Death to Ivy

We just got to spend a few days with Nana and Pop thanks to Hope's graduation from law school. This was such a great time, because it's so great to be around all of them, and it's so good to be back in Virginia. Flying in over all that green after the plane change in Philadelphia...it just does something to me. It's calming.

Then there's the mosquitoes.

For the most part it's great though. The quality time with family truly rocks, as does the quality time with family dogs. One of the truly cool things about this trip has been watching Kiernan totally get into hanging out with Nana and Pop's dogs, Holmes and Rapha. Especially Holmes, the more indoor of the two dogs. Holmes is an extremely affectionate Shepherd/Rottweiller/Whatever mix. In the past Kiernan has showed trepidation around dogs. This visit seems to have broken him of this. The first thing he wanted to do each morning was go to the door and let Holmes in the house; he would then spend the day lavishing attention upon and playing with the dog. This was a great thing to see.

Monday, once I eventually got up, we (me, Nana, Kiernan, and Holmes) went for a walk in the old neighborhood. This did me a lot of good, being out in green Virginia. There's a weight to the woods here that feels different than California. Something Wendy described as beautiful when we were driving down to Mom's house. Kiernan looked out the car window and said, simply, "I think it's creepy."

Different strokes, as they say.

As we started down Mom's long driveway for our walk, she spoke of her gardening plans. She told Kiernan that she wanted to do some planting with him, since they'd had fun gardening the last time he visited, but first they would have to kill a bunch of ivy.

"Kill ivy," he repeated.

Seemed innocuous at the time, but these two words would become something of a mantra in the days to come. Every time we left the house Kiernan would utter these words either alone or as some part of a request. What can I say, he's into super hero battles right now. And my mom clearly presented ivy as a nemesis to be vanquished.

This morning the two of them got around to putting the hurt on some of the driveway ivy, so our story has a happy ending. What's happier is that they followed up the destruction by planting some new plants, so Kiernan sees that there is a flip-side to the world-rending power that gardeners wield. Thanks to Nana he may still be a force for good in this world.

After planting and watering the new plants the three of us all got to go out on the creek in the kayaks. Kiernan sat with me in the red kayak and did his best not to turn the thing over--sort of--while Mom took the blue kayak and acted as tour guide. We loved this part of the day, and hope to do that again for even longer next time we visit.