HannaPalooza

Taking NYC by storm!

2011-04-19T13:06:00.003-04:00

Grandmommy picked up Jessica on Friday night for their big London Adventure!

Justin and I decided to have our own mini-adventure while they were gone. We headed out to NYC on Sunday morning. We decided to take the train down- which was very easy and enjoyable. Then we had to take the Subway to our hotel- here is Justin just outside the yellow zone of danger- but he really liked to keep a toe or two inside the yellow zone of danger.

Here is our little hotel room. We got a great deal on Hotwire.com, it was small but in a great location.
See? There is Radio City Music Hall and way down there you can see the theater for Wicked.
Our first stop was Nintendo World. Our hotel was only 2 blocks away from this fabulous place and Justin has been asking to go back since he was first there almost 2 years ago. He REALLY wanted a Luigi hat to go with his Mario hat but sadly they are no longer selling that item. We played some Donkey Kong Country Returns and a little of the new Kirby game.
And he bought a Mario too..
Then we headed to Times Square- after our lunch of pasta a Sbarro- just like Michael Scott. We went to M&M world and Justin really like that. Maybe because I got suckered into paying WAY too much for some M&Ms.

Next stop Toys R Us. We did ride the Ferris Wheel that is inside the store and got this cute pic- taken by the young girl who was riding with us.
Our hotel offered free bottles of water- which we thought was cool. You grab an empty bottle and then you fill it yourself- and refill it yourself.

We went to dinner at Pasta Lovers! I restaurant made for Justin.

Monday morning we headed out to go to the Museum of Natural History- but window washers were quite facinating.
We took the subway again. Justin loves spinning around the pole in the middle- well until he noticed that the gentleman next to me was playing some game on his phone....

We got to the museum at 9:40 but it didn't open until 10 so we went across the street to Central Park to play around. And this is where Justin's cooperation and interest in posed pictures began. woo hoo!

Then we went into the museum. This was Justin's idea- he wanted it to look like he was holding up the exhibit.

Then we went to go see Dum Dum from the Night at the Museum movie. We did not bring him gum gum.

After we left the museum we headed into the Park. It was a such a beautiful day and the park is just gorgeous and so many people were out. Justin had to go to the bathroom so we were consulting the map to find a restroom, when one of those bike guys came up and offered us a ride. Justin jumped in and then the guy announced that it would only cost $7. Justin was shocked that we would have to pay someone. We agreed and I jumped in too- it was a quick ride but a nice way to see the park.

We continued our walk across the park towards the Central Park Zoo. We stopped for a Spongebob frozen treat from an ice cream cart. We came upon the statue of Balto. Justin knows that Jessica loves the story of Balto- so he wanted to have his picture taken here as well.
[notice how weird Justin's pants look? it seems he put them on backwards that day.]
We got to the Zoo and decided to go to the Children's Zoo first- which was a bit of a playground and a bit of a petting zoo. Justin wanted his picture taken EVERYWHERE- this is only a small sampling of the pictures I took. I think this might be one of my favorites.

Finally we left the Children's Zoo and headed to the real zoo. Justin took this picture of me!

Justin took this picture of one of the see lions.

Justin in the Penguin Exhibit.
I just love this image- the zoo and park right in the middle of this incredible city.

On our way back to the hotel we came across this bizarre sculpture. While officially unnamed it had the name (teddy bear/ lamp) next to the title- yeah. But someone wanted to pose!

Here we are at Penn Station waiting for them to announce from what track our train would be departing.
We had a good time. But there are a lot of Don'ts in the city. Don't run ahead. Don't touch everything in sight (like running your hand along every building, car, pole etc). Don't talk to everyone and share your inappropriate opinions (you know like telling strangers they shouldn't smoke). He really liked hanging in the hotel and watching Dora at night. I would say M&M world and the Zoo were his two favorite things we did.

But he is back in school for 3 days this week!

Jessica is home sick...

2011-03-29T14:47:00.000-04:00

... and Buddy is thrilled!

The Invertebrate Fashion Show

2011-03-29T14:32:00.002-04:00

Ok, I lied- oops forgot about these pictures. Jessica's science teacher- whom she ADORES- had the kids each create a costume for the invertebrate lesson. They were only allowed to spend $5 on their costume, and mostly try to use stuff from around the house. Once they were complete they invited the parents to come see their Invertebrate Fashion Show. Jessica chose the Portuguese Man O War Jellyfish- click here to see what one looks like.

Most of the Jellyfish chose to use an umbrella (wow that would have been SO MUCH easier). When I asked Jessica why we didn't go the umbrella route she said, "everybody does that!" Later when the whole fourth grade did a the fashion show for the fifth grade Jessica came home and said she was so glad she did not do the umbrella idea. Kudos to Jessica for not taking the easy way out and for taking pride in her project.

Jessica's 10th Birthday

2011-03-28T08:01:00.004-04:00

As many of you know Jessica is a HUGE Harry Potter fan. This year for her birthday we decided to do a Harry Potter theme party. When we sent out the invitations we included some questions from the Sorting Hat so that we could figure out in which houses each of the girls belonged. Jessica had a lot of ideas for the party so we took some of her ideas and I included some of my own so that she would be surprised.

We collected some sticks and then spray painted them with paint and added glitter so every girl got to choose her own wand. Here they all are- just waiting to be chosen.

Our Sorting Hat waiting patiently for students to sort into the houses.

Our great feast was set.
Each place had a cake waiting to be decorated.
We made pretzel wands!
We made our own carmel corn.
And then we had to wait for our friends to arrive.... that was SO HARD!
Upon arrival each girl had to sit on the stool and put on the sorting hat. Justin was still here at that point so every time each girl put on the hat he would say, "hmmm VERY interesting". A few of the girls were borderline between two houses so the hat let them decide which house they wanted. We ended up with 2 Ravenclaw- Jessica and Katelyn, 2 Hufflepuff- Neve and Cailin and 2 Gryffindor- Addie and Gabby. They were dived up into 2 teams. Each girl was a given a sticker to wear with her house crest. After being sorted each girl had to choose her wand.

Once they all arrived it was time to follow our schedule. Our first class was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Since the weather was fairly nice and since Jessica never gets to do this for her birthdays, we used the water balloon launcher to attack Dark Wizards. They earned gold galleons depending on how well they shot the water balloons. They also received gold galleons for all the balloon remnants they collected and returned to me. [of course Jen joked that it doesn't matter what we call it we will always find a way to work in the water balloon launcher- so true.]

After Defense Against the Dark Arts the girls unfortunately received a detention from Mr Filch and they had to go into the forbidden forest with Hagrid. Here they all are before they reported to Hagrid.

Hagrid has a weakness for Dragons eggs and as luck would have it there were a ton of Dragons eggs hidden in the forest for them to collect. Each team was allowed to keep the treasure inside the eggs (Harry Potter themed silly bandz and more gold galleons) but Hagrid wanted the eggs!

After all the eggs were collected we headed inside for Divination. I told the girls that like Professor Trelawney I could tell their future by the beverage they drink. But I don't read tea leaves. Each girl chose a cup. I poured Sprite into each cup. If the drink changed to Yellow- then happiness was in their future. If the drink turned Green- money was coming their way. If the drink turned Blue- they would be successful at school. BUT if the drink turned Red- LOVE was on its way- and this one got the most screams of horror!!

After the futures were secure they needed to guess how many Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans I had in a glass. (then later they dared each other to eat the gross ones like ketchup and onion).
After Divination we had Muggle Studies. For this class we played one of my favorite party games when I was a young Muggle. It involves a BIG Hershey bar, hat, mittens, scarf, dice and a plastic fork and knife. The amusing things is that muggles these days all want their own plastic fork and do not want to share a plastic fork with others- have to say it did not occur to us at all in "my day". The girls had never played it before and they LOVED it! Much screaming and hysteria.

Then it was time for Care of Magical Creatures. This was our most complicated game. One girl from each team searched the TV room for hidden magical creatures- snakes and spiders. They passed off their loot to another member that traded them in for gold galleons. They took their galleons to Gringotts and the head goblin (Marc) and he exchanged their galleons for envelopes which contained the pieces of the puzzle they would need to solve. The winner of this game would win the House Cup!

The winning team placing the final letters in the puzzle- "Dragons are not pets".

The losing team without one letter placed....
After Care of Magical Creatures we headed to Potions where we made Butterbeer. Cream Soda which Butterscotch sauce stirred in, and whipped cream on top.

After Potions we headed to The great feast and celebration! Jessica opened her presents. Then I had to give the girls the bad news that Hermione Granger had been working for House Elves rights again and now they were on strike and the girls had to all decorate their own birthday cakes for the feast. They squealed with delight and ran to the table.
Calin and her smiley face cake.
Then she added pimples...

Addie casting a spell upon her cake.
Not sure what happened here....

All in all it was SUPER fun and everyone had a great time- especially Jessica. It is often said that Mom's seem to be competitive about B-day parties always trying to one up each other. I haven't really found that to be the case- most people just go to the standard locations. Dee and I were joking that the only Mom I seem to be competing with is myself! I know that Jessica really liked Justin's survivor party last year so I was trying to give her something similar. In the end Jessica had a great time and LOVED it.

And with that folks I am all caught up- didn't think I could do it did you???

Camp Jewell Winter Family Camp

2011-03-25T21:08:00.003-04:00

We decided to go back to Winter Family Camp at Camp Jewell this year. We had so much fun last year that we were able to recruit some more families to join us this year- and we got a second cabin. Last year there were so many boys that Jessica was a little left out so I told her she could bring a friend with her this year and she chose Addie, of course once Justin heard Addie was coming he insisted we invite Miles as well. Many of you know that two kids is often more than I can handle so why would I voluntarily bring double the number of kids? especially when Marc stays home. Well the truth is that both of those kids get along so well with my kids that it actually made my job so much easier. Do you know what else made my job easier? My friend Jen came with her two girls too so we would often divide the kids up into two groups and head out. The Deweys came too and stayed with us- we all had a great time.

The first morning Jen took the older girls cross country skiing (Kim has those pictures- ahem KIM!). I had Justin, Miles and Lauren. We decided to head up to target sports and stop at the secret playground on our way. This picture makes me laugh. To get to the secret playground you have to go up the Cabin 1 hill- this is a very steep hill and the main reason why I never reserve cabin 1 or 2 when we stay at Jewell. About 3/4 of the way up Lauren and Miles asked for a break. So this is their pathetic I am so tired face, Justin ran back down to show that he was not tired at all.

We played for a little bit on the playground which was very fun in the snow. At one point Miles was on one side of the set and saying, "somebody come here" over and over. I finally told him that the other kids were on the slide and not coming. Then he paused and said, "somebody with a camera come here" that made me laugh. He wanted me to take his picture, and so I did.

So we get to target sports and they are doing archery. Lauren starts to get a little whiney. She doesn't want to do archery. So we talk about compromises and we will do what she wants next.
Since we were the only ones at archery I suggested that Lauren just give it a shot. The kid was a natural- here she is next to all the shots she took without ANY help. Cracks me up.

Then we headed out to do some broomball and meet up with the girls when they returned from skiing. Rumor has it that Addie fell down no less than 12 times, possibly more. She had the best attitude just laughed and kept getting back up and even told me that Cross Country skiing was Awesome!
Tubing is always popular!

here is a video Jessica took while she went down on the tube:

The boys and I headed back up to do BB guns- showing off their mad skills:

In the afternoon we all headed to Arts and Crafts together. Mike and Joey humoring me.

Back to broomball. Kim showing off her I-guess-I-will-be-a-good-mother-and-buy-my-own-ski-helmet helmet. You can't see but there is a fabulous flower on the helmet that matches her coat.

The first night of Family Camp is always a campfire and you just can't stop our kids from performing. I think Miles and Justin's dance was seriously the funniest thing I have seen in a LONG time!

I don't think this picture worked- but this is a shot of all of our mittens and boots hanging out by the fire at night.

The next morning Miles decided he wanted to go Cross Country skiing. Jessica wanted to go too. I would have loved to go but I felt bad asking Jen to take all the rest of the kids especially since the chances they would all want to do the same things was next to nil. Kim mentioned that Mike was going to give it a shot. I am sure Mike thought he was going to have a nice kid free period but sadly I rained on his parade. I knew Jessica wouldn't be an issue and she would lead the pack- she loves Cross Country skiing- but I just wasn't sure how Miles would do. So Mike agreed to stick with Miles.

I really owe Mike one- because as you can see this meant that Mike was in the caboose. Miles did great and didn't want to quit but it was slow going. Not to mention the field was in horrible shape to ski on. Mike reports that they did not get very far on the lake when Miles said he was missing Justin and they turned around- thanks Mike!

Jen and I decided to switch things up that day so she took Justin and Miles for the morning and I took the 3 other girls. The girls and the Dewey boys decided to go ice fishing so Kim and I headed out to the lake with our poles and bait. A boy with our group in the other cabin had caught a fish the day before and they were convinced they would be able to as well.
Then the reality hit- ice fishing is boring. Especially when there is only one hole and all your lines get tangled up. Joey and Lauren decided that snow angels were more fun.

Once Jessica rejoined us we headed to Arts & Crafts to do candles. This is one of the few times I actually ran into Michelle besides meals. She LOVES candles and was quite the little helper- good job Michelle!

Then we headed to the Dining Hall for some Hot Cocoa! Love that it is available ALL THE TIME! They even had whip cream and sprinkles out- yummmm!
Want to know what Jen and the boys did? A lot of this- Justin and Miles loved just playing with the legos in the Dining Hall. I can't tell you how much fun these two had together! Jen admits to getting a little bored after she read every sign and poster in the dining hall.

That night was the Dutch Auction. Our group split into two teams of 6. Amusingly Justin and Miles were with the 4 parents and the other 6 kids were all together. They did great and didn't need much help from us. This is one of the first tasks. We had to use all of our boots and build the highest free standing tower- we won.

Then we had to submit one boot that thought smelled the worst. Here is Kim checking them all out. We submitted Justin's boot- which Mike claimed was just nasty. Mike was shocked when the staff smelled Justin's boot and said it wasn't bad at all- imagine just how bad the "winning" boot smelled?

This is one of the last challenges. You had to drink an entire carton of milk and then without using your hands fit the whole carton into your mouth- as you can see neither of our teams won.

Here are the two peas in a pod- every morning.
Needless to say we had a FABULOUS time! I was not as exhausted as I had been in the past. We will totally go back next year and maybe we can add some more cabins to our group!

Shrek the Musical!

2011-03-25T20:59:00.003-04:00

Becky gave us the soundtrack to Shrek the Musical last summer and we all fell in love. Jessica loved it so much that she brought it with her when she went to visit Grandmommy and Grandmommy loved it too. So when tickets went on sale in August for the show that was coming to Hartford in February we sent Grandmommy out to buy us all tickets. FINALLY the day came and we met up with Becky and her kids and her mom too. The show did not disappoint and we all loved it. Justin even did fairly well sitting through the whole show. None of us realized that Grandmommy had never seen the movie Shrek, and found it quite amusing when she was so surprised that Fiona turned into an Ogre.

A little photo shoot

2011-03-24T12:35:00.002-04:00

I had bought this coat awhile ago with an idea for a photo shoot with Jessica. Then I forgot about it. Then I found it. Then it was really cold. Then I bribed her and voila! Unfortunately the setting sun was very strong so her hair looks very red, oh well.
I think it was in this photo that Jessica said her hair looked like a Weasley's (from Harry Potter).

Not what I had originally had in mind but still nice pictures.

Snow Day fun.

2011-03-24T12:31:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite things to do on a snow day is bake and cook all day. I believe on this particular day Jessica had spent the night at her friend Gabby's house so it was just Justin and I. We decided to make some cookies. I believe they were chocolate with peanut butter chips.

This is the tray I put together....
And this is the one that Justin made.

Good news- they were both very yummy!

February Snows

2011-03-24T12:22:00.003-04:00

February brought... well February brought more snow! Here are some pictures I took when the snow was at it's peak. Many people were in a panic to rake off the snow from their roofs. Marc pulled our roof rake out and he could only get to the two lower roofs- so we crossed our fingers and luckily our house is very soundly built- phew.

The very skinny passage to our front door.
From the front door.
The big sledding hill.
The walkway to the back door- mostly for Buddy.
These are the largest Snow Blower things I have ever seen! They were sent out to try to reclaim the streets a few times. With all the plowing many streets were getting very tight.
Note: the machine was not at all blowing our area- in fact ignored the circle of the cul de sac entirely- not sure why we could have used a little widening.
Sunset in Winter.

Swim Championships!

2011-03-24T11:17:00.002-04:00

Jessica swam again in the Winter Season. The winter season is more popular than the summer season. She really really enjoys swimming. She is not the fastest swimmer on her team but that doesn't matter. She consistently beats her own best time which is fabulous- and earns her a new ribbon every time she succeeds.

Here is Coach Tim giving his pep talk. I asked Jessica what he said and she reports he said, "the key word is Explosion!" Well the Falcons won the championships AGAIN- so I guess his pep talks work.

This series amusing me- Jessica chews on her fingers- ALL THE TIME! It makes me crazy. So here she is waiting for her chance to warm up.
Then she sees me and waves...
Then she takes her fingers out of her mouth.

Here she is just before one of her races.

She raced in two events and beat her best time in both of them- a great day.

My Helpers!

2011-03-24T11:12:00.002-04:00

I decided it was time to start working on our Master Bath update. Justin and Jessica wanted to help rip off the top layer of wallpaper.

They were doing a good job helping but being next to our big jacuzzi tub was just too inviting. So they put on their swimsuits and jumped in and made a huge bubble bath.

January

2011-03-24T10:50:00.003-04:00

January brought... well it brought lots of snow! And more snow! and many snow days. Dee came over one day to enjoy our sled runs in the front yard.

January also brought Justin's interest in reading. He got a few Elephant and Piggie books at Christmas and loved them. One day we went to the library and checked out EVERY elephant and piggie book they had that we didn't already own. I found him like this on more than one night....

After one of our MANY snow days we decided to end the day with ice cream sundaes!

Week after Christmas

2011-03-24T10:05:00.003-04:00

The day after Christmas we got our first big snow storm of the season. We were very excited to get out and play (yet did we know how much more snow the season would be bringing).

We ran our sled run into the street in the beginning of the season- before we were able to create a huge bank at the end of the yard.

Marc took the entire week off after Christmas. He decided to take Jessica downhill skiing for the first time. Marc enjoyed downhill skiing growing up- me not so much. Jessica was very excited!
She had a few ups and downs but in the end she loved it. They went a few times this season and by the end she was very comfortable on the ski lift and going down the bigger runs. She can't wait for next year.

Christmas!

2011-03-16T09:21:00.002-04:00

This year all of the Hannas came up to our house for Christmas. As per my usual I took very few pictures during the holiday- shocking! As most of you know it is our (Marc and I) tradition to have chocolate cake for breakfast on Christmas. But with company I had totally forgotten to make the cake. I remembered at 11pm at night on Christmas Eve! Ack! I quickly made the cake- nothing too special.

This is the only (almost) group shot I got- breakfast on Christmas morning.

Jessica and Justin battling with bey blades!
Meg and I in our Christmas finest enjoying our morning mimosas.

Pre Christmas Activities

2011-03-16T08:31:00.003-04:00

December brings lots of fun activities. This year Marc and I decided to go and cut down our own Christmas Tree instead of going to a lot. We envisioned this wonderful experience. But... as with everything the vision and the reality did not quite match. Truly the kids were not that interested in finding the perfect tree- they did enjoy picking up the various bows on the ground and sword fighting. We found a tree we liked and we didn't want to lose track of it- so we left Jessica in charge of guarding our chosen one while we continued looking around.

We ended up going with that tree in the end.

And this is what Justin did most of the time.
Later that day Mimi came up to build Gingerbread houses with the kids. She does this every year and they very much enjoy it.

The next day was Cookie Day- the day I go and bake cookies with my friends to share during the holidays. Marc gets annoyed because I never come home with any cookies he likes. This year when I was away he and the kids had their own Christmas treat making day. They saw these reindeer cupcakes in Family Fun magazine and decided to make their own. They came out really good!

Marc brought his 8 to work. Jessica shared hers with a friend. But when Justin tried to eat one of his he cried and quickly fixed it. I don't think his were ever eaten he couldn't bear it.

Thanksgiving!

2011-03-03T13:18:00.002-05:00

That's right folks from Halloween to Thanksgiving! These would be the only pictures we took all month! I hosted T-giving this year. We invited the Odells to come over- Becky's parents were going to try to join us as well but unfortunately couldn't make it. Grandmommy, Grandma Sara and Big Andrew also joined us. Marc and I spent no less than an hour measuring our various tables and drawing up different diagrams to find a way to fit us all around the same "table". We did it!

I swear I invited Andrews for reasons other than to have him carve but since he was there....

Emma and I were wearing the same outfit (I am so sure she was horrified but she humored me). Um, yes 11 year old Emma now practically towers over me- sigh.

October in a Nutshell

2011-03-03T12:50:00.003-05:00

Well October is when I start getting SUPER BUSY with work so my personal pictures tend to decline- which is why I can put all of October into one post. I was able to take the kids to the CT Renaissance Festival on Columbus day- it is such a fun day. We are totally going again in April. We spend the entire day outside, watching shows and being entertained!

Justin tried ice skating at Miles' birthday party. The fact that he actually tried impressed me. The fact that the stuck with it for the whole party was a miracle.

Marc took the kids to a pumpkin patch and did all the pumpkin patch stuff.

Justin carved his own pumpkin- pretty sure the rest of us did too- but I don't seem to have photographed that at all.

A few weeks before Halloween I picked up two singing Xmas hats. Justin then decided he wanted to be an elf for Halloween. Marc had reservations, but when Justin makes up his mind HE MAKES UP HIS MIND. We made his costume together and he chose the decorations- thus the random pom pom on the shirt. This picture was taken at the school costume parade. He got so excited when he saw me and immediately turned on his hat!

Jessica, my Harry Potter fan, was Hermione for Halloween. I was quite proud of the hair. After she showered the night before I put her hair into 6 cornrow style braids and she slept in that. We took the braids out just before we went trick or treating.

We had so much fun trick or treating with a big group of friends this year.

And there it is- October!

The Big E

2011-02-14T09:26:00.002-05:00

There is a big fair that happens here every year called the Big E. It runs for 2 weeks in September. Every year I pick the kids up early from school and bring them to the Big E. The first few years we would run into the D family. After awhile it became tradition and we tried to coordinate our schedules to go at the same time so we could be together. It works well for me since Jessica likes to do the roller coaster rides and Justin does not- this way she has someone with whom to go on the rides. Unfortunately my trip to Scotland was during the second week and the D family could not make it during the first week. So I gave the kids a choice. They could go with me on a gorgeous weather day but without their friends or they could go next week with their friends and Daddy, but who knows about the weather. Well I got dissed. Actually they tried to arrange a deal where they could go with me the first week and go again the next week too. Marc agreed to pick them up early and go to the Big E. This is a big deal because Marc is not a big fan of the Big E and would be happy to never go again. But he agreed. Unfortunately the weather was awful the week we were gone and it rained almost every day. They had a very soggy trip this year.

For the first time EVER Jessica actually got a little dizzy on a ride. Seriously I didn't think it was possible. Apparently Michelle convinced Jessica that if she ate something greasy she would feel better. Jessica was all too happy to try out this remedy.

Justin's first time on the "crazy mouse" roller coaster.

Marc will have to admit there is one thing he enjoys at the Big E...

Guest Room Before and After

2011-02-04T16:52:00.003-05:00

Biggest Transformation yet! Been awhile since I posted some before and afters. We put hardwood floors upstairs in our three bedrooms and the hallway but left the fourth bedroom until this fall. Before I left for Scotland we emptied out the room so that Marc could do some repair work and I painted it when I returned. The hardwood floors went in a week later. Let's roll back the clocks a little...

This is what the room looked like when we bought the house. 3 boys were calling this room their bedroom.

Here is a shot of the lovely carpets the day we closed.

Here is the room just before I left for Scotland- wallpaper removed and ready for its transformation.
And here it is today! I kept waiting until I had the room all "perfect" before I posted pictures, but decided that is never going to happen so Voila! Hardwood floors replace nasty carpet and walls are now a calm and lovely beige.

View #2 looking to the right from the doorway...

Day we closed- yummy carpets!

The area we now refer to as Lego Land- it keeps them away from my bare feet at least.

Here is the closet- we haven't put the new door on yet- we have it, just bought a hollow core for the closet door. Hopefully our children can refrain from punching and kicking holes into the doors. I was hoping it would be a game room and a linen closet closet- right now mostly a game room closet. We added lots of shelves. No, I did not clean up the closet for the pictures- keeping it real.

Not bad right? You would stay here, wouldn't you? If I made my kids move their Legos out of the way so you didn't step on them and scream aloud.

Weekend at Frost Valley

2011-02-04T09:25:00.003-05:00

Labor Day Weekend Frost Valley YMCA hosted an Alumni Reunion. Unfortunately it was mostly a summer camp Alumni- but that is still fun too. Truth be told our last few weekends at Frost Valley were less than what we were hoping to experience. Perhaps as former staff our hopes are too high. In general my biggest complaint, besides the high price, is that the staff have been less than friendly and really left a bad taste in my mouth. Having run these weekends for years I know the value of the staff, I know that they make or break the weekend for guests- but somewhere along the way that message was lost. When this weekend came up I had no interest in going back (and yes that makes me sad). Marc had to practically beg me to return and I reluctantly agreed. We were excited when we heard the summer camp director had a strong hand in planning the weekend- we really like him and he "gets" it. [sidenote: he has since left the Valley- sigh]. We decided to give it a go again. It was fun seeing all of our old friends and meeting their children.

They made sure to include lots of Summer Camp Classics- like the newspaper fashion show!

Aunt Meg came up too! We didn't tell the kids she was going to be there- so they were pretty surprised.

Jessica loves going across the cable bridge- Justin, not so much, he has yet to try.

We were introduced to the game Sleeping Queens. Justin watched and learned how to play for over an hour. And then hounded me to buy the game that I finally purchased it from my phone on the way home. He was very excited at its arrival later in the week.
We played Bombardment. I have never really been clear on how bombardment is played. Basically it is Dodge Ball. It was more of a boys village kind of thing. Marc took Jessica out on the court with him and she had a blast.
Then the grown ups gave up the court to the little kids so they could play.
...and you can guess how that turned out...
We played Geranimo! [well we tried to but Al Filreis was leading it and he only called on his "pets" so it meant my kid sat their almost the entire time. yeah that is fun! not. luckily she is a good sport. But would it have killed the man to at least call out Geranimo occasionally so that everyone could get up and run???? ok- rant over]
We had a nice time- mostly. I am leaving off my altercation with the self rightous staff member who told me I was forcing my child to do something and I had to let her know that I was encouraging her and she should try that some time- oops guess I did bring it up.

I don't think we will be back in the next few years. For now, at half the price and twice the fun we are sticking with Camp Jewell!

Katterskill Falls

2011-01-25T14:37:00.002-05:00

Labor Day Weekend we all went to Frost Valley for the Camp Reunion- I will post about that next. On the way to Frost Valley we decided to stop and see Kaaterskill Falls. In all the time I was living there I had never been and Marc had only been one time. We were fighting the setting sun to get there. It was a bit of a bigger hike than we expected. Here are Justin and I taking a break.

Jessica taking a break.
Finally we made it and it was BEAUTIFUL!

Putting it in perspective... do you see Marc and the kids in the lower right hand corner?

One of my goals for this year is to take more family pictures. A photographer I follow set a goal for herself of one complete family picture every month. I am thinking about setting the same goal for myself for 2011, of course I now have 6 days to complete the first one- ack!

So I set up the timer and dashed across the rocks to join the family for the picture. It seems my rock dashing caused Justin some stress.
So we told Justin to not smile at all that was better than the alternative and voila! a family picture.

And then the coolest thing happened, the setting sun hit the falls, but the light only hit the top half. So glad we made it in time to witness this effect.

Then we dashed back to the car before we were left in the dark.

An Afternoon at Quabbin

2011-01-18T13:53:00.003-05:00

This Fall I had scheduled a photo shoot day at Quabbin Reservoir. Here is the trick, I myself had never been to Quabbin before. So one nice afternoon, before I left for Scotland, the kids and I headed out to Quabbin after school to check it out. I brought my camera on the hopes of getting some nice pics of my kids- well that didn't quite pan out, as you can see. Justin even agreed to pose a little for me.

Well it soon became clear that the Dam area of the reservoir was not going to work- I mean who would like for their hair to look like this is a portrait??

By then the kids were keen to check out the dam so we headed onwards.

It truly is a BEAUTIFUL area- glorious views.

I tried...
really I tried.
They tried their best Photographer repellent spells on me, but it did not work.

Then the real fun began...

They think they are SO FUNNY

I think at this point I asked him to stop goofing around- this was his response.

Not portrait perfect, but alas a good batch of "this is who they are" photos.

Fall Soccer

2011-01-15T23:30:00.004-05:00

The Fall is filled with Soccer for us. Unfortunately the Fall is also filled with photos for me on weekends so I don't make it to all the games and this year Marc couldn't make it to all of them either since they were often conflicting- oh well.

I was not pleased at all with Jessica's Soccer experience last year- I think I have blogged about that already. The team roster was announced and being at the bottom of the pack we were the team that did not have coach- not a good start. One of the reasons I was excited for this league is they promise qualified and trained coaches- not just someone's mom or dad. They should have qualified that with "if you are in the top two teams..". If you are on the bottom than you get a Dad with no training but a great attitude. I think the coach did a great job all season especially when he was not getting a lot of support or information from the league - I will leave it at that.

The most exciting thing about the team was that Jessica already knew almost everyone on her team. Five of the girls had been in preschool together even. This alone made this team far more fun for her than the rec team. Here she is with her friend Rebecca.

The other nice thing about this team were the numbers. There were 12 kids on the team, and 8 are supposed to be on the field at a time. We actually lost one girl just before the first game to a broken wrist, so we had 11 for the season. This meant that all the girls got LOTS of play time. This picture was taken during one of the first games and it was in the high 90s that day- hot hot hot.

For the second half of the first game Jessica decided to go into goal. Marc and I speculated that it was because she doesn't like to run and it was HOT that day. But we were proven wrong. She loves being in goal and would consistently play goalie for the second half of EVERY game. She had a great attitude about it- did her best but did not beat herself up when a goal was scored.

Here are a few more pictures from a game later in the season.

All in all a very successful year for Jessica. She got lots of play time and her skills did seem to improve. But most of all she really enjoyed playing. She liked her team and coach a lot. Her team did not really win too many games and the girls didn't really seem to care. Perhaps this is why they are on the lowest team- many of them just don't seem to have that competitive edge. As they walked off the field after another loss one mom turned to two or three girls and said, "do you even care that you lost?" and they turned and smiled and said, "nope!" and giggled together as they walked to the car.

Justin played soccer again this year too. This year we put him in the Rec team. It was a co-ed league and it was 1st and 2nd grade combined. Justin has truly come leaps and bounds from his Kindergarten year. The year before he did a lot of crying and whining. He would only stay in one place since the coach told him that defense stays on that line. And he would get highly annoyed when someone would steal a ball from him or when he didn't get "his turn". Well the crying and whining was almost entirely eliminated, on the field, this year. He loved getting out there and was pretty good at attacking the ball.

I love this first shot because it totally embodies what soccer is all about at this age. Everyone is in a big mob and many kids end up all tripped up on the ground.

Love the tongue coming out...
He even tried his hand at goalie occasionally but truth be told it was a little boring for him.

He really enjoyed it and he will totally be playing again next year. Although some recent talk about football has me a little nervous.

First Day of School!

2011-01-15T22:16:00.002-05:00

So back to playing catch up- I might go back and forth for awhile- is that totally annoying? Soon after returning home from our vacation it was back to school time. Sigh, gone are the days that I get to chose the first day of school clothes.

This shot was their idea.

This is his smile- so painful, but he is trying so hard.

Buddy likes to walk the kids to the bus stop.

Bye Bye! Off to first and fourth grade!

SNOW DAY!

2011-01-14T09:11:00.003-05:00

So... I know I just finished blogging about our beach vacation in August, but before I continue playing catch up (and I will) I figure you all want to see some snow pictures, right? Tuesday night it became clear a HUGE storm was heading our way. The predictions were for 8-12 inches. We assumed that meant we were getting 8 inches, but we were still pretty excited. It was expected to begin around midnight and the heaviest hitting during the morning commute and continuing all day. The perfect scenario for a snow day. Sure enough the call came around 5:30am. When I finally got up after 9am there was already 14 inches on the ground and it was still coming down. Marc had decided the night before to just work from home (let's be clear his company was still open- state of emergency or not). I decided to make some monkey bread but half way through I realized I did not have an brown sugar. Oh no. Jessica REALLY wanted some monkey bread so I called the neighbor and Jessica suited up over her jammies. What can I say the kids loves her monkey bread. {she is heading to that house in the distance}

The neighbor's kids met Jessica half way with the bag of brown sugar. She brought me the bag but continued to play outside with the neighbors.

(the quality of my images is a little poor since most of these pictures were taken through a window or door- you didn't expect ME to go out in this weather did you?)

Poor Buddy. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to go out but he didn't want to go out. He made a break for it at one point and leaped off the front step and found himself in a hole of snow higher than himself. He then had to try to get out of the whole and back inside. No, we did not help him, we were too busy laughing and taking pictures.

Marc finally ventured outside around 5pm to start the 2+ hours of snow blowing. This gives you an idea of how much snow we got- around 2 feet when all was said and done. We haven't had a storm this big in a long time.

We got a call on Wednesday night that due to the conditions of the road there would be no school on Thursday either. This is almost unheard of, I was sure they were heading back to school. Truth be told a 2 hour delay would have been fine and then we wouldn't be adding another day to the end of the year. On Thursday we all went out to play on the various slide tracks on our front yard. Marc had even started to create some more the night before.

Buddy was a bit more adventurous too. He loved going down the walking path and up the sliding path.

but still- not a big fan.
This one is definitely a big fan!
It is awesome when your front yard is a hill!
This is the only shot I have of their ill conceived and wholly unsuccessful try at getting buddy on a saucer.

Jessica and the neighbors had carved out a fort in the circle area of our cul de sac. Here is a shot of Justin - not too many pics of him since he doesn't like having his picture taken, but he was outside with us.

Marc came home early on Thursday so he could play in the snow too. He really worked on perfecting the various slides.

On Wednesday night Marc snowblowed a HUGE pile of snow at the top of the hill so that we could have a really good slide. This is the view from the top.
Here are some videos I took :

Family Picture Night

2011-01-11T08:51:00.003-05:00

By now you all know that one night on our beach vacation is Family Picture Night. We usually try to do it on Tuesday or Wednesday night. Usually in the middle, so we have a nice tan and we are relaxed but not too near the end. Unfortunately Jack's major face sunburn on Sunday meant we had to push it back- then on Wednesday it POURED rain in the afternoon and evening. Unfortunately the weather was very overcast on Thursday night- no nice blue sky or sunset pictures. But we decided Thursday night was much better than Friday night- since we leave early on Saturday and are usually packing on Friday night. We decided to just go for it on the overcast night.

I arrived at the beach with all the kids first and decided to get some pictures of them while we waited. {it seems Justin always ends up next to Emma- think we need to separate them a bit more next time}

And of course the crazy shot!

The girls:
The boys:
Our whole gang {Justin decided he wanted to have his arm around me and since it was a self timer deal and I had about 2 seconds I didn't fight him.}
Our Crazy Shot:
The Hartzogs. Historically the Hartzogs always seem to have so many nice pictures. Sigh- wish I had two kids that would pose and smile at the same time.

The Odells. Poor Jack he had a tough time even doing this little smile- his mouth hurt.

Our Family.

And, one of my favorite pictures- our family in one shot.

Then we decided to take Matt's hat and play around. The kids were also given a few extra cameras so there were LOTS of outtakes from this night.

This is how Justin feels about the end of Family Picture Night.

OBX!

2011-01-10T12:30:00.003-05:00

Well I am all caught up for July and now on to August. The biggest thing in August for us is our annual one week trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The biggest bummer about our trip this year was that Marc threw is back out the week before we departed. We debated, going separately or just leaving Marc home. In the end we left a little later (hoping his back would feel better- it didn't) and just trying out best to accomodate him. This is how we drove down...

Since it has been months since this vacation occurred the order of pictures will certainly be off as will my memory :) Marc's back never really got back up to speed. He spent the first 5 days lying in bed all day and coming out to hang out with us when we returned home- he also tried to play cards at night. He finally ventured to the beach on Thursday and Friday for a few hours- you will not see too much of Marc in these pictures because of his situation. I believe this picture was taken the first night- Matt with all 6 kids enjoying the waves.

A picture of me in a bathing suit that I don't hate- a miracle!

Becky's spiffy new tent thingy that we set up and left up all week. At the beginning of the week the water was really high so this was much closer to the water. Then the water moved farther and farther away so this become more of a snack and storage center.
OBX = Outer Banks!
On Sunday night Becky and I took our kids out the beach. We love the light and quiet on the beach at that time. The other kids were enjoying the pool back at the house.
LOVE this picture!
All snuggled up watching a movie- I think this was on a very rainy night, maybe Wednesday? See Jack's face? He got a HORRIBLE burn on his face on Sunday and it was still causing him pain on Thursday. Totally stinky.

We love making Drip Castles!
Justin's bromance with Matt continued, especially since Justin didn't have a Dad at the beach. In fact Matt became my vacation husband. Devin and Julia were not too keen on the beach for the first part of the week and Jack had that horrible burn so most days it was Matt and I with Emma, Jessica and Justin at the beach by ourselves. I spent more time with Matt that week than any of the other adults.
As soon as Matt and Justin dug the hole Emma and Jess moved right in. They both love playing in the hole and still do for hours- drip castles and fortifying it from the impending onslaught of the waves.

At one point in the week Justin saw these guys making drip castles so he went over to join them. Soon after Julia came too.

Here are Matt and playing with the Waboba ball. It is so cool and when we saw other families playing with it we went out and bought three. It is a ball that bounces on water- it looks and feels a little like a hacky sack. I chose this picture because I look really cool like I can actually throw- I am not including the next picture in the series where Matt has to go chase down my throw because it came no where near him :)

My vacation husband and I in our matching swim shirts- so cute! Notice Matt's hat? He bought that hat early on and it was a huge it- everyone took turns wearing it, hope he brings it again next year.
Justin LOVED the hat.
Remember those guys earlier in the week that were making drip castles with Justin? Later in the week Justin saw them burying one of their friends into a turtle sculpture and he had to get in on it. After that guy jumped out- Justin jumped in!
But that wasn't enough- he wanted to be ALL the way buried!
Then we put Matt's hat on him- of course. And he stayed there FOREVER! I have never seen him sit that long. We even walked away and left him there and he didn't care.

The two biggest beach bums!
What we look like when we are all there.
Unfortunately the weather was not great. On Wednesday the sand was too hot to walk on but the water was too cold to swim- very bizarre. We also had a few red flag days too- which are also a big bummer. There were tons of Jellyfish- which freak Jess out a fair amount since she has been stung more than once. The best day was our last day- Friday. We finally had fun warm waves to jump and good boogy boarding rides into shore.

We went to feed the turtles on the last night.
And Justin continued his crush...
The biggest bummer about Matt and I often being the only one down at the beach was that we are not the ones that take the pictures- oops.

I will post pictures from Family Picture Night next.

A litte photo shoot

2011-01-07T11:59:00.003-05:00

The deal I made with Becky was that if she watched my kids when I took other people's pictures than we would take out our kids one night for pictures too. Unfortunately it rained one night so I had to reschedule some clients and ended up trying to do 4 families on one cloudy night. I STRUGGLE to get decent pics of my own kids. So here are just a few from those attempts.

Feel my pain yet??

Love that one section of Justin's hair that won't stay down- so him!

Well that is what we got- let me know if you want any of those printed and I would be happy to order them for you!

Cape Cod

2011-01-07T10:30:00.003-05:00

Every year we spend a week in Cape Cod at the Odells house- it is a tradition. Last year we all wished we could have been there longer so this year we stayed from Monday through Friday. Bec agreed to watch my kids in the evening so that I could book some beach sessions too. We did a lot of the usual things. We hung out at Sheep's Pond and then we also checked out some different beaches too. These pictures are particularly in chrono order- it has been 6 months after all. This pictures just makes me laugh. Becky and I were playing cards one night and Justin decided to join us. Not sure what happened but he is so funny.

Here is the Annual everyone jumping off the raft picture!

Justin's jammers died and lost all elasticity and we wanted to take a picture. You will find a theme developing in many of these shots- goofy kids making goofy faces.
Here is another shot of the LONG jammers.

Playing games at the beach...

A little down time after the beach time.

On Tuesday night I had a shoot and Bec and the kids came along too. We love going to the bay at low tide it is very fun.
You never know what you can find...

And another annual shot- 4 goofy kids posing together.

You can draw crazy pictures.
Or play a giant game of Tic Tac Toe.
Here I am after my shoot pretending that I am still taller than Emma...

And here is Emma setting the record straight...

On Thursday we decided to go on a Whale watch. Matt had arrived on Wednesday night, so he was going to join us. Becky, Matt, and I had all been on a whale watch before with varying rates of success. Marc and I went on our first anniversary and it was AMAZING. A whale breached for 30+ minutes right next to our boat. The tour didn't want to leave and we were late returning. Becky went in high school and never saw one whale and Matt's previous trip they had seen one or two but no big deal. We went with high hopes.

Here we are goofing around a pirate gift shop before going on the trip.
Can you see my reflection in the mirror? not sure if I trying to coach Jack or just scared by his awesome impersonation.
Here we are all ready to go!

I believe this is when Justin's summer bromance with Matt began...

Not sure what they are doing but there is a good chance it involves an make believe wand in Jessica's hand- big Harry Potter fans here.

Here we go!
The end result: we saw lot of whales (but nothing quite as cool as I witnessed my first time). Jessica and Emma LOVED it and stayed at the rails the whole time. Jack enjoyed about 50% of it and as soon as the first whale was spotted Justin lost all interest. He just wanted to lie down with a coat over his head. Then as soon as the boat picked up speed to head back to shore so did Justin- so annoying. I contemplated asking for my money back from his ticket since he did not see a single whale. Here are some of the MANY images we captured.

Old Sturbridge Village

2011-01-06T18:24:00.003-05:00

Well I had plans to blog our Cape Cod trip today, but alas Jessica being home today has slowed me up a bit. So instead I am covering a day trip we took one day in July to Old Sturbridge Village. I didn't do as many day trips last summer as I did the year before but this is one we took. Aw.. aren't they so cute?

Jessica trying out the old fashioned toys.

At the schoolhouse the "teacher" was explaining to some unruly boys how they would be punished. Jessica decided to pretend she was being punished too and Justin pretended to laugh at her- he would be such a sympathetic classmate, no?

The town well was quite the attraction.
They really enjoyed watching this guy and we hung out with him for quite some time.
Justin tried out the trundle beds and almost every bed he could.
Jessica tried dressing up.

We really enjoyed our day and I think we will go back again.

A few things here and there

2011-01-05T08:49:00.002-05:00

Justin big present from us was his own Archery Range. Because he enjoys it so much at Camp Jewell and it seems to give him some focus we thought it might be a good idea. We waited until the day after his party for many reasons to give it to him.

One time this summer Justin noticed some people at the grocery store returning their cans for money. Marc explained how this worked. We had gotten out of the habit of getting our deposit and just recycling our cans instead. Justin was very excited about this idea. So he and Marc made a deal. We would separate our soda cans for him and he could keep the money as long as he walked them to the grocery store to return them. The grocery store is a fairly quick walk through the woods from our house. They had to figure out how to carry them to the grocery store and this was their solution.

Both kids have joined in- they get a little exercise and some spending cash to boot!

Justin's Survivor Birthday Party

2011-01-04T08:53:00.003-05:00

Check me out- two days in a row! About time I blog about Justin's birthday party- since it was about 6 months ago. Please be forewarned- there are more pictures of me in a bathing suit than I would normally consider appropriate for public viewing, but alas I bite the bullet to tell the story.

Justin is a fan of the show Survivor. But let me clarify- he has no time for any of that talking stuff. He loves the challenges and asks me to fast forward through the rest. During the Spring season, the "Heros vs Villians" season, we began to hatch a plan to turn Justin's party into a Survivor party. His party would be full of challenges and no tribal councils (he did have some plans originally for voting people off but was talked out of that plan).

We decided to split the guests Heros and Villans- as they arrived they had to grab a bandana. Red= Villian and Blue = Hero. Justin was captain of the Villians- due to his love of Boston Rob and Coach. Jessica was captain of the Heros- a J.T. fan.

So here is the first challenge. Villians on the left and Heros on the right. Each team had to build a one foot high free standing structure built from Legos. Each team had to assign runners to run to the bucket of legos and bring back the bricks. Here I am explaining the rules.

Team Villian working hard...
The Runners scooping up the Legos....
The Heros....
The Heros had already won but the Villians completed their tower as well. Sarah was heard saying to the team, "pride in finishing!". This sadly was a bad start for the Villians- and it didn't get any better for them.
The next challenge was a coin collecting challenge. I threw coins of all denominations into the pool, and the kids had to collect all the coins.
We threw some on the steps for the littler kids to collect.

They were instructed to bring their coins to their team mascots- for counting.
And then something horrible happened- something that anyone who is hosting an outdoor party dreads the most. It poured!

I mean it POURED!
Marc and I quickly pulled out Plan B. We moved the kitchen table into the Family room and brought everyone inside and put them on the floor (Martha Stewart I am not).
It actually worked out fine, since our next challenge was the dreaded Food Challenge! In every season of Survivor there is a Food Challenge where they need to eat something really gross. In fact as people RSVP'd to the party the parents almost all asked if there was going to be a food challenge. Now I was not about to blend up some worms and bugs for the kids to eat- well not really. Each team would send up to contestants. Each contestant would draw a slip of paper out of a cup. One cup was frozen options like sherbet or ice cream flavors. The second cup was the liquid cup- milk/ juice/ silk/ sprite. The third cup was the syrup flavor- chocolate/ caramel/ fluff. The fourth cup was the food cup- fish (chocolate goldfish)/ bears (teddy grahams)/ worms (gummy worms)/ nilla wafers. Wish I had a recording of the gasps of shock and horror when Fish was read off the paper- too funny. Once all the chosen ingredients were gathered Dee and I would blend them up into a yummy smoothie. Here is the thing- EVERY child stepped up to participate. [Well actually let me clarify- only one child did not even try and that was Justin.] We made it clear that it was by choice, no one had to do this. What really cracked me up was the littlest ones stepping up so brave. A few kids even got in line more than once.

Then we offered an adult challenge. This was something we used to do at Camp Jewell during Carnivals and it was a huge hit. I put a piece of Bubble Yum on each plate and covered it in whip cream. Then without using our hands we had to lick all the whip cream up and blow a bubble- first bubble blown wins.

I think this picture perfectly captures what happened. The whip cream somehow interacted with the gum and made it dissolve. No bubbles were blown and I believe the gum was swallowed. It was so funny all the adults looked up and gave each other these looks and then started laughing. Of course even after our description of what happened- the kids all lined up to try.
By then the sun had returned and we went back outside to partake in one of our favorite Justin party activities- the water balloon launcher! Matt and Jason are veterans now at holding the launcher. Our new neighborhood is kind of fun for the launcher, being at the top of a hill- those things can take off!

We set some targets out in the cul de sac- and by targets I mean Marc. They got extra points if they could actually hit him. He did take a hit on purpose and had the bruises to prove it for a few days. Didn't take long for the kids to realize that the fun was out where the balloons were landing.

The final challenge was a combined kid and grown up challenge. We decided to steal from our FV past and put together a bit of a beerienteering challenge. Hidden in the woods were 3 drinking stations for each team. At each station was a beer for a grown up and a juice box for a kid. They needed to complete their drink, and run their trash back out before the next group from their team could go. Here are the Heroes ready to go.

The Villians looking villianous.
And they are off!
The kids only had a 7oz juice box and the adults had a full beer bottle. This meant the kids were done WAY before the parents. This resulted in the kids screaming at the parents, "DRINK! DRINK!". And yes caused me to laugh.

Now all the kids can put straws into juice boxes. But with the pressure being on they were freaking out. Marc was busy chugging his beer and Addie and Julia were SCREAMING at him- it seems they couldn't get the straws into the boxes. And yes that made me laugh too.
The winning team, The Heroes, got to push an adult of the losing team into the pool. Mrs King was a great sport. No swimsuit- white shirt. But it was so hot and humid after the sun came out that truthfully I think she was happy to have an excuse to jump right in the pool.

It was very fun, and even with the rain I think the kids had a great time. Marc and I have decided that we want to host a real Beerienteering Party- adults only- in our backyard this Spring. Hopefully we can pull it off.

Then I left to go take pictures at a client's house and I left BeckyMatt and Marc in charge- not really sure what happened...

Jessica on Swim Team

2011-01-03T08:56:00.003-05:00

Well hello old friend. Wow have I fallen off the blogging horse! I have decided to blog once a day for this week and possibly next week and possibly the next. I debated just picking up from now and moving on, but there are so many things I don't want to forget so I am going to try to get caught up- but things are going to be pretty out of order, so bare with me. As I uploaded the pics I realized the photo hosting site I used has changed things up so I think the pictures might be super large- oops I will work on that- definitely rusty on my blogging skills.

Jessica decided this past Spring that she wanted to join the swim team. While I wasn't too keen on the 3 nights a week hanging poolside and the hours long swim meet in a hot and humid pool area I figured if she wanted to join and join she shall! She really loved it and was quite excited to join again this fall. What I love is that it is a team sport and not quite a team sport. If she has a bad day or doesn't do well it doesn't hurt the whole team. They also give you a ribbon every time you beat your own personal time. So kids like Jessica, who don't come in first/second/ third, still get a sense of achievement. She loves getting ribbons and it gives her something to strive for at each meet. She loves cheering for her friends and teammates.

Her swimming skills grew so much and so did her confidence. I joked that she didn't really get that it was race. She often seems to be about having the nicest stroke technique and not so much about going quickly. With this in mind we are going to look into synchonized swimming in a few years :)

All of these pictures were taken at the Swim Championships at the end of July. Here is Coach Tim giving the kids a pep talk before they began. I am really hoping that it was better than the pep talk her gave the night before which went something like this, "Tomorrow is a big day. Don't worry if you get a little nervous- that is perfectly normal because this is the BIGGEST day of your lives!" And here is a surprise, a few upset stomachs were reported before the start of the meet.

The winner of every heat receives a ribbon. When Jessica was getting ready for her freestyle race we realized that she had a chance to win her heat. Of the six girls swimming she had the fastest previous time. Sure enough she pulled ahead early on and kept the lead. It was pretty exciting. This is one of my favorite things and so proud of Jessica. As soon as she finished she turned to the girl who finished just behind her and gave her a high five.

Daddy giving her a hug.

With her ribbon!
I was timing for the second half. Jessica was actually starting in my lane. Want to know the very sage advice I am imparting? I believe I told her to GO FAST! Yup- genius coach I am.

Chatting with Katelyn after the race.
The Falcons won! But, um, here's the thing... the Falcons always win. Jessica really loves swimming and is doing so well. She has really challenged herself this fall. She got bumped up a lane in practice, which is a big deal. Now she trains with Coach Tim and she was SO EXCITED when she got bumped. She turned around and had this look of pride and shock and excitement on her face, but she was containing it all. Lisa Skala was sitting next to me and we both totally teared up. It has been so good for her- she never complains about going to swimming or asks to skip practices or meets. So for now and for awhile to come we are proud members of the Falcon Swim Team. Go Falcons!

My Scotland Trip!

2010-10-06T19:37:00.003-04:00

Well I know I have a few months of blogging to catch up on and I did have all the best intentions to get caught up but well that hasn't happened. Anyway I just got back from Scotland and decided to blog some of those pictures and a few memories as well. We had a FABULOUS time- everyone agrees. There are so many stories and funny memories but I probably won't share them all here. Instead of blogging a day to day journal I have decided to group a few of my favorite things and talk about those.

1) My Posse!
When I announced my plan in this blog post two years ago I was hoping I wasn't just blowing smoke but that I would actually follow through. Luckily I have a few friends that kept me honest and also really wanted to go as well. I thought it would be SO COOL if we could get 3 or 4 people to go. I never dreamed that we could get 9 of us. Everyone followed the rules and read the first book of the series (well one person didn't quite finish)- Mom quickly read all 7 by the trip and I believe is now further along than anyone else that went on the trip.

Starting from the Man in the kilt, Steve, (I will introduce him later) and working clockwise- Amy, Jill, Kelly, Sara, ME, Dee, Mom, Kim and Becky. When people would ask us where we were from we would say, "Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Ohio and Idaho"- and we would get a bit of a look.

To say we had fun is a bit of an understatement. I laughed until I cried and my ribs hurt more than once. Every day at least one of us would say, "This is so fun!" Here are a few of our group shots.

This was taken at the Ruthven Barracks.

This one was taken later in the day at the Clava Cairns.

Taken on the second night in Oban. Kim staged the pic, Dee came up with the "Jazz hands" idea (note: Mom and Sara aren't quite sure what this entails)- I set up the auto timer and ran down the hill and jumped in the pic.

2) Steve!
Once we made the decision to NOT go on an organized Outlander Tour due to the expense (and a concern it might involve more role playing than we thought we could handle)- we had the dilemma of just how we would get around to all the locals we wanted to visit. Quickly putting aside the idea of renting a vehicle and driving on the left side of the road- and realizing that 9 women without a plan would only lead to ugly chaos and most likely doing nothing- Becky was on a mission. Becky found Highland Experience Tours- which offers 2, 3, and 5 day tours of various Scottish sights. Then she saw that they offer private tours. Ohhhhh ding ding ding a winner! So Becky and a person from the office designed a 3 day private tour that would hit the sights we wanted see as well as some they suggested. [um we didn't pay a lot of attention to how much we were fitting in to such a short time period- we had 3 VERY full days but we got to see A LOT].

So this means that we would have a tour guide/ driver with us for the three days. We told them that we were Outlander fans and that was a big focus of our trip. A few weeks before the trip HET notified us that our guide, a man, was "swatting" up on all things Outlander. Kim asked if he was a) cute or b) funny or preferably c) both. I don't think Becky passed on this question. Imagine our delight when this guy showed up to pick us up at 8:30 on Monday morning!

A Scotsman, in a kilt, in front of a crumbling castle- perfect!
Steve was so knowledgable- he talked non stop the first day. Filling us with all sorts of information. He did spend a good amount of time breaking down all the inaccuracies in Braveheart "load of tosh"- mind you all I want to do now is watch that movie. Knowing we were Outlander fans he would say things like,"In Jamie's time...." or "when Claire and Jamie were here...." loved that! In addition since the first few books take place during the last Jacobite rising and Jamie and his clan fell on the side of the rebels Steve got us all riled up as rebels. We would talk treason and treachery and give a war cry. Admittedly since much of Scottish History involves great animosity with the English- we all had a bit of a negative attitude towards the English by the end. Jill, who was heading to London after we all left, was heard mumbling- "I don't really like the English anymore" {Steve was seen smirking after these statements}. I could go on and on about how much we all loved Steve. He MADE that trip so fun. He had a great attitude and a great sense of humor. We believe he loved us as much as we loved him. After much badgering I think Becky might have even gotten him to admit that he did love us - at least that is what I remember him saying.

I have no idea if this link will work- but this is a video that Kim took of Steve giving his toast to Haggis- the first part is in Gaelic- at the end he is speaking English. If you are on Facebook I can post the video to my profile and you can see. Anyway- we loved Steve and he was certainly a highlight of our trip. We were all a little sad on Thursday morning when he did not arrive to pick us up for the day.

3) Architecture
I loved all the different architecture. One of my favorite things about Europe is the history that is so present all around you. The minute we set foot in Edinburgh we felt like we had stepped back in time. We were staying just off the Royal Mile- this is in Old Town and the Royal Mile stretches from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace. Sunday we just wandered up and down the Royal Mile- knowing we had two full days at the end of the week to really explore. I have uploaded some pictures- not in any particular order or various buildings.

This is Inverary Castle. The Clan Campbell- grrrrrr.
Dunstaffnage Castle- so many of the castles and forts were built right on top of old volcanos or massive rock outcroppings. It was so cool the way they sort of grew out of the rock.
McCraig's Tower above Oban

Inverary Castle- same name as the first one- very different castle.

Ruthven Barracks
Dunkheld Cathedra l

Looking down the Royal Mile.
View from the Edinburgh Castle- see that tower in the distance? On the last day Dee and I climbed up to the top of it to enjoy the views.
Tollbooth Tavern- mmm good food.
Edinburgh Castle.

Holyrood Palace (taken from top of that tower).
Holyrood Palace

The old architecture of the Palace with the very modern parliament building in the background.
Here is the tower that Dee and I climbed up- all 170 steps- and we have a certificate to prove it.
We got to the top and panicked that we couldn't get out to see the view- and then we noticed this very skinny door next to us- we hiked those steps, we were getting out there!
It was VERY WINDY!
But the views were AMAZING and totally worth it! That is the Edinburgh Castle in the distance.

There were so many "green" roofs it was very cool and Jill was quite psyched.
Old town on the left side and New Town (built during the Victorian period) on the right.
The shame of Edinburg h...

4) The Food
I did not have a bad meal in Scotland. We loved all the food. Yes, even the haggis. Since it is a coastal country the seafood was wonderful. Kelly had been assigned the job of eating the first bite of Haggis- here it is, Sunday morning.

Whiskey is huge in Scotland. While I am not a big fan- I certainly partook since you can't go to Scotland and not try any whiskey! Here I am having a wee dram at the Kelvin.

Oh and drink beer too.
Fish and Chips! Oh it was SO GOOD. I admit to craving it in the last few days.
Jill's dinner of Haggis neeps and tatties- she practically licked the plate clean.
Banoffee pie- bananas and toffee- yummo!
My seafood bounty plate at the Loch Ness Inn.
STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING- BEST STUFF EVER!!!
With some research we knew that you can get almost anything fried. Specifically we had heard that Deep Fried Mars Bars are a must.
A few went in to investigate and place our order.

Mmmmm. It was really sweet and rich- no one ate more than half a bar.
Jacket Potatoes (stuffed baked potatoes) were a must as well. Not sure what it was but they seemed creamier than the ones we get here- best potato I ever ate.

On the last day Dee and I went to go see the Royal Yacht Brittania. We decided to have tea on the royal yacht of course!

Then there was the fabulous salmon I had in Oban at the Waterfront Restaurant- mmmmm.

After sharing dessert the first night many of us decided we wanted a sticky toffee pudding for ourselves this time. Of course this crowd decided on no dessert that night.

No worries- we all licked our plates and enjoyed every bite!
My last night meal- beef stew with dumplings and sticky toffee pudding of course.

5) The Landscape
My last entry for now is about the Landscape. Having read a few books that are located in the Highlands as well as seen movies and pictures I was very excited to see it in person. I expected it to be beautiful but I had no idea. It was GLORIOUS and unspoiled. Even with overcast skies and drizzly weather it was so beautiful to look at every day. This was the view out of the van on Wednesday.

Oban
Castle Stalker

Glen Coe
The banks of Loch Ness
The view out of the train from Fort William to Mallaig.

On our way to Soldier's Leap at Killiecrankie (not Kelly Cranky as one member of our group believed).
There is still PLENTY more to share- but that is all for now. I was so blessed to be able to enjoy this wonderful vacation with some of my best friends- trip of a lifetime and hopefully not the last one.

Bye Bye Birdies

2010-09-16T21:56:00.004-04:00

One of the highlights of our summer was the Robin's nest right outside our kitchen window. Remember that tree I really wanted to cut down, but then we discovered the nest in the tree? Soon after we discovered the nest we realized there were 3 beautiful blue eggs inside. Of course it was at this time that Buddy's life became hell. Every time he walked out the back door the mama bird would squawk at him over and over. She would fly off the nest and dive bomb him over and over or sometimes Daddy Robin would do the grunt work. If he dared to just lay down to relax near the door then they would unleash a holy terror of madness at him. It was highly amusing to see Buddy lying down and this bird standing a foot or two away on the ground near him and yelling at him over and over while he appeared to not be bothered. I have to say I garnered quite a lot of grief from Mama Robin myself sometimes when I would abruptly open the back door. For about 3 weeks Mama sat her vigil. We looked up online to see how long it should take. We got a little nervous that the eggs might have died, since they seemed to be taking a little longer to hatch than we expected.

And then one day I looked out the window and I saw this- these were taken on July 8th.

Tiny tiny little baby robins.

Mama still held her vigil.

The kids and I headed off to Cape Cod for about a week and we were very curious about the birdies. These pictures were taken on July 17th, just 9 days later. Suddenly we had 3 more voices into the Robin chorus outside the window.

Now Daddy Robin took more of an active role in caring for the babies. We had a fun time trying to figure out the difference between the two parents. We decided that Mama bird was still carrying a bit of her baby weight on her and she was a bit fluffier under her belly.

We had a slight panic one morning. The kids burst in to wake me up all upset that Buddy had killed Mama Robin. [now- while upset- I kinda couldn't blame him- they were really harassing him]. So I went downstairs and sure enough at the bottom of the back steps lay a dead Robin and standing next to the Robin was a very smug cat. We were very nervous about who would take care of the babies and were quite relieved when we saw both parents visit the nest during the day.

This one makes me laugh- I was so busted!
I find this next series interesting I believe this is Papa Robin bringing in a snack.

A few days later we figured they would be leaving the nest soon since all 3 of them barely fit in the nest by the end.

One morning we came downstairs and the chorus was silenced and the babies were gone. I saw Papa Bird come to the next with breakfast, look around quite surprised at the emptiness, and then fly off. As we headed out the door to bring the kids to camp that day Jessica said, "Mommy something is in the pool". Yes, we went to investigate and it was one of the baby birds. Seems his first flight was not very successful. It made us all a little sad. But we didn't see the other two so we like to think they were more successful. And Buddy was kind enough not to bring us any dead baby robins.

Letterboxing

2010-09-16T10:57:00.003-04:00

The kids and I decided to enjoy some beautiful weather and go out and go Letterboxing. In case you still don't know what that is- go check out this link to learn more. We started out at the one located just behind our library. This worked out fine since we had some books to return. We ended up finding a hitchhiker in that first letterbox. I had never heard of one until Kim mentioned it. A hitchhiker is an extra stamp. You are supposed to take that stamp with you and then leave it in a different letterbox. We were pretty excited- especially since we had plans to go to another letterbox immediately. Here we are at the first stop- Justin is holding up the hitchhiker.

We then went to another one in town. It involved a rather big hike uphill. So we took a break part of the way...

... and enjoyed the view of our small town from up above.

Um, but truth be told we bailed out and didn't finish the hike to the letterbox. But we still had this hitchhiker so headed to another one in town that is located just behind the middle school. It was a little harder to find than we expected but we found it!

Phew! That finished up June. Good thing we don't really do anything during the summer. Oh wait... hmm I think I have a fair amount more blogging to do.

Dance Recital

2010-09-16T09:12:00.002-04:00

Really trying to catch up on blogging! Ack! Sometimes I think I should just start fresh but then there are memories and pictures that I want to record- so that if I every get around to making my blog book I will have all of these things recorded.

In June Jessica had her dance recital. Every year she says this is the last year she will do dancing and then as soon as the recital comes she changes her mind. This year she had a Can-Can number that was so great and fun- it was my favorite.

Her second number was a jazz number...

Of course I don't have the video loaded up to share. Amusingly when I pulled out the video camera to bring to her recital I rewound it a little to make sure it was lined up and what to my surprise do I see? but last years recital video. Guess we don't video as much as we used to.

Grandma Camp!

2010-08-23T13:44:00.002-04:00

At the end of June, just as school was ending, it was time for Grandma Camp! This is the first year that all 4 grandkids would be attending. Last year the Grandmas took a year off so the kids were VERY excited to go again this year. Here are the campers before loading up in the camp bus and heading out.

Upon arrival at Grandma Sara's house in Maine they are greeted with pictures from all the previous years. There were three years with just Jessica, then one year with Jessica and Rebecca and two year with Jess, Rebecca and Justin.

They were shown were to find the Camp Schedule and checked to see what they needed to do. They needed to take a picture and raise the flag.
Camp Picture first attempt....

Camp Picture many attempts later- pretty sure Kathy has given me some bunny ears or something to get these giggles.

Then they raised the camp flag.
Finally they ended with the Camp Cheer:

The kids came home 3 days later and were full of all the fun stories and adventures they had. They were mostly bummed that we, the moms, missed out on all the fun. We, the moms, did have our own fun so we were not that bummed. Another great Grandma Camp session- thanks Mom and Sara for giving the kids a wonderful experience. Most of my friends are exceedingly jealous and many have requested the registration forms so they can send their kids.

Sharon's Shower

2010-08-23T13:24:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of July I was heading out to NY for my friend Sharon's baby shower. Before we left Jessica and I went for a tour of her new school. Yes our town is changing the school set ups and now all 4th and 5th graders will go to the same school. As we pulled out of the driveway we noticed a peculiar site on the yard. We got flocked. It is a fundraiser for the Lacrosse team I think. They place a flock of Pink Flamingos in your yard. You have to pay $20 to have them removed or you can pay $30 to have them placed in someone else's yard. Yeah we coughed up the $30 and had lots of fun discussing who would receive our gift (the Dunklee family won the prize).

On the way back from the tour I called Marc to make sure he was going to mow the lawn since it was getting out of control I was hosting parties for both their classes later in the week. I am not allowed to mow since I seem to have the knack for breaking the mower every time I use it, and no I don't do that on purpose. By the time we arrived home it was raining but Marc was out there mowing. Mostly to teach me a whiny wife lesson I think. But he refused to stop so he mowed the entire lawn in the rain. When Amy arrived to pick me up you could hear Marc singing or saying, very loudly, "Nope it isn't at all ridiculous that I am out here mowing the lawn in the rain". The kids thought that was awesome so they joined them. Here they all are posing with my flock.

What to do after the lawn was mowed? Go Swimming of course! I think it was at this point that Amy mentioned her son would rather live in this house than with them.

Amy and I then headed off to pick up Jen Weaver who was flying in from NC and was going to surprise Sharon. Hi Jen!

We hung out that night with Sharon and Tom which was very nice and got to see their apartment and their plans for where they nursery was going to be set up. The shower was a small Smithie affair that the Ritz for tea.

Hi Amy (she hates having her picture taken but realized it was going to happen so she should just smile).
The guest of honor arrives.

Hi Angela! Angela made the mistake of mentioning to someone else that she has a lovely guest room in her apartment in Manhattan. She and her husband have no children and was a little surprised when I mentioned that my kids and I would love to take her up on her offer of the guest room. Hmmmm still haven't decided if I will go through with it.

It was a small group- no pics of me though- so sad.

Sharon is expecting a girl- so she had to get a Smith sweatshirt- right?

And to prove how far behind I am in my bloggging.... I got a call from Amy on Saturday that Sharon had her baby, a girl, Caroline and everyone is doing well. Can't wait to go down and see her in person and maybe, just maybe, take a few pictures....

The Last weeks of school

2010-08-03T15:25:00.002-04:00

I went on a bit of a volunteering binge at the end of school- a little too much I am afraid. I joined Justin's Kindergarten class for a field trip to the local zoo.

Later in the week I was supposed to help with Jessica's field day. BUT... when I spoke with the woman who was setting it up she mentioned that she had more than enough helpers. SO... I showed up late (oops) and it was already going and they didn't need me after all (yeah not the best mother of the year move). So I hung out with Jessica group for a little bit.

Here is her teacher Mrs W- she was the teacher assigned to Jessica's group- Synchronized Swimming (that was the name of her group). There are children from all the grades in each of the groups. Mrs W had these glasses she claimed brought good luck.

Also this week were the try-outs for the soccer league. Jessica played for the rec dept team last year- and it wasn't a great experience. Here is the thing- Jessica is not that good at all. She doesn't really like to run and is very hesitant to approach the ball. Her coach would play her for exactly 1/2 of a half = 10 minutes of a 40 minute game. NEVER a minute more. Anyway- when the flyer came home announcing try outs for the more competitive town league she made sure I saw the flyer and mentioned it many times. Here is the problem: Jessica doesn't know she is not that good. I am not overly complimentary on her performance or skills- she just has an amazing self protective or positive view of herself. I was hesitant to throw her into this league, but after our negative experience at Rec we thought it was worth a shot. At Rec it was a team made up of 3rd/ 4th/ 5th graders and at least on this team it will only be 4th graders. They quickly sorted the girls by skill level and Jessica fell to the bottom- no surprise. Basically she enjoys playing and we are going to encourage that as long as possible. Here she is on the second night of try-outs (um she is not attacking the ball it is actually go right past her).

I have to say it is hard to be the parent of non-athletic child playing sports in this town. It seems there is an unusually high number of very good athletic children. Our town is often the regional champs in various sports. But we will continue to chug along at the bottom of the pack and hope to find our place eventually.

A few house improvements

2010-08-03T14:43:00.002-04:00

So first of all I know I am WAY behind in blogging. But you see the thing about summer is that the kids are here ALL the time so I am having a tough time getting to the fun things like blogging. I will try to add a few things every now and again and hopefully I will be caught up soon.

As you might remember there were two trees outside my kitchen window. I have had it in for these trees since before we moved in. a) they completely block my view of the backyard/ pool area so that is annoying b) the kitchen is very dark as it is so why should I block what little light is coming in and c) they didn't bloom or do anything pretty so I really didn't see the point of keeping them around.

One day Marc, finally sick of listening to me complain about the tree and hesitant to allow me tree cutting priveledges, set out to cute them down.

For some reason Marc stopped after cutting one down- not really sure why. And before he got to the other one a robin built a nest and laid some eggs inside thus delaying the trees demise.

The next big improvement was to our master bedroom closet. After we added the closet organizers to the kids closets and realized what a difference that made we began to make plans for our closet. We had to completely empty our closet in order to have the wood floors laid down- so it seemed a good time to move ahead with our plans. Here is the before shot. It was just a wire U shaped shelf/ hanging bar.

Marc designed a new closet organizer on line, had it delivered and then installed it himself. Here is a picture at the half way part. The plan was for the other side to have the same set up- but after putting it together and beginning to fill it up we realized we didn't need quite all that space so we have left an opening along the wall on the left side- offering some breathing room and a place to sit and put your shoes on. We also filled in the holes on the wall that were left behind by the previous owners.

It is SO NICE and we have tons of space now- anyone remember when we didn't even have a closet in our bedroom?

Monster Camp Jewell YMCA Post!

2010-06-14T07:54:00.005-04:00

Ok, sit back and relax because this is going to be a big post. It is overdue and I know a few people have been asking when it was going up! Last year we went to Camp Jewell with the Odell family. We had so much fun we decided to reserve BOTH sides of the cabin for this year. Upon returning home we immediately roped in the Cooks to join us and they readily agreed. A month or two before Memorial Day weekend we decided it would be more fun if one more family came too, so we invited the Deweys and they quickly got on board. Because we knew there was a good chance that Jessica and Addie were going to pair up and do everything together since they rarely see each other anymore, Becky wisely invited Emma's best friend Christina to join us.

One of our favorite things about Camp Jewell is that almost immediately upon arriving you just relax and "let things go" as Becky says. You know that you are looking at 8 meals ahead of you that you are not cooking or doing the dishes- you have 2.5 days that you get to just play with the kids and do what you want (well mostly).

Upon arriving it became clear that all 4 girls were going to get along great. Night one: Mad Libs in Emma's bunk. From the sounds of the peals of laughter I think it was pretty funny.

The next morning there was a 7am hike up Sunrise Mountain. Jessica woke me up at 6:45am to ask if she could go. I told her there was no way an adult was going and she said, "ok". I told her where to meet the staff member and she said, "I know, it is on the schedule". And when I told her she could go I don't know what she said because all I saw was the backside of her and Addie as they ran off down the path. We met up with them at breakfast and they had a great time. Emma and Christina had gone too. We ended up with all the boys/ men on one side of the cabin and all the girls/ women on the other. The Dads were heard to grumble a bit about how nice it must be on our side since we had no kids as we got ready for breakfast. Our youngest girl, Jessica, is still older than our oldest boy, Jack. We also got the cabin side that did not smell like wet dog- so yes it was nice being a girl.

After breakfast it was time for our family picture. As we arrived at breakfast we noticed that another family group all had matching shirts and had given themselves a name! Memo to self: next year our group will have matching shirts- watch out! Here is our crew:

Want some help?

Then our silly faces...

One of my favorite quotes from breakfast was when Addie came up to me and said, "My mom says I can do everything!!!" For a mom that is pretty fun too- so often we have to say, "nope sorry you can't do that it costs to much" But at Jewell once you pay you don't really have to reach for your wallet again- you get to be a Yes Mom and not a No mom- love that. So Marc and I decided to divide up and Saturday was my day to hang with Jessica. First stop- candles of course. [oh and just so you know I and went and got my hair cut and colored after returning home. Memo to self: spruce up a bit BEFORE CJ next year since there will be many picture of you taken.]

On to BBs... I rocked in case you want to know.

Then to explore a little- chapel island

Arts and Crafts at some point

Archery was very popular with most of us.
Check me out!
Oh yeah- that's right baby!

Justin in particular seemed to come into his own with Archery. He really enjoyed it and got steadily better and better.
It really helped that for a good solid hour on Saturday he was the only person there and he could just shoot and shoot. They let him do 30 arrows at a time instead of the 5 or 6 that is normal. It did cause some confusion the next day when he didn't understand why they wouldn't let him shoot 30 arrows again even though there were a bunch of people there with him. He even began to show a preference for certain arrows and politely decline other ones and go off to find the perfect ones.

Jessica and I headed on to Mount Wood.

I missed her ascent but arrived in time to see her return to ground...

While we were watching Addie tackle the harder side, Emily says to me, "I remember pictures of you last year doing it- is it hard?" Oh no I said you can totally do it. So Emily conquered Mt Wood. But the sound of her shrieks she might not agree with my assessment, but she rocked it!
After lunch Emily and I joined Jessica and Addie on a horse back riding lesson- no pics- we were too busy holding onto the horses! Then we dropped the kids off at Age Groups and we the parents went back to hang out and relax and play some cards.

After dinner it was time for the Campfire. The theme for the weekend was the Wild West! Throughout the day WANTED posters were put up throughout camp with pictures of the staff, their bandit names and the crimes for which they were wanted. The kids were pretty excited. Upon arriving at the Council Ring we got a good look at the bandits! Then they ran away. We were sent off to capture the bandits and bring them back.

We are so clever we were the first families to find bandits. They thought they were so clever to just hide behind the stage. You have to hold hands in a circle around the bandit and walk them back to the council ring. You also need to have one of their wanted posters with you. Since one of our bandits was on crutches we sent out a posse (Mike Jessica and Addie) to go retrieve the wanted posters. Here are our bandits- highly annoyed at being caught so quickly :)

The campfire was very fun- s'mores and songs. Many of our kids signed up to lead a song and had a great time.

There was a an ongoing Wiffle Ball tournament in the Thunderdome all weekend. The Deweys- the Dew Crew- signed up and were scheduled to play against the Killers on Sunday morning after breakfast. We all decided to go cheer them on! If you look carefully you can see the cheering section in the stands behind them.

The Dew Crews Big Slugger!
They didn't win, but they did have fun!
Then off to our Sunday morning plans. Miles and Justin hatched a plan at breakfast. They were going to spend the entire day together. They decided to alternate who got to choose what they were going to do. Jason, Emily and Miles already had a plan to climb up Sunrise Mountain so Justin and I tagged along with that plan. Upon arriving at the top we saw 3 chairs- I think Emily, Jason and I had big plans for those chairs- sadly our companions had different plans.

We stopped for a quick pic- loving Justin's bed head and weird face.

He pulled off a nicer look for this shot- go figure
A view of camp from the top.

On the way down we went in search of the new treehouse. We had heard a lot about it and wanted to check it out. It is SO COOL. It is a two story treehouse out in the middle of the woods. I believe that campers are going to be doing overnights in the summer to this location. I could have hung out here for hours- but again our companions had other ideas.

Oh don't let his sweet smile fool you. This picture was taken mere moments before he threw that red plastic top in his hands into the woods- much to the shock and horror of the 3 adults.

While we were busy hiking up the mountain the rest of our gang decided to do Wild Camp Jewell! Basically outdoor living skills.
Here is Kim learning how to make fire. [I believe Becky forced Kim to learn this skill- Becky has big plans for Kim just in case we slip through the stones when we go to Scotland in the fall. Pretty sure Kim is now in charge of bringing Penicillin, making matches, oh later discovering penicillin and now making fire. Really hoping she hears the humming. Now is when Emily chimes in "I am going to be so pissed at you guys if you do go through the stones". If you have no idea what I am talking about, then you really should read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. If you do read it you are more than welcome to come join us in Scotland in September to see if you will slip through the stones too]

And what were Marc and Matt doing all morning? They were building out boat for the cardboard boat regatta. They were hoping to get the boat built in the morning so that the kids could decorate it in the afternoon.

Here are Justin and Miles playing one of Justin's favorite things about Camp Jewell- Carpet Ball!In the afternoon the kids headed to the beach. They were very excited to swim and play on the blob! There is a trampoline, a slide...

It was fun to jump off too!

Then the girls showed up...
Here they are demonstrating the coolest thing about the blob. Here's how it works. One person crawls out to the end. In this case Jessica. The other person jumps from the trampoline unto the inside part of the blob. In this case Christina. Then you will see what happens....

We left the beach and headed to A&C to decorate our boat. Emma remembered that last year Marc wanted to name the boat the Humorless Vegetables but he lost the coin toss- so she decided this was the year of the humorless vegetables. Here are all the kids decorating our boat.

Justin and Emily sharing a joke.

Then it was time to bring the boat to the beach, with their armed escort of course.

Here is our cheering section...

Oh sorry- this is better.

This is Steve. We met Steve in February when we went for Family Camp. Officially Steve was not working this weekend, but he had never seen the regatta before so he came down. I also saw him MANY times throughout the weekend and pretty sure he was cutting a mean rug at the Hoe Down that night. I think this falls into the category of "you know you love your job when..."
Here is our gang getting ready for the regatta. There did not seem to be as many boats as there were last year. We decided to get adults into our boat this year- both Kim and Marc were gung ho about getting in the boat. We had 6 kids in the boat as well- so 8 total.
Here is the video of our performance. Watch carefully and you will see Marc bop a girl on the head near the end because he couldn't see where they were going. He claims it was better in the long run, if he hadn't been paddling they would have run right over that child with Kim's power stroking in the back of the boat.

Many many more boats seemed to die in the water this year. Here is a shot of the field as our boat headed out.

And who won you ask? This boat. They admit it took them one whole Saturday at home to make it- they brought it to camp mostly made.
We were quite proud of our performance this year. At the Hoe Down we received the award for Most Spirit- when they called our team at the beginning they all yelled, "HUZZAH!" in unison and we won for most crew members- the kids were over the moon psyched! Memo to self: next year we are thinking of going theme based on our boat and costumes.

Sunday night was a hoe down square dance and hayrides- very fun. Justin was exhausted by Sunday night. I didn't have my camera at dinner but if I did you would see a picture of him with his head on the table slowly putting pieces of pasta in his mouth. At the hoe down when the staff came by with the cart carrying all of the ice cream sundae fixings he perked right up. He went over to the table and asked if he could help set up the table thus guaranteeing his first place spot in line.

On Monday morning the kids joined their age groups and we the parents packed up the cars. Then it was our last chance to do some of our favorite activities. Next year I think Marc and I might use some of our age group free time to go out on a canoe since neither of us could convince a child to go out in a boat with us. If you ask Marc what he did I think he would say, "Archery, BBs, Archery, BBs" You get the idea. We headed up to Dining Hall for our cookout.

Here are all our kids (minus Justin who was COVERED in popsicle yuck and had to get a new shirt) and the staff!
Another WONDERFUL FABULOUS weekend!!! We left having clearly converted two more families and brought them into the Camp Jewell family. We stopped by the office on our way out and signed up again for next year. How could we not go? We have big plans! When I asked Jessica what her favorite part is about Camp Jewell she thought and then said, "It is easier to tell you what I don't like. I don't like that we have to go to sleep and that the program areas close." Not too bad Camp Jewell.

Ray, if you are reading this blog, which I know happens sometimes, you need to know that you and staff do a wonderful job. We had a great time and can't wait to come back again and again- THANK YOU!

End of the year events

2010-06-09T12:16:00.003-04:00

Well it is that time of year again. As school winds down the kids school days are filled with fun activities and field trips and not so much academics.

2 weeks ago I became volunteering mom- woo hoo! Biggest downfall was the 95degree weather- boo! So on Tuesday Justin had field day. Not the field day of my childhood, which involved "real" sporting events. This is much more fun. [For a reminder of Jessica's field day 2 years ago click here.]

Justin enjoyed the afternoon, but admittedly it was tough to due to the weather- phew!

Get this kid on a track team to do the hurdles- ASAP!

The very next day I went with Jessica's class to a local nature center for pond study. The kids were told to wear long sleeves and long pants due to things like poison ivy and ticks. Um, yeah it was 95degrees. BUT Jessica would rather DIE than break the rules so she dressed appropriately. When she told me to do the same I said, "um nope uh uh I am an adult". Again I think the heat took some of the enthusiasm out of the children- as did a smidge of dehydration.

I decided to teach the kids a hand slapping game to fill some down time- they thought I was cool.

Both kids were very excited that I was there- I should enjoy it now because I am pretty sure my presence will be seen as annoying soon enough.

Renaissance Faire!

2010-05-15T22:57:00.002-04:00

I have never been to a Renaissance Faire. I have always wanted to go. So I googled and found one in CT. Dee has never been to a Renaissance Faire either- so she came along. Usually we do these things without Marc- but even he came along! woo hoo! The 5 of us headed out today to the Connecticut Renaissance Faire. The weather was beautiful today. [A little too beautiful- totally forgot sunscreen and we are all a little cherry red tonight.]

Jessica is in a bit of an in between stage right now. She would really want to do some things but was afraid of appearing foolish or being embarrassed. It began with this sign. Justin loves these signs (Jessica used to be so into them too). So Dee got in the picture with Justin.

Then Jessica acquiesced and joined in the fun.

When you arrive at the Faire you are immediately greeted by MANY people in costume. This was a little off putting (mostly to Dee and Jessica). This is a guy in a dragon costume giving a long spiel about being a princess which ends with Jessica getting a beaded necklace. As we walked away Jessica said, "That guy really freaked me out".

But fairly quickly we got into the swing of the day. The theme for these weekends is Robin Hood, they spent the entire day telling the story of Robin Hood. We would watch part of the story on one stage and then later go to a different stage to see the next part. Soon after they ended Jessica would say, "When is the next one??".

All of us really enjoyed the jousting. They were funny and pretty cool to watch. Marc's favorite part: When one jouster yelled, "Dude you sucketh!". Justin's favorite part: when the guy we were routing for pointed to his opponent and said, "Boo this man!" Justin happily boo-ed him every time. One of the horses got spooked at one point and that was a little upsetting. Of course when one of the knights was cut with a sword and blood was spurting out- Jessica dashed over to me to confirm it was fake. We did not stay until the end of the day when they were jousting to the death- man I hope that was fake.

Here is Jessica watching the Joust...

They had some games too that the kids could play. Justin was quite excited to battle the Scotsman with a sword.

Justin's sword skills in action...

Jessica totally wanted to do it too- but then panicked and backed out. I don't know if she got embarrassed or was nervous after she saw Justin getting smacked around. After some careful thought and a little coaxing she stepped in the ring.

a video of her performance...

Trying out the hammocks...

The characters would walk around the fairgrounds in between the shows. This is Robin Hood and his mate Much (no idea how to spell that). I was impressed with Robin Hood- every time we ran into him he would immediately get down on his knee to talk to the kids. He asked if we had seen the sheriff since they were hiding out from him. After this Jessica was always on guard to know where the sheriff was so that we could warn Robin if we saw him again. Of course she refused to pose with him...

This was Justin's favorite area- the juggling area. They let you try out all sorts of juggling toys- we spent a lot of time here.

In the end we had a great time. Almost everyone I told about the faire would roll their eyes or laugh in a mocking way (Mike Dewey!). They would then begin to describe the faire and what kinds of things happen there and then about half way through they would go, "huh- well yeah I think your kids would probably like it". Well they did like it. Jessica said it was a great day and she was bummed that we left before the end. She admitted later that she thought we were going to an amusement park so that might have been some of her hesitation at the beginning.

I thought all of the performers were so nice and friendly- going out of there way to talk to the kids and answer any questions (yes this is the part that might be off putting to some). I did keep wondering about the other people. You know, the ones that just have appropriate Renaissance wear in the closet for these occasions. There was a band of mauraders- in fur with a viking look- the gang of the faire I think. Who are these people?

That being said, younger me would have loved to have played a role for a few weekends a year- slipping back in time and escaping. So folks- I think we might even go to another one- but not in costume, not yet.

{Dee's favorite part might have been right at the end as we were leaving when Prince John said, in a British accent, "Oh don't go, we will be killing Robin Hood soon" and then Justin kept repeating it- in a British accent.}

Howe Caverns

2010-05-15T22:23:00.002-04:00

Over April Vacation the kids and I got out of the house for the week. We were having hardwood floors installed in our three bedrooms, the upstairs hall and the stairs as well as refinishing the dining room and entryway at the same time. This meant that all 4 of us would have to sleep in the family together and that didn't seem very fun. We were very lucky that Grandma and Grandpa gave us a timeshare week, so the three of us headed to the Berkshires for the week.

We had a good time, very relaxing. There were indoor pools, a min-golf course, an outdoor playground, an arcade, and we brought along the Wii too. One day we headed to Hancock Shaker Village. They had a bunch of baby animals that we got to pet.

Another Day we headed out to Howe Caverns. It is not in the Berkshires- but it was a fun day trip for us. We headed underground. Justin loved to walk up front with the guide.

Look! Look! They posed together for me- Look!

This was the end of the tour- the winding way- it was my favorite part.

Mostly we liked to hang out at the timeshare. When we returned home we had beautiful new floors!

Justin's World View

2010-05-04T10:26:00.002-04:00

Justin has recently discovered the video mode on our little camera. I delete most of the creations but a few I keep. Like this one...

want to see my new floors? here is a tour from Justin. oh- don't watch if you get motion sickness. AND the video was taken soon after the floor were done so Marc was still sleeping in the family room and all of our clothes from vacation as well as his were dumped in the family room while we set up the rooms- so forgive the mess...

Before and Afters- the Dining Room

2010-05-01T19:26:00.002-04:00

Ok, another before and after for your viewing pleasure. Here is the room that in theory should be a the dining room. When we saw the house it was being used as the mother's sitting room or "formal living room" is you will.

When we moved in we turned this room in our study/ dumping room- so lovely- just keeping it real folks.

BUT now that my office is all set up that room (with a door that closes) has become the office/ dumping room. And it was time to tackle the dining room. We needed to get the dining room painted before they refinished the wood floors over April vacation. [This proved brilliant since I had an unfortunate, yet rather comical near fall off a ladder which resulted in primer being thrown all over the room].

Those of you with a keen eye will notice we removed the chair rail. This is because there is a good chance that this room will eventually become where I take pictures indoors in poor weather and the chair rail can cut the background in an unflattering way.

So take a moment and enjoy the view- ahhhh. Starting next week we are going to be relocating the playroom and its contents into this room in order to get that room ready for painting and re-flooring. Yes, that's right- we are not done yet!

A New Favorite!

2010-04-30T19:37:00.002-04:00

A nice capture of my two guys!

And I realized that yes almost 2 months had passed and Justin needed a haircut. But before I ran out and got him one (2 weeks later). He went to school like this one day....

We warned him that kids might laugh at him and make fun of him but he said he didn't care he would just ignore them. He admits to taking them out after a few kids laughed at him.

Things found in my front yard

2010-04-30T19:28:00.002-04:00

With conservation land behind the house we have seen a lot of wildlife nearby. [I am not counting the time that Jessica yelled a "Moose in the backyard" (I assumed a deer) grabbed my camera and upon arriving realized that she mistook some tree formation for a moose. In fact if you want to see Jessica's eye roll maneuver just look out the back window and yell "Moose!"]

BUT one time Jessica yelled "Deer!" and was right.

This guy went wandering by the house one morning before school- hello Mr Turkey!

Some Easter Fun

2010-04-30T19:14:00.002-04:00

This year we signed up to do the Easter Egg Hunt in town. Every year I mean to sign the kids up and every year I forget. I finally remembered and as we arrived it is clear that they were some of the oldest kids there- oops too many years forgetting I think. When we arrived they had some games set up.

Because we registered online the kids got these VERY bright T-shirts! [amusing sidenote: Justin had his hand in front of his face and I told him to put his hand down- this is the result]

Then they released the Hounds!

The kids had fun but I don't think we will do it again next year.

After the hunt we returned home to make some fun Easter treats. Little Easter basket cupcakes. Jill was visiting this weekend so she helped too- the all green basket is Jill's doing because she is so "green".

I think I took pictures of eye dying- but I can't locate them right now. And I KNOW I didn't take any pics on Easter day of the kids in their dress clothes. Oh well, next year.

Letterboxing

2010-04-30T14:20:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of March we had some nice weather and decided to take the kids out to do some letterboxing. We hadn't gone in almost year (we are determined to go more often this summer). We decided to do the Harry Potter themed trail at the park in our town. This tickled both the kids. Here is Justin during the stamping process.

Jessica's Birthday!

2010-04-26T10:29:00.003-04:00

Well I am definitely behind. And since Jessica turned 9 over a month ago and you have yet to see any pics- I think that is proof.

On Jessica's actual birthday Grandmommy came up for dinner and we had Steak and homemade Mac n Cheese. Unfortunately I overcooked the steak so it was not as good as we would have liked. Then we had ice cream cake. I pulled out the candles and accidentally used the ones that keep re-lighting- oops.

The next weekend we had Jessica's birthday party for her friends. She chose to invite just a few friends and do a beading party. It was very nice. But first the cake! Jessica is into all things Pokemon and Bakugan these days- so her cakes were a Poke Ball (on the left) and a Bakugan ball (not a very good representation on the right).

We all headed out to the beading store. Each child got to make a necklace and a bracelet.

Olivia finished hers first so she went around and helped everyone else.

After beading we went back to our house for cake and pizza.
and... um... ooops.. same candles again!
This is our last year of single digits for her- gasp! She had a nice birthday and has a nice group of friends.

Today

2010-03-25T14:27:00.002-04:00

Today I sent the kids out for the bus. The stop is at our driveway, convenient. The neighbors went down the street instead today (don't know why), so it was just my kids. I spied on them through the window. They seemed to be enjoying each others company for a few minutes.

And then...
they got on the bus.

yesterday

2010-03-25T14:23:00.003-04:00

As I was walking out of the office yesterday I noticed Justin lying on the floor in front of the door in the sun just like the cat. So I snuck over to the camera and started snapping some pics.

See? Just like the cat...
and then, I got busted.

And those of you with keen eyes will notice the wallpaper in the dining room has been torn down- next room on the hit list.