Letter No. 8: Anmore, British Columbia

Yes, Yes. I'm being slow about updating this. But then, my family did just go through about three weeks' worth of colds and bugs and viruses and everything else. So I'm just fairly thrilled to be able to type these few lines without having to pause and cough for five minutes.

Today's letter brings us our first bit of mail from our neighbors to the north, Canada!

This may be the first time I ever caught an "Oooooh!" on camera.

The card comes from my friend, Kay, and her daughter, Eirene, who live in Anmore, British Columbia. They sent a whole packet that included the gorgeous card pictured above, along with a drawing from Eirene, a letter, and several pictures.

One of the pictures was from the Okanagan Valley, where Eirene and her family sometimes go hiking and camping. They also sent pictures of downtown Vancouver, and of fireworks on Canada Day!

Freja insisted on sending a picture back, and so set to work on her rainbow.

Alas, I forgot to copy down what Freja put in her letter (or told me to put down in her letter, which means that I copied it down... and then forgot to copy it down). So here's her finished rainbow picture instead.

I don't know why all of her rainbows are shaped like mountain peaks. Unless she's actually drawing rainbow mountains and I'm totally thinking along a different wavelength. Also, the small patch of blue sky to the left of the rainbow tells me it must have been cloudy that day.

So thank you Kay and Eirene for your wonderful packet of pictures and cards! We learned a lot about Canada and British Columbia, especially that it's absolutely gorgeous there and that it's now been added onto our ever-growing list of places to visit (which may be one of the great curses of this project).

Letter No. 7: Mifflintown, Pennsylvania

And we finally have a letter from Mifflintown, Pennsylvania!

Mifflintown is a bit of a big deal in our household, since it's where I currently work, where I first took dance lessons at the Margaret McCann School of Dance (many eons ago...), where Freja now takes dance lessons, and where I often go when I take the kids to the library. 

It's a really lovely little town in Juniata County, which - when not covered in ice and snow and the grey, grey cold that is currently smothering the area - tends to look like this:

I know, I know. It's lovely. It's full of farms and little towns and little shops and Amish and I love it.

ANYWAY...

Dani sent a wonderful letter to Freja (who was very excited to receive a letter from a place she's been to before). 

Freja quickly grabbed her colored pencils and writing paper and began dictating her letter in response.

Dear Dani,

Thank you for your letter! I dance in Mifflintown! I play in Mifflintown, too! I like the library in Mifflintown! (Ola: I like the library, too!) I got "How To Train Your Dragon" there, and "Curious George". I like those books.

And I drew a princess for you!

Love, Freja

The princess.

So thank you, Dani, for your great letter! It was wonderful to hear from Mifflintown, which is a place that has been a part of our lives for over twenty years!

Letter No. 6: The Lake District, United Kingdom

Today we look at our second postcard of the project, and our second out-of-states piece of mail, all the way from Jeni as she vacationed in the Lake District, which is located in Northwestern England.

Seriously. Go Google Image Search "The Lake District" and then come back and tell me why you haven't made any plans to vacation there yet. 

Freja loved the postcard, loved the picture, and asked me if she could go swimming in the water once she learns to swim this summer. Hahahaha... ha... ha... erm. (I don't have the heart to tell her that the local public pool is about as far as she's going to get this year.)

No, honey. Not even when you smile so sweetly. Maybe when Mommy wins the lottery we'll all head off to England for a spell. 

So after prying the card from her fingers, we went to the computer and looked up pictures of sheep, and Eurasian Skylarks, and more lovely waterfalls that Freja asked if we could slide down when we go to visit.

*ahem* Yes, Freja. When we go to visit. Sometime in the next *coughcoughmumblecough* years.

We also looked up William Wordsworth, who moved there later in his life and became known as one of the "Lake Poets". (I did not know that!) He even wrote a Guide to the Lakes, which helped to make the region famous.

And then we added a mark to our spiffy new map! Freja insisted on doing it by herself, which meant a lot of standing on the computer desk and FREAKING OUT because she was a whole three feet from the floor while Mommy held her securely around the waist.

So that's three out of seven continents. Not too shabby!

And now, I leave you some wonderful words penned by Wordsworth:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils."

Letter No. 5: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

We've moved on to our first postcard of the project!

This one comes to us from my friend (and former student!) Stephanie, who currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"Oooh, it's a sunset picture!"

I explained that Philadelphia is a big city (much larger than Harrisburg, which is her only experience with large buildings), and we spent several minutes scanning lots of gorgeous views of the city on the trusty ol' Google Image Search (She loved pointing out to me which pictures were daytime shots, sunset, or nighttime). I also told her some of the history of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in general (she's going to have to learn it someday...), and she was truly astonished when I pointed out that Europeans first settled here in the seventeenth century.

"Four hundred years ago? That's craaaazy!"

Then we looked up some of the history of the Liberty Bell, and I asked her if she wanted to draw a picture of a bell.

Freja: No. How about I draw a picture of a flower?

Me: Do you want me to draw a bell?

Freja: Yes! And then I can color it!

I... can't draw. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

So thank you, Steph! And thank you, Philadelphia, for allowing me to give my daughter one of her first history lessons.

Letter No. 4: Gawler, Australia

So not only did we receive our first piece of International mail, but it came to us all the way from Australia! 

Freja is thrilled! Ola... less so.

Heather sent us a little packet of things from Gawler, Australia, including a card, a letter, three pictures, and a page from a street directory.

Heather works at the Gawler Public Library, and sent us pictures not only of the library, but also of the South Para River and a Kookaburra. This then led to us spending too much time (or not enough?) of watching videos of a Kookaburra "laughing":

This also prompted Ola to run around the house shouting, "I'M A KOOKABURRA!" before she squatted down on the floor and began cackling at a high volume. Also, have I mentioned that she's two years old? Yeah, that should probably go in there somewhere. 

After the videos, and the pictures, and the look at the wall map to see just how far away Australia is (compared to Boiling Springs, Carlisle, and Reedsville), Freja sat down to write out her reply:

Dear Heather,

I want to fly on a plane and see where the Kookaburra lives. I want to play outside and hear the Kookaburra laughing at Daddy and Mommy and Ola and me.

I like your library. I want to work in a library, maybe when I grow up, because there are books.

Thank you for your letter and card and pictures!

Love, Freja

1... 2... 3... "AUSTRALIA!!!"

Letter No. 3: Carlisle, Pennsylvania

I have a stack of mail to go through.

No, strike that. Freja has a stack of mail to go through. And letters and postcards keep coming in. And we are SO FAR BEHIND. Far enough behind that only the use of ALL CAPS will get my point across.

So the third piece of mail arrived hot on the heels of the first two, and it was from Nancie Imler, who I know from my Dancing Years (very deserving of capitalization).

First, came the envelope:

PUPPIES! PUPPIES, PUPPIES, PUPPIES!

Paper and envelope glue. The bane of a young child's existence. 

And then, of course, she saw the card inside:

No, Freja. This does not mean you can have a puppy.

No. Clutching the card to your heart in an adorable fashion will not sway me.

Once I could pry the card from her fingers, we went to the computer and looked up all sorts of things. We looked up the town (City? I'm not how large the population has to be before it makes that jump. (Even my Google skills fail me. Apparently, it's a vague area between the two.)) of Carlisle, the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (where I spent almost the entirety of my teenage years), and even Carrie Imler, a principal dancer with the Pacific Northwest Ballet (and also Nancie's extraordinarily talented daughter). 

And after all of that, Freja sat down to pen (pencil? crayon?) her reply, which I failed to photograph (I blame lack of proper sleep, caffeine, and any combination of those two things) but I did copy down her words to repeat here:

Dear Nancie,

Thank you for your card! It has two puppies on it! One puppy opens, two puppies open!

I looked at Carlisle on the computer. It is an old town. It's my favorite place! I liked the dancers because they're dancing. 

I want to come to Carlisle soon!

Love, Freja

I like dancers because they dance, too, Freja. 

Letter No. 2: Reedsville, Pennsylvania

Only a single day after receiving her first piece of mail, Freja got her second card in the mail. This one came from Charlene, the mother of one of my former dance students, and baker of fantastic eatables, who lives in Reedsville, Pennsylvania. (I also learned on this occasion that Reedsville is a census-designated place, something I had never heard of before, but I didn't bother to explain it to Freja, because I doubt her interest in the minutiae of local municipal governments (or the lack thereof)).

The card was bright, and Freja was really not into waiting for me to take pictures of it before I allowed her to open it.

... really, really not into having her picture taken.

Inside was a Halloween card with "a baby spider on it"!

"With a trick-or-treat bucket!"

The next day, we looked up Reedsville online, and Freja really, really liked the pictures of the Amish and horses that we found on a Google Image Search (because growing up in Pennsylvania, she's NEVER seen either of those things before. *ahem*) Then, she sat down to pen her reply to Charlene.

The headband is imperative to writing success.

She also decided to include a drawing of a princess on the back of the letter, because PRINCESS. 

It's a bit boxy up top, but I like the puffy sleeves. 

The finished letter: 

Dear Charlene,

Thank you for the card! There's a spider on it! It opens! The spider has eyelashes! That means it's a girl spider.

I drew a princess for you. I don't know her name. No, it's Rapunzel with a colorful dress. It has four colors. There's pink and purple and red and a darker purple mixed with red. 

Thank you for the card again!

Love, Freja

Yes, thank you, Charlene!

... PRINCESS.