The Haunted Doll House
I’ve written before about the times I built Barbie houses with my father-in-law. The second house we constructed was my daughter’s Barbie Magic Sounds House, which she received the Christmas when she was four. When the holiday celebrations at my in-laws’ that year were over, we brought the house home and placed it in the corner […]
Driving With My Daughter In Maui
Two years ago in late September, my daughter and I took a trip to Maui—a belated celebration of her graduation from law school the year before. She and I have different interests, but we decided Maui offered enough activities for both of us to enjoy. And (at least tacitly) we agreed we could tolerate a […]
Absaroka Ranch, Wyoming: Sight-Seeing on Horseback and a Gift to Myself
I wrote on July 15 about the Oregon emigrants’ experience sight-seeing at Ice Slough in Wyoming. My family has vacationed in the Wind River Range not far from Ice Slough, at Absaroka Ranch. Absaroka Ranch is located outside Dubois, Wyoming, at the headwaters of the Wind River, nestled beneath the Absaroka Mountains. Various Hupp family […]
Hiking in Switzerland and Family Diversity
Fifteen years ago, in July 1998, our family took a hiking vacation in Switzerland. We arranged the trip through Distant Journeys, which sets up self-guided trips for adventuresome souls. My husband and two children qualify as adventuresome, if I do not. We flew to Geneva and took the train to Chamonix, France. The plan was […]
A Picture Is Only Worth a Thousand Words If It Tells a Story
Sometimes I wish I could remember the story behind a picture. As I was searching for a photograph of my toddler daughter and her grandfather for my July 1 post, I came across this picture of my children from about that same year. The photo made me laugh, and I decided it deserved its own […]
Water Sports, Card Games & Airplane Letters
As Memorial Day approaches, I remember long summer days of swimming and waterskiing until we were exhausted, followed by cutthroat card games in the afternoons and evenings. My family rented a cabin on Coeur d’Alene Lake in northern Idaho, beginning when I was thirteen or fourteen, until my parents bought land on the lake and […]
Reunions, Memories, Age, and Wonder
I recently received a notice about my fortieth high school reunion this fall. Fortieth!!! How can it be forty years since I graduated from high school? I still feel seventeen. Well, except when my back hurts. And my knees creak. I remember when I was fifteen and my parents went to their twentieth high school […]
Remembering: It’s What Mothers Do
My daughter chastises me for not documenting her childhood completely in her baby book. She claims I didn’t write as much about her as about her older brother. This week – the week of her birthday as well as of Mother’s Day – I’ve gone back and looked at her baby book. I didn’t do […]
Poetry and Childhood Memories: Plume, by Kathleen Flenniken
I received Plume, a book of poems by Kathleen Flenniken, from my daughter, who bought it for me because the author grew up in Richland, Washington, as I did. The poems in Plume are about Ms. Flenniken’s childhood in Richland and her work experience at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where she spent a few years […]
Humor Amidst the Tears
I wrote on Monday about the tragedies of Alzheimer’s, which are real and heart-wrenching. But there are moments of humor as well. Two of our family’s amusing stories occurred in May 2010, not long after my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Several family members had gathered in New Orleans for my daughter’s graduation from Tulane […]