The Deep Forest

Hannah is older now, so we finally let her live out her dream of going exploring in the deep woods.

And she makes the most of it. With the circumspection and care of an archeologist, she extracts rocks and fossils from stone, gathers odd plants and insects, and writes about all of them in the pretty notebook she got for her last birthday.

What she finds, she brings to the groundkeepers as soon as we get home. They pat her back and tell her she found wonders, and that she can keep them. To us, they whisper that though the fossils she found were genuine, they’re not exactly rare around the forest.

There is one mystery she leaves unexplored, and that’s only because she knows getting into a mysterious hole in the trees as night is about to fall would earn her the punishment of a lifetime from us.

But she swears she’ll be back.

Meet the Twins!

Twin Birthdays!

Cyril and Cleo are no longer babies. They celebrate their seventh birthday during our time in Granite Falls. Hugo and I spent the morning preparing two huge cakes for our babies, and Hannah helped decorate the yard.

Everything is ready for the party!

It’s a peaceful day. All the other tourists have gon hiking, so we have the place to ourselves, as a private little family.

Cyril is not all too sure about this whole situation, but he was born a full ten minutes before his sister, so we make him blow the candles first.

His sister dances in the background, happy that it’s almost her turn.

I do help him a little with the blowing. He still has tiny lungs.

Yay! You’re a big boy now!

I blow a celebratory horn — everybody has started eating the cake and no one really cares. Oh well, I still will.

Hannah is not eating, though. There are other candles to blow after all.

“Cleo?” she calls. “Mom, where is Cleo?”

“It’s fine, Hugo says. She says she wanted to tell her stuffed animals that she was getting older. I’ll go get her.”

“There’s the little gremlin”

Happy birthday, darlings!

Afternoon

The chimney had an issue that prevented it from lighting up. We’re in the middle of summer, but we’re also very high up in the mountains, and everything is more comfy with crackling flames.

Around snack time for Cyril and Cleo, they each get a slice of the pie I baked this morning.

And I read by the fire.

Hannah said she was too old for snack time, now. Instead she went outside to fish with her dad.

She’s getting really good at it! We heard for days about the “treasure chest” she reeled in. It had three apples in it, but it was an absolute win anyway.

Learning to Fish

Hugo continues the work he started a few years earlier of teaching Hannah how to catch fish.

She’s now mostly able to throw the line on her own — and she even reels one in!

Later that night, Hugo spends a full hour before sleep telling me about her fishing exploits.

I’m pretty sure that’s Hugo’s idea of a perfect day.

Wrestling the Kids

Kids will be kids, and today they are not fully willing to cooperate in our plans to get them to eat at the table.

Nounou wants nothing to do with that.

Gotta love them.

Skateboarding

Last time Hannah was here, she blasted off on a small electric bike. We’re not about to buy her a full-sized bike now that she’s older, so instead, she gets a skateboard this time.

Hugo teaches her the basics — though to me he reveals that he hasn’t done any skateboard since he was Hannah’s age — and then when Cleo asks for a turn on the board, he teaches her as well. Hannah leaves her place gracefully to go hug her curious but timid brother.

I just watch from afar.

A Whispered Argument

The twins are in bed and once they’re fast asleep, Hugo tells me we need to talk. And we engage in the most discrete argument ever. We don’t want to wake them up, but we also don’t want to turn it into a full-blown fight by going into another room.

“How could you let her stay outside so late?”, Hugo whispers angrily. ”Don’t you care at all what could have happened to her?”

“I don’t care about what happens to Hannah? Where were you, Hugo?”

“Out with Cyril! You were supposed to look after the girls!”

“Look Hugo, she is ten, not six, and she is fine.”

“EXACTLY. She is ten, and you let her stay in the forest at night, and I had no idea!”

“…”

“Okay, darling. You’re right. She’s a big girl, but better safe than sorry.

The Budding Explorer

Hannah is not afraid of anything, and certainly not of sticking her hand in a tree stump to go look for frogs. She’s a San Myshuno gal who’s barely ever seen a frog in real life, but that’s most certainly not stopping her, quite the opposite. She catches them, and she gently studies them, and then she brings them all to me — why — and tells me all about the differences she’s noticed between them.

She’s found her summer activity, and she’s really happy about it. All thoughts of grades, and ununderstanding teachers, and Math, fade away.

She doesn’t stop at frogs either. Like a budding entomologist, she catches most bugs she lays her eyes on — at least when she’s fast enough?

Being fast enough makes her pretty proud of herself.

She spends all of her first day in Granite Falls doing this. Digging through odd rock formations, finding fossils, catching bugs…

Well until the sun has set, and into the night.

Then she returns home and tells me absolutely all about it. Everything she found, how much she enjoyed this, and all that she plans on doing the next day. Apparently that involves venturing into deeper woods. I choose not to tell her about the legend of the Hermit of Granite FAlls ebcause I have a hunch she would go on a quest to find him alone.

But now it’s time for bed. She changes into her nightgown, still blabbering about frogs and ladybugs.

But she’s exhausted, and as soon as her head hits the pillows, she falls asleep.

It’s her sister’s turn to get to bed. They are sleeping in adjacent rooms.

So that as I’m putting Cleo to sleep, I hear that Hannah woke up, and is now telling her favorite cat plushy about the wonderful day she had.

Summer Break

The end of the school year rolls in, and we head back to our favorite holiday destination. Just like with Hannah before them, we want to make sure that the twins get used early to greenery replacing cement.

Hannah is bummed. Her grades are bad, she’s going to have to repeat a year. She’s a straight-A student… in the only two subjects that she has an interest in, History and Geography. In these two, her young passion burns bright and fierce. Unfortunately, they’re not enough to bring her average up.

My little one tells me she feels too stupid to understand Math, or French, or Biology, but I’m not about to let that happen.

Hannah darling, you’re a beautiful person with an incredible brain, and an amazing drive. I’m not about to be the teeniest bit less proud of you for not following exactly in school’s grand plan for you.

Cleo is entirely done with this conversation — she’s not even a kindergartener yet, an average is very much a foreign concept for her — and she opens the way into the lodge, after Hugo and Cyril.

As an attempt to cheer Hannah up, I start reading her one of her favorite stories.

It involves Mayan mummies and hidden treasures, and though she knows every word by heart, Hannah is enthralled.

Cleo is not, though. If anything she’s captivated by her MySims game.

Hugo is outside playing with the twins, so Hannah and I eat our fruit salad together — well, with Nounou.

She’s still preoccupied, so I suggest she takes a walk to clear her head.

Reluctantly she agrees, and at first the effects are not obvious.

But slowly, the Granite Falls peacefulness and the mountain air win over her worry, and I can tell she’s merry again.

And this is when Hannah starts what would become a life-long passion for her.

She goes exploring.

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