October 9, 2009 @ 7:17 pm | Filed under: California landmarks, Family Adventures, Photos
(A photoessay.)
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children's book author
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Rose, 11 yrs
Beanie, 9 yrs
Wonderboy, 6 yrs
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Huck, 1 year old (gasp)
and Scott, the love of my life
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How to Say Goodbye in Robot
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Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?
They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.
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Author and Illustrator Blogs
- Sally Thomas: We Tennessee natives are good at channeling unlikely voices . . . I can’t decide how scary that...
- Sue: I wish that *I* had a “certain exquisite reticence of the flesh!” Sounds good. Sue
- Jen Lynch: Being both a Lovelace fanatic and a Vassar girl I have read the queer little Queed. It is essentially the...
- Sara: I think I’m going to have to download Queed—after I read Carney (which I never have). When the...
- Melissa Wiley: Yes, it seems it was a quirk of my template. The post was set to be a sticky & I didn’t...
- Lauren: It’s been like that since you wrote that post. Love your blog
- Susan: I love the 1 Elvis! Awesome. What wonderful books!
- Kirsten: Also coming out of “lurkdom” because your iPad posts are just cracking me up!! Thanks for all of...
- “Mr. Queed, you are afflicted with a fatal malady. Your cosmos is pure ego.”
- This Week Was
- Dear iPad, Please Don’t Move to Kent
- Journey North Mystery Class
- Rilla-books
- Delicious Links for January 30, 2010
- Dear iPad, I Just Want to Say
- Dear iPad: Me Again
- In Praise of Keyboarding
- Delicious Links for January 27, 2010
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
(from a post called Way Leads on to Way)
meaningful work
imaginative play
good books
beauty (art, music, nature)
ideas to ponder and discuss
prayer
Whence It Came
Nicely done.
Posted on October 9th, 2009 at 8:55 pmHow beautiful! When I think back on many of our days together I’m amazed how much can happen in one day – excursions, play, books, and just so much joy in being together. I love all the different experiences pictured here and all the beauty and happiness.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 2:41 amWow. What an awesome day!
Please keep sharing your sunshine – it’s been dark and rainy here – soon to be dark and snowy!
My favorite is the last one – what a great moment to capture
.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 5:13 amOh, I love those curls! Just darling.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 5:15 amWhat a great day. I just love a photo essay. “Running” was my fav.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 5:32 amSo sweet and lovely. And it makes me want to move to San Diego.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 6:16 amOh the books make me miss our wonderful year last year! What a nice photo essay!
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 6:24 amAw, thanks! Sarah, I love the “running” genre of photos, too—so much so that I went back and added another one this morning.
And a few other shots as well. Even when it’s a photoessay, I can’t stop editing. Huh.
Karen: San Diego really is a wonderland. Balboa Park might be the most beautiful city park in the world. (I haven’t quite visited them *all*, so I can’t say for sure.)
This was our first visit to the Natural History Museum. We’ve visited the Museum of Man and the Art Museum, and some of us have been to the Science Museum but not the older kids. (Jane is dying to go. I’m thinking I might ask for a family membership for Christmas. That’s the one flaw with the Balboa Park museums—there’s no global park membership. They’re all separate, and they’re all expensive. But with a family our size, an annual membership is only ten or fifteen dollars more than a one-time admission (everywhere but the zoo, which costs a zillion dollars), so we have to pick one museum a year to get to know.
Next to the big Museum of Art, there’s a private collection called the Timkin, and that one is free and open to the public. Jane spent some time in there yesterday while the other kids were playing under the trees. I’m hoping to see it myself next time. It’s supposed to be a marvelous collection. We’re studying Dutch Masters at home & there are a few from that genre in the Timkin, including a Bruegel and a Rembrandt. Plus a huge collection of Russian icons. And a Copley, a Benjamin West (it was Jane’s favorite—we’ve been reading up on it this morning and I think it’s a post of its own), and other amazing pieces. I’m pretty excited to get back there—can’t believe I’ve been here three years and haven’t gone yet. (Despite sitting outside it for hours on half a dozen occasions.)
The Botanical Building is one of my favorite places in San Diego. You can probably tell by its ratio of photos above.
And the lily pond outside. Just stunning. And peaceful. Yesterday there was a saxophone player busking, which was the perfect touch. He played the obligatory “Fly Me to the Moon,” just like our friendly sax player in Barcelona, so that was kind of awesome.
A photo I didn’t include was a spiderweb high up in the sky, strung between two trees. Big fat spider in the middle. Fascinated us for a very long time.
There are still probably a dozen museums we haven’t visited yet, and we very definitely need to make one of the free organ concerts.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 6:43 amBeautiful and you make me want to get in the car and go to Balboa Park! The last time we were there was for Girl Scout Bridging last spring. Have you been on the little trail behind the Hospitality Cottages? Palm Canyon Trail, I believe it’s called. Vey easy and the huge tree and it’s monster sized roots at the end are a treat at the end.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 7:56 amBeautiful Glad I came back to see the photos you added.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 10:31 amWhat a lovely, inspiring, celebratory, photo essay! Makes me want to have lots more kids:)
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 12:36 pmyes, a lovely day! do you know about the free Tuesdays at Balboa Park? it’s busy, but because it’s free i never felt like we had to stay all day and see everything.
http://www.balboapark.org/calendar/detail.php?EventID=370
and the white flowers are plumeria i think!
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 2:28 pmI haven’t seen Balboa park in forever! I went to USD my freshman year. Thanks for the flashback. A good day in deed.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 5:31 pmI haven’t seen Balboa park in forever! I went to USD my freshman year. Thanks for the flashback. A good day in deed.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 5:31 pmThe Timken is a special special place. They get some pretty great loaners as well – they had Bosch’s Last Judgment a number of years back…
Posted on October 11th, 2009 at 1:44 pmWe went to Balboa Park on our trip to SD last May, and it was so gorgeous. I’m glad you visit there even if you do live there!
Looks like a lovely day.
Posted on October 11th, 2009 at 5:41 pmthat did look like a ‘good day’ ! Loved the photos, thanks for sharing!
Posted on October 15th, 2009 at 6:49 pmThat last picture makes me want to cry. One of my little boys has special needs. His brother brings things out of him that none of the rest of us can, certain aspects of his personality I don’t think I’d have the privelege of seeing if it weren’t for his brother. I have sisters so I know about sisterhood, but it took having sons to teach me about brotherhood. Thanks for posting these pictures, it seems awfully generous.
Posted on October 15th, 2009 at 8:26 pmoh! Balboa park is just beautiful. I grea up in San Diego and these pictures really make me miss it. I have some treasured photos and memories from that botanical garden as well.
Posted on October 16th, 2009 at 5:02 pmBalboa Park Posts — Here in the Bonny Glen says:
[...] And this month’s photoessay (Natural History Museum, Botanical [...]
Posted on October 20th, 2009 at 7:16 am