From My Sketchbook: Life at 11 & Twilight

I am in the throws of "Skylarcation". My 11 year old cousin, Skylar, is spending the week with us & has opened my eyes to an old phase of life that I hardly remember. Think unbound energy, the desire to be in the mix busy all the time, and being absolutely fearless. I've sat in a fuzzy pink chair while she shopped in a store named Justice, came up with a trillion different ways for her to jump off the lifeguard stand at the pool, judged the jumps (her 360 was the best), watched her tiny 75lb frame devour more food than I thought possible, heard a lot of stories about elementary school & the excitement of moving up to middle school in the fall, and have watched clips of a variety of shows on Nickelodeon.

Despite lots of other planned activities, I think today is going to be her favorite day of all. When she got to Georgia on Sunday her one request for the week was to see the movie Eclipse. I saw the other two movies on video earlier this year and probably would have watched this one when it came out on video, but I must admit I don't dread going to see this in the theater. She's been wearing her "Team Jacob" shirt this week (I accidentally said team edward yesterday & she flipped.... lecturing me on why Jacob was the best) and you would have thought last night was Christmas Eve. So today's the day.

My favorite thing about these movies is the scenery. I long to retreat to a cool damp landscape during the summer and Forks, Washington fits that bill.