Though Avery’s the family comedian, she’s not the only to make funny or wry comments.

Zoe and I were recently talking about our shared interests and I commented how alike we were – “except,” I said, “I talk more.”

“That’s for sure,” she said.

-M

We haven’t seen tons of photos from Zoe’s camp adventures – there’s not great service in the mountains, and the camp director only posted on the blog every few days. She promised that we’d get a link to all the photos shortly – until then, here’s a taste of her time. She looks happy!

-M

Here on the blog, since I haven’t written much lately, it probably doesn’t feel like Zoe was gone for that long. But 2 1/2 weeks felt like a long time – believe me – and we were all very excited to pick her up at the Oakland airport on Sunday!

-M

A few photos from a recent sunny-Saturday trip to Treasure Island. We were without Zoe, but Maddie came along as our fourth!

-M

Things have been so nutty here (lots of work things happening) that I’ve barely had a chance to catch my breath – let alone share here how things have been since Zoe left. Alas, things have been… okay.

As mentioned before, we’ve been without Zoe before but never without the possibility of real-time communication! Stalking both the camp blog and our mailbox became daily occurrences, as we anxiously awaited word on how she was. We finally got updates and knew she was doing well and having fun – but I still felt terribly sad, wishing I could talk with her directly and missing her a lot! We’re very much a family of four – it felt really strange to be missing a piece!

Here’s one thing that made me happy, though. Before we left we told Zoe to give a thumbs up in her photos if she was having fun; our thought was that if the photo was posted before we got a letter, we would know she was okay. Imagine how we felt, then, when we spotted the photo exactly one week after she left: She showed up not one thumb, but two!

-M

We stopped for ice cream while in Sonoma recently, and I was instantly reminded of a classic photo of Zoe and Avery from many years back. (It was a bittersweet memory, really, because the pic was always one of my mom’s favorites.) The girls were game to try to re-create it and, well, we sorta did.

-M

We’ve been away from Zoe before (a trip to Hawaii, a two-night overnight at school, and countless sleepovers) but never have we had no interactive communication with her for this long of a stretch. It’s hard for me, honestly (I really miss her), and all three of us have been anxiously awaiting her first letter.

The letter finally came yesterday! She had written it on her second afternoon there (last Thursday), and she shared her first impressions of camp – which thankfully, are positive! She spent her first day doing bonding activities and unpacking, and she said she’s made a lot of friends. She’s in a cabin with five other 6th and 7th graders, as well as three counselors; she really likes her head counselor, whose name is Sarah. For avodah (work), she’s on kitchen duty: doing set up and clean up for breakfast. And in another communication the camp director said she had taken to helping the younger campers – for example, showing them how to stack their dishes and where to put them after dinner. (Sounds like Zoe!)

I can’t wait to hear more…

-M

Zoe has been ready to go to sleep-away camp for, well, years – but we finally made it happen this summer. We signed her up for a 17-day session at Camp Gilboa, the sister camp to the one that her dad and uncles went to when they were little, and she headed to Big Bear Lake on Wed.

Q flew her (and several other kids from Northern California) down in the morning, and he reported that she was a-okay when they said their good-byes. We haven’t gotten a letter from her or seen any photos of her on the camp blog just yet – but we’re pretty confident she’s having a good time!

-M

A few photos from our recent excursion to Cornerstone, a beautiful outdoor market/garden area in Sonoma… Even Maddie, who posed nicely for a pic on her Instagram, loved it!

-M

Have you heard of Gram Café? It’s a Japanese chain that specializes in fluffy, souffle-like pancakes – and the first one in the U.S. recently opened up by our house. One night earlier this month we got tickets (yes, tickets are required because they routinely sell out of the pancakes), waited for a while and then enjoyed them. The verdict? Pricey, but worth the wait (at least once).

-M

My sister and I bought a memorial bench for our parents this spring, and the four of us saw it for the first time during our visit. The bench is placed in the nature preserve adjacent to their backyard and can be seen from their porch – and along with their names, it contains eight simple words.

Always in our thoughts, forever in our hearts.

-M

Whenever we’re in Madison during the summer, a visit to the UW Union and adjacent Lake Mendota is a must-do. (In the winter, not so much.) This time around we not only spent a warm Sunday afternoon running around the campus but we also spent the next day actually on the lake. Q was the captain of our rented pontoon boat, and Sandy and Cas brought a special guest on board: Bruno! (He even swam a little, to the delight of the girls.)

-M

Three summers ago, my uncle started an annual tradition of hosting a family reunion/picnic at the farm that he, my mom and their two sisters grew up on. (Luckily, my parents were there for that first one.) We made sure that our trip coincided with this year’s reunion – and, so, out to the farm we went a few days after we arrived. It was a little too cool to swim, like we did last year, but the girls once again played with cousins (they had a lot of fun with my cousin Ken’s little boy), ran around the farm and drove some tractors.

“I’m a city girl, not a country girl,” Avery had told us as we were driving through the country and commenting on how rural things were – but you wouldn’t have known it as she happily drove two tractors up and down the driveway. She loved it!

-M

Part of the reason we were so busy during our trip to Madison was because we had two family reunions to attend. First up: The reunion on my dad’s side, where more than two dozen of us met up in nearby (and touristy) Wisconsin Dells. We stayed in Dirty Dancing-like cabins at a resort a few miles from town, swam and hung out a water park, explored downtown, celebrated the 4th of July with two nights of fireworks and sparklers, and had many meals together. (The second-to-last pic is from a classic Dells restaurant – Paul Bunyan’s Cook Chanty – that I went to as a kid with my parents.) It was the quintessential Wisconsin summer get-away!

-M

We just got back from a week-long trip to Madison. It wasn’t really a relaxing trip – we were constantly on the go – but it certainly was a fun one! Here, a few photos from our first few days, which included lots of cousin, Bruno, Sandy and pie time. (One of Zoe’s favorite foods in the world is the strawberry-rhubarb pie at Hubbard Avenue Diner, and of course we had to go there.)

-M