Basil’s Little Sister!

The Saathoff (nuclear) family has increased to four terrestrial beings: Papa, Mama, Basil, and Macrina.

As I wrote in an email that went out earlier:

“Contractions began around 4:00am, we made it to the hospital at 6:50am, and the baby girl beat the doctor at 7:30am.

Macrina Brooke weighed 7lbs 6oz, 21 inches.  Very healthy and good at nursing.”

She is named for St Macrina the Younger, sister of St. Basil the Great, and both of her yiayias (Brooke).

- Here is the Life of Macrina, written by her brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa.
- Here is a dialogue written by St. Gregory between himself and Macrina concerning the soul and resurrection.
- Here is a shorter version of her life.

Big brother is a big, big fan, as is everyone else.  Fr. Jonathan stopped by to give a blessing.  All local family have met her, as well.  We look forward to seeing the distant family!  Until then…

   

~Eric

A Joke!

It has been awhile since I posted here.  (Eric may think that’s a bit understated.)  But I’ve decided to make a blog post in honor of Basil making his first joke.  When we’re reading a book about animals, or sometimes when he’s playing with stuffed animals he labels all of them “mon-KEY!”.  When we say he’s silly and tell him the real names he continues with “mon-KEY” until he’s laughing too hard to go on.  This is a very funny joke!

Besides joking Basil has been having lots of fun outside now that summer is truly here.  Here are some photos of a morning at the beach:

There has been indoor fun as well.   One afternoon I stopped dinner prep to check on Basil as usual.  I figured he was watching the elementary school down the block dismiss (a favorite pastime).  Instead, I found him in a box!

Upon interview, the box turned out to be a “bo” on the “wa”.  While he may not have the ending of words down, Basil knows better than to sail alone.  The cat went along for the cruise:

But appears to have been dumped in the “wa”.  Oh well.

The corner of the hammock is visible in these pictures, so I might as well display it in all its glory.  Eric knows how to bargain at a garage sale and he haggled us a very nice spot to rest.

Basil has also recently enjoyed a couple visits to the zoo.  He has been caught at home enlightening the animal kingdom with fine literature.

Today Eric celebrates his last day of school for the year.  He will begin St. Kate’s training full time on Monday, but being a student promises to be much less daunting so it will still qualify as quite a “break”.

Little Patriot is flipping around nicely.  Our doctor’s appointments are weekly now and so far so good with no cervical changes since the surgery!  Tuesday will be 20 weeks, so we’re getting nearer and nearer to when things went downhill with Basil’s gestation, but we’re already in a better place to catch things early and rest as needed.  We’ll get another look at LP next week.

~Elizabeth

900 Miles to the Gallon Machine… It’s Good For The Body and It’s Good For Your Soul, Country Living’s Gonna Make You Whole

The Grain Grinding Song by Leone Hunt

Papou Sam gifted us with a home mill, and we have been building our muscles!

My first bake from home-milled flour was a type of cracker:

The next bake involved home-milled whole wheat sourdough loaves:

We’ve also used our fresh milled flour to make vegan pancakes, vegan banana cake, injera, vegan peanut-butter cookies, pineapple cake, and Elizabeth is currently working on a no-knead bread.

Why so many desserts you might ask (especially during Lent!)?  I will answer this question in a future post.

The mill is great because it will allow us to create a wide variety of our own flours – oat, bean, wheat, rice, corn, etc, as well as the possibility of things like peanut-butter if we are brave enough to risk the mess.  We can choose how fine/course, which has a direct consequence on the resistance while turning.

I’m still reading Peter Reinhart’s book on whole grain baking, but I think it will be a challenge to find a good book that mixes artisan bread baking with home flour milling – his book expects one to use store-bought flour.

My understanding of the benefits:
- Choice of consistency, variety of flours
- Retention of all vitamins, minerals, and fiber of the wheat berry
- Freshest flour
- Ability to depend on long-term wheat storage instead of frequent store trips for four
- Possibility of making peanut-butter, chickpea flour, etc.
- No need to buy a gym membership!

In other news, Papou Chris and I have been putting on fashion shows with Basil:

Strut your stuff, Papou!

Basil really likes the lake that’s only blocks from the house.  It’s still a bit icy, but winter is over!

Basil’s also working on his developing curls.  He has some work to do yet, but what’s there sure is pleasing to the eye:

~Eric

October happened…

and we completely failed to blog!  Oops.  Things have been busy around here in the moving, teaching, learning, cooking, playing, normal-ness of life kind of way.  We’re hopelessly behind in recording the goings-on, and the latest photos are not uploaded, so I may resort to scrolling through iphoto and telling you about the summer.  (I’m also trying to simultaneously supervise Basil’s unpacking of the purse/diaper bag… so we’ll see how this goes.)

Did we mention that we moved to Minnesota?  I guess Eric covered that, but I’m not sure he did a good job emphasizing the 6am hike in Black River Falls, WI on the way here.  Maybe because he slept through it.  Well, it was the best part!

Here are some handsome dudes right before a certain (successful!) interview and after a night of no sleep:

We celebrated Auntie Jude’s birthday on Eric’s first day of class at St. Kate’s:

And finally got some sleep in the (formerly) new digs:

Basil enjoyed his first walk around Lake Harriet, and attempted to lose his sunhat several times along the way which sent poor Yiayia backtracking quite a bit.

We hunkered down at Yiayia and Papou’s during a storm, but didn’t end up needing the basement.  I’m not sure if this pose/expression means “it’s hot out”, “I love my truck”, “give me ice cream” or what exactly…

We played at the park A LOT (I’m sparing you a lot of photos here, it’s hard to pick.)

It wasn’t a summer of all play though.  Papa had school work:

And Basil had pounding:

Me?  Mostly playing.  And constantly restocking the not so mysteriously unloaded cupboards:

And soon it was party time!  Basil got to be with all four of his grandparents on his birthday.  Here he is with his Papous:

He liked the strawberries on top of his cake better than the chocolate.  He looked happier in real life!

We hung out with Yiayia at St.Kates, and a whole lot of water fowl.

And Basil got to meet cousin Amy (one of the cousin Amys!):

Cheerios with AK = best treat ever:

We went to Chicago for Mark and Claire’s wedding, it was fantastic!  And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the only photo I got:

That’s Basil at the reception (post diaper malfunction sending him into non-wedding attire) hiding in the table linens.  It really was an incredibly beautiful, comfortable and fun wedding!  Unfortunately Eric had to leave early to drive through the night for his classes at St. Kate’s.  A baby in a front pack is really not the best dancing partner.  But the Uzbek pop music almost made up for my lack of spouse at the reception.

The next day we got to reunite with a few playgroup pals, spend a great day with Lila

and get Basil’s 12 month check up!  Surprisingly, vaccinations right before flying

was a great idea and Basil slept through the whole flight.  He didn’t cry until we landed and saw Papa.  I wanted Papa to carry the beast of a car seat and I would just take Basil.  No.  He needed Papa, IMMEDIATELY.

We got to see my aunts a couple of times this summer and we’ve spent lots of time at ProYiayia and ProPapou’s.  I particularly like this picture of Great Aunt Katina and Basil.  What fun!

Now we come the part of the summer where the camera stopped working due to high humidity.  Thanks to Yiayia’s camera we do have documentation of AK teaching Basil to smash sand castles.  If he loses all his friends at the beach, we’ll know who to blame!

Speaking of the beach, Basil LOVED it.  He had to be stopped multiple times from crawling in too deep.  It was ridiculously fun to see him experience the water for the first time.  And the look on his face when he saw just how much sand he had to work with was priceless.  (Word to the frugal, don’t spend $13 on a swim diaper like we did.  Put your child in a too-small diaper cover.  Same exact thing.  Or a one-size cover set too small.  That would work too.  The orange fishies are pretty cute though.)

We enjoyed concerts at the bandshell.  This is the Minnesota Pops Orchestra.  You can’t see them?  Oh, neither could we.  The diehard fans had the good seats, but we had the crawling space.

Then Stella came to visit!  (Auntie Katina and Uncle Jeff too).  I guess we already posted this bit of news, but I don’t think we shared that they got to meet some chickens at the bookstore.

Or that Basil is IN LOVE with his auntie:

(though he didn’t set the blackberry down for the kiss, did he…)  Seriously though, when he visits Yiayia and Papou’s he likes to page through a photo album and point out every picture of Katina.    Maybe it’s because she taught him to eat Papou’s BBQ Chicken:

And here’s general adorableness:

We went to the state fair!  I loved it (as usual), Basil thought the animals and cheese curds were pretty neat, and Eric asked if I really think I’ll want to go again next year.  Alas, I married a non-Minnesotan, I guess there is a price to pay.  The sheep barn was a hit:

As was the biggest pig in MN (a record year!):

He was not so impressed by the Princess Kay butter heads:

He did like his own little milk experience outside the dairy building:

And a different type of dairy experience happened several times this summer and was more than a big hit:

Then school started, Eric will have to talk about that.

Basil met Meredith:

We packed.

It was hard work!

We moved.

Basil met Danielle:

It was really wonderful to sandwich stressful moving times with visits from dear friends.  And I think it’s a testament to enduring friendship despite distance when you feel comfortable bringing someone into your home that is either immediately pre or post move.

The first couple of nights in the new house were a little rough in the sleep department:

But we followed with a visit from the Stiffs!  And it was fantastic.

You know it’s a good time when you don’t get any pictures until departure.

So… that’s up to the beginning of October, and now I need to find the camera cord again!

~Elizabeth

Moving 3

BEFORE

Click here for pictures of the house before we made an offer.

Moving 2

Moving

We’re moving again on Friday!  Hmm…

New Church

There are some old subjects to catch up on, and I intend to hit at least a couple of them.

In Chicago we had been going to All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church.  That is where Elizabeth and I were chrismated and where Basil was baptized (not long ago).

We asked for some advice when we moved to Minnesota, but we didn’t get very much.  Lizzy knew of a Greek church in Minneapolis where her elders were still attending, but we thought it would probably be too big and likely too Greek (I still haven’t been yet).

When I thought I would be working at a Montessori school in southwest Minneapolis, we started looking up information about St. Herman’s OCA.  We visited here before I found out where I would be working.  It was a nice, small church of mostly converts to the Orthodox faith.  We enjoyed it and found some similarities with All Saints.  There were other differences – some we liked and others we didn’t.  But it was definitely a place we thought we could stay.

The following week we decided to visit an Orthodox church in St. Paul I’d heard about called Holy Trinity (also OCA).  This church is also small but with more of a mixture of “converts” and “cradles.”  One of the first things noticeable about the church was that it was in a poorer part of the city – lots of boarded up windows and official postings on front doors seen.  The service itself was a beautiful liturgy that was reminiscent of things we appreciated at All Saints.  The choir was at the side in the midst of the congregation, even though there was a balcony that was clearly adequate to house them above the congregants.  Most of the people were singing along with the choir and we felt at home immediately.

Outside the church there are a couple of empty lots next to the building, in which a community organization has developed a wonderful community garden with the church’s permission.

We later read that the land was formerly the site of a crack house which was deeded to the church in exchange for promised bull-dozing and paying of back taxes.

We met Fr. Jonathan at our first visit for vespers, and he gave us the advice to keep visiting all of the Orthodox churches in the city before landing at one.  Someone at coffee hour the next day told us he gave them the same advice which was not followed.

We felt like perhaps we should follow the advice (at least a bit) and visited St. Mary’s, the OCA cathedral in Minneapolis.  I think by this point we knew I had a job in St. Paul and decided to visit this church anyway.  This church had a rich history with connections to multiple saints, but it was also full of pews with a distant choir and a very distant feeling inside.  We are in no place to judge, but our feeling there was as spectators versus the feeling at Holy Trinity – it was simply a place where we wanted to return and worship.

The following Sunday we visited John and Lila in Chicago and have since been attending Holy Trinity in St. Paul.

Fr. Jonathan came over for a pleasant evening so that he could get to know our family better, and we’ve slowly begun meeting people there, though we haven’t established any real friendships yet.  In the future we anticipate moving to St. Paul so that I have a shorter commute and so that it’s easier for us to go to church on a frequent basis.  Holy Trinity has services five days each week, and, of course, we would love to have easier access during busy times like Lent and Holy Week.  Unfortunately, a closer move may not help much in getting to know people as it seems nearly all Orthodox churches these days serve as commuter churches – especially if they’ve remained in a neighborhood after the demographics have changed.

Holy Trinity is likely where we’ll remain.  Come and join us there when you visit.  They recently had some wonderful iconography work done on the inside that’s worth a look even if you don’t like church.

~Eric

Updates?

So there’s a lot to catch up on.
What should we blog about?

Moving to MN?
Getting a new job?
Montessori training?
Finding a new church?
Minneapolis parks?
Grocery store hunting?
My parents visiting?
Basil’s first birthday?
Visiting the Stiffs and the Roosien wedding?
Our second anniversary?
Scooter/bicycle shopping?
Re-Ferberizing Basil?

I guess we’ll have to go one subject at a time or just post up some photos with minimal commentary.  Can’t be living in the past!

Moving to Minnesota was a quick, somewhat stressful process.  Chris and Margie came and took most of our stuff away in a big moving van.  I packed it as high and full as possible.  Then we were left with a few more living items for our last days in Chicago.  I finished up school and we packed the Nissan Versa as fulls as possible without covering up the front seats or smothering Basil in the back.  That left a few items in the apartment.

Our wonderful friends, the Stiffs, would be living temporarily in our apartment during our last days on the lease, and some of those items ended up staying with the Stiffs for various lengths of time.  (Thank you so much)

We wound our way to the Twin Cities – driving through the night.  Why, do you ask, did we do that?  Because I wanted to leave Chicago on the last possible day.  Chicago Public Schools ended on June 18.  My classes started on June 12, and I just got a job interview for June 11.  So, we decided to leave on June 10 after school and drive through the night.  This turned out wonderful, as Basil slept almost the entire way.  I was dead tired, however.

We arrived in Minnesota early in the morning, and I took a bit of a cat-nap before getting myself ready for the interview.  Well, it just so happens that I got the job a couple of weeks later!  This being my second in-person interview ever, I must conclude that either I am a decent interviewee, a lack of sleep is a benefit, or the job is a good fit.

I’ll be working at a montessori magnet school in the St Paul Public School district.  I am doing my Montessori training at St. Catherine University, which I have stated before.  The downside is that my training this summer has been for lower elementary (grades 1-3) and my job will be for upper elementary (grades 4-6).  I’m not technically trained for the job I got – I will be after next summer.  This year I will be struggling, piecing together the work of my job, trying to survive until I can really understand what I’m supposed to be doing.  The advantage, I’m told (if there is any), is that when I do get trained next summer for upper elementary I am really going to be attentive and excited to learn it.  “Oh, this is what I was supposed to be doing for the last 9 months!”

I got to meet some of my kids, though, and they were pleasant and excited to see me.  Everyone at the school is encouraging and excited for me to be there.  The school is beautiful – it is quite a switch from Barton.  It is also very diverse.

White, not Hispanic	37%
Black, not Hispanic	28%
Hispanic	17%
Asian/Pacific Islander	16%
American Indian/Alaskan Native	2%

Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch program  44%

This is much different from Barton’s 99% Black, 99% free or reduced.  I think the diversity will be really refreshing, and I look forward to seeing how this kind of classroom community is different.  The school is also year-round, which I prefer in principle.  After experiencing little breaks throughout the year rather than one big break in the summer, I may change my mind.

One of the best parts about this school is that their mascot is a little child whose clothes are on fire.

I’ve enjoyed much of my training at St. Catherine’s, but I’ve also been a little surprised.  Much of what I read about Montessori at first dealt with the Children’s House level (ages 3-6), and I thought more of the principles would follow through the elementary years.  Many principles do, but some do not, so it looks a little different than I expected.  There are a few other issues that I’m getting through, but I like my instructors and classmates.  We even met a friend who needed a ride to Chicago and who later gave me some of her sourdough starter!  (I left mine with the Stiffs in Chicago TWICE!)

~Eric