East, West, I like this house best

I've mentioned having a soft spot for my grandparents home before, but it's worth talking about again.

There is something special about their place. Each summer we'd drive up as a family, not arriving until around midnight, when with a surge of energy I'd run up to whichever room I was assigned to and breathing in deeply. It was the moisture in the air, the open window that I would stick my head out and try to make out the outlines of the lake in the darkness.

I now realize that this magical air was actually a wonderful phenomena called humidity, something that now plagues my life out during the summer. Turns out it wasn't something unique or special, but to a little girl from dry, dry Utah it sure seemed that way.

Sometimes even now there are mornings when we walk to the metro and I take a deep breath, turn to Jeff and smile, "It smells like the Morf's house."

 

When I was growing up the Morfs had a red canoe. Apparently one night someone snuck in and took their canoe, and left this yellow one in its place. They told me this with a little shrug and smile. They still have a canoe, and this one is actually heavier and sturdier (though a little older) so you know. It's fine. I looked nervous here. This is not because we are canoeing. It's because Morfar+my camera+the dock makes me nervous. We enjoyed a nice canoe ride until we saw the enormous dark cloud moving in - moving in fast. We frantically paddled back to the house as fast as we could, ran up to the house where we found my Mormor reading her newpaper out on the deck, and Morfar weeding the garden. They calmly looked up at the cloud when we pointed it out and then resumed their activities. It didn't rain. Foiled by the Washington weather!! Running through the newly-cleaned-out path down to the fire pit by the water.