Best friend/sister/cousin Annie. Della says: “Don’t let anybody trap you. Annie, Della loves you.”

George says: “Boo boo boo, boo boo boo. I love you, bee bee.”

While the grown-ups were relaxing downstairs, the girls were playing quietly in Della’s bedroom.

Della later told me through sobs, “I made it for you!! I thought you would like it! I thought you would think it’s beautiful because it IS beautiful!!”

She was quick to admit it was her idea. She said Annie had some thoughts about how to hide it, “But we couldn’t hide it.” George offered, “Maybe we could hide it with some tape, Mommy.”

It is clear that Della envisions her new life as flush with freedoms. She woke up this morning singing, “No school, no rules!” and “Walter doesn’t have any rules!” 

(POST EDIT: You can actually BUY my very famous, potentially bestselling self-published book here: http://www.blurb.com/b/7057082-the-butterfly-house)

The kids’ last day at the Butterfly House is Wednesday, and the prospect of this is super traumatic for me! I am so traumatized that I had to write a story and commission illustrations to help me process this huge loss. Managing a self-published children’s book project was also a great way to avoid things like packing, etc. The story is whatever, but look at the pictures (!), illustrated by my new best Romanian friend, Diana. Click here to read! (Tip when you get to the story: double click pages to enlarge.)

Steve: Did everybody at school like your outfit?

Della: No. Everybody laughed at me. Everybody thought it was funny. It’s NOT funny.

On Sunday I drove Della and George to Crozet to visit Father Charles. 

Della peppered him with important questions: “Why did Jesus die?” and “Do monks drink apple juice?”

Father Charles treated all of her questions equally.

On the way home, we stopped for ice cream. Father Charles said he would caption this one, “All this and heaven too.”

We found this sea creature off the coast of the Delmarva Peninsula.

Shortly thereafter, Della lost her footing and got all wet. She cried at first, but soon she was remarking cheerfully that some of the water got in her mouth, and it was salty, and it tasted good.

This inspired George to want to get wet also.

Or at least naked.

Here I am again wearing my Canadian Tuxedo. After wasting a lot of time experimenting with different styles and materials of clothing, heretofore I will be rocking nothing but head-to-toe denim.

The next day: sunny.

I would like to dedicate this blog post to a place called Shell We Bounce in Rehoboth, Delaware, for giving us “the best day of our lives,” in the words of Steve. This place is huge, has tons of bounce houses, bounce slides, bounce jungles, bounce obstacle courses, and little red bounce horses. Here we are in the very laid back and accidentally beautiful lobby eating popcorn after an hour of bounce. 

We are away for the weekend while our house stays very clean for the people who might want to stop by and see it and buy it. Would you like to buy our house? We are moving to Utah in search of spiritual renewal such as was recently achieved by these Vice writers. 

For now, we are very much enjoying our rainy weekend in Delaware at Butch’s Beach Cottage, thanks to the kindness of Aunt Jane Prugh.   

Here Della has thoughtfully integrated her princess toys into the beach-themed decor. 
The only scary part so far was this guy. Della was totally scared of him.