Hey, I Love You"  and you better believe that we all sang the refrain. And he was nice enough to compliment us even though we were all terribly off key.

So, another reason... he lied to us about our collective singing voice and told us we were good.

 

Lily is the biggest Michael Franti and Spearhead fan ever- she rates Michael as her first favorite.  She asked him if he would be singing her favorite song- "Hello, Bonjour"- which is an older song.... he said he would add her request to the setlist.

When he was on stage, he thanked "The Glaskey Family" for coming to the show and spoke a little about his own adoption story. He encouraged anyone who was considering adoption to look deeper into their hearts to see if they could build their family by adopting a child. Then he spoke about how great his mom was to him growing up. Then he played Lily's song and dedicated it to our family.

Cool. 

If you look under Michael's left armpit in this photo- you will see our little rocker Mary, who managed to get on stage after Michael invited up kids and those over 60 years. (another reason, he invites kids and seniors to dance on stage, who else does that?)

Mary hid her curves from security, jumped on stage and rocked out.

She later told us that he had a sheet of paper taped in front of Michael's mike stand that said

"Glaskey Family- Maggie + Karl and 6 kids" 

My family made it as on stage crib notes!

(She said that there were also about 6 signs taped to the floor that said "Pittsburgh" so the band could remember where they were. I like that too.)

Anna, Michael and Mary post show.

 

Ok- so I stopped counting the reasons why we love Michael Franti, but I know there are a lot of them. 

Basically, he is an awesome musician and a good guy.

And he was really really kind to my family for no particular reason.

Please do yourself a favor and buy this album, you will love it.

ttp://michaelfranti.com/media/albums/sound-sunshine

But... if you are looking for his most popular song "Say Hey, I Love You"

super upbeat and fun and chances are you have heard it somewhere already- you will have to go to this album. And if you like that there are many many more albums- he has been making music for 20+ years.

 Enjoy!

http://michaelfranti.com/media/albums/all-rebel-rockers