A wet weekend

Friday morning we packed up the car for our weekend of camping, and headed up to Old Sturbridge Village. R was incredibly disappointed that the Saw Mill is still not up and running. However we did spend some time at the Carding Mill, which we had never seen in action before. It was very cool. Of course the boys spent some time playing along side the stream which powers it. We enjoyed noticing how much higher it was once the mill began running.

We also got to see a "fire balloon" set up and launched, and enjoyed the Tinsmith, which we had missed the last few times. The heat was brutal and we took some time for a 21st century Icee and all ended up with blue tongues. We didn't' get to do too much since we had arrived pretty late.

When OSV closed we headed over to our campground next; Jellystone Park, which was only about a mile away. While I was inside paying the balance on our site, it started to pour. We drove to our site and sat there for about ten minutes debating whether to go home or find a hotel. We ended up in Hampton Inn where the gave us a very reasonable rate. The boys had a great time there. They love staying at hotels, where they get to swim in an indoor pool and jump on the beds all they want.

E as he's jumping and with the heavy breathing the exertion is causing: "Woe I'm so excited we even have a fridge...we can put everything in there...I'm hungry...hey we even have a freezer...we have a bath and a shower...hey Mama, you know, you know, you know, we actually, we actually, we actually...um nevermind. I'm in a hotel... I'm in a hotel... hotel... hoteeeeeelllll... I'm in a hotel." Yes his song was so cute that I wrote some of it down.

We went to Pizzeria Uno for dinner where we got really bad service, and at least saved a few bucks on the tip. Even R commented that crappy service seems to follow us around. Is it because we have kids? Is it because we drink water, and the waitstaff knows the check won't be that large? I wish I knew.

We had a fun night in the hotel and went swimming very early in the morning. I was pretty psyched about the "free hot breakfast" but was incredibly disappointed that the hot part was french toast sticks. There was very little of what I consider to be healthy food there to eat. Sugar and carbs to the max. At least they also had sausage which I alone seemed to enjoy.

We check out and headed to our campsite. We spent the rest of Saturday playing miniature golf, swimming, riding bikes and of course, eating smores. We won two free games in mini golf and the boys and I played while B packed up the car on Sunday. After packing up was all done, the boys headed to the "Aqua Center" to pay for some more swimming, and really, just a big slide. They had a great time on it, and went down dozens of times.

We had a really fun weekend despite having to stay flexible. It was a cool adventure. I'd definitely advise skipping this particular Jellystone park though. It was so overpriced, it was a joke, and the spots were all teeny. No privacy at all. I could stand in the center of our site and turn in a complete 360 and see other sites from all angles. We had to pay for the mini golf, and also the "Aqua Center" which was a large kiddie pool (only up to three feet) and a giant slide. We will never go to this campground again, and I strongly suggest avoiding it to anyone considering it.

A day at home and an evening of music

We spent the day at home today catching up on some household chores. The boys spent a great portion of the day in the pool. They also watched TV and played some computer games. It was really too hot to be outside.

It did cool off this evening though, enough for us to head out to Elizabeth Park in Hartford and listen to some live music. The band was called "Happening" and played all 60's stuff. They were very good and it was fun listening to all that music from when I was a kid.

The gardens there are beautiful and all four of us enjoyed walking through some of them as we listened to the end of the performance. Okay two of us enjoyed walking through them, and two of us enjoyed playing tag. It was a really nice, easy-going evening.

Catching up with playgroup

I feel so incredibly blessed to be living in a place where we meet for playgroup at a location like this. The stream is so beautiful. R and I both took nice shots for the Durham Fair.

We have been very busy nurturing our friendships with individuals lately, and are happy to be doing so, but it was nice to have six of our eight playgroup families together again. It has been many months since we last got together. I'm glad that taking the time to nurture those individual relationships has really helped enable E to play more inclusively with everyone and not just his "best" friends.

Maybe it was just that they haven't all been together in a long time, or maybe they all just matured a little, but they really all did play wonderfully together. Maybe it was the water.

It was definitely a big motor skills kind of day with all of them splashing around in the stream, and running throughout the playground. The breeze in the park was beautiful, it was not too humid. I read a friend's tarot cards and saw only good things for the next few months. Life was exhilarating today.

The boys started today in our new pool in their pajamas, and finished it off in the pool when they got home from playgroup. B commented that they play really well together in the water. Water does that.

A Worm Hotel and the first friends to help us enjoy our new pool

B and my "2B" homeschoolers were digging in the compost pile yesterday. Overall they found about 50 worms. I suggested they immediately dump them in the strawberry patch, but fishing won out. So they created a worm hotel to keep them all happy until they are needed. Fifty worms is a lot to keep well-fed in a bucket, no matter how large that bucket is. Several dead ones were hanging out on top today. So the three of them decided that tomorrow they'd dump them all out and take inventory.

B was flattening out the ground to prepare it for our new pool. The friend of a friend gave us one for free, and boy are we psyched! It was a lot of work for B to flatten the ground, but it was well worth it.

Meanwhile back inside, I was making blueberry clafouti and blueberry pie. I stopped everyone to eat the lunch I had made, and later the dinner. I felt very housewife-ish. It was weird, although I much preferred all that baking to slinging dirt.

I also enjoyed cutting some more flowers from my cutting garden. The smell of the lilies is simply intoxicating. The whole house smells.











"Wake up Mommy and take my picture." Today started with E's experimenting with the strength of some Magz (magnets.) They are very strong and "it hurts when you leave them in your nose too long."

Today I made blueberry jam, and all the yogurt I bought yesterday evening is completely gone; the boys loved it with the fresh blueberries. We need to get some maple syrup tomorrow so we can enjoy some blueberry pancakes.

Today we also had some friends over and they enjoyed our new pool.I love visiting with these particular friends. Their mom is always so insightful. I always leave our one-on-one visits with lots to think about. I wish they weren't always so busy, or intentionally un-busy, so that we could see them more. I cherish the time we do get though.

Aquarium and Blueberry Picking

At the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, where we spent Fun Friday yesterday, there was a permanent exhibit of model ships. R really enjoyed the whole exhibit, and said that he wants to build a model ship one day. When we saw this particular ship R told me what kind it is (he knew them all) and said we had seen one like it at Mystic Seaport. When we approached it I read the description and it said it is a model of a real ship that went out of commission in 1985, and was donated to Mystic Seaport. What a cool moment when we realized we had actually set foot on it and seen the inside!

The best part of this aquarium is that its focus is on the marine life of Long Island Sound. We really enjoyed seeing the river otters and the touch tank devoted entirely to the Sound. E was soaking wet by the time we were done. The moon snails were the coolest, but we also enjoyed learning about horseshoe crabs. Apparently they hide in the depths and only come up to shallow ground once a year to mate. We were lucky enough to have been at the beach in June, when this apparently happens:

The aquarium also had a great display of residue one is likely to find on the beaches along the coast of Long Island Sound. We recognized some things and vowed to remember others. "When can we go to the beach again, Mom?"

I also dished out another 14 bucks for an Imax Movie; Ocean Wonderland. I couldn't help feeling like it was a show on TV that described everything you can see at an aquarium. Yes, the screen was large, but so what? Ho hum.

R decided he likes the Mystic Aquarium better. I think they are both different and have merit. However, I most definitely would not get a membership to Norwalk, and would be more likely to use one for Mystic. And the traffic coming home from Fairfield County was a nightmare.

Today we enjoyed some blueberry picking. Nagy Papa came with us. We were also happy to run into some friends while there!
Mrs. W. was the one who told me about this farm, so running into her and the girls was very cool. It was a 40 minute drive for us, but well worth it. We ended up with about 12 pounds of blueberries, and had a very enjoyable morning. Nagy Papa had fun too, I think. His tongue certainly got blue enough. He was also reminded of his own Nugy Mama who used to adore picking fresh fruit every year when she went to visit Uncle Richie out in Long Island. He misses her deeply.

We enjoyed some Chinese food afterwards, and after dropping Nugy Papa off at home we spent the afternoon watching Nanny McPhee, which was really enjoyable. After it was over we had to go back and watch the food fight again. Ah, life with boys.

E learned how to work the shredder on the food processor completely alone today, and also got a look at fractions via measuring cups. R is currently all about the Durham Fair. He is preparing his lego submission. We are all starting to think about photographs to enter (even Nugy Papa) and E is planning some sort of building made out of soda cans.

E and I have just started reading James and The Giant Peach. We are loving Roald Dahl - our favorite so far was The Twits. E has a dark sense of humor. R and I are enjoying the audiobook Eragon in the car. E gets bored though and we have to compromise on how often we listen. (On the way there, or on the way back?) So it will take a while to get through it.

Camping in New Jersey

This past weekend we headed down to New Jersey for the boys' cousin Sean's first birthday. His family owns a nice in-ground pool and the boys enjoyed the entire day swimming in it. Uncle Matt even brought out these really cool motorized boats for the kids to ride. All the photos can be viewed by clicking on the link on the right. There are even a couple of me.
The drive to Uncle Matt's is 3.5 hours, so we camped in a nearby state park. We drove down to the campsite in NJ on Friday, attended the party on Saturday, and came home on Sunday morning. It was a decent campground, and since it's a state park it was inexpensive. Plus our site was right next to the relatively clean bathroom, so it worked out well. We'll probably stay there again for Neil's birthday party in August.

Our weekend at home

It feels good to get things done around the house. Unfortunately, it's not something I get to feel very often, but this weekend was great. B and I weeded our garden out back. It was a huge mess. Some crabgrass has to stay behind because flowers planted as seed had grown right along with it, and to pull it out would have damaged all the good roots too. Hey, it was that much less to do.

I have to say that I really find that many weeds are actually quite lovely. We have lots of chamomile out there, which I left behind, since they are pretty flowers worth cutting. And since they are growing in what was an organic vegetable garden for the last many years, they will probably taste good too.

We also have a lot of crabgrass, which I really don't mind since it's so easy to pull. I did notice a giant one growing out of the compost pile, and it really does have lovely flowers on the top of it. (Flowers? Just what are those seed pods called? Sorry, no time to look it up, maybe tomorrow.) If we lived further away from our neighbors I would just let the stuff grow all over the lawn. It's only about a foot tall, and it really is quite nice. However, we don't live far away from our neighbors, and I do plan on living here for the next 15 years or so, therefore the seeds have to be prevented.

We have another horrible weed which I actually learned about from an exhibit at one of Yale's free art museums, in New Haven, along the way. I forget what it's called, but the exhibit was specifically about invasive imports, and boy I identified it very quickly. It was brought here from Japan and its stem gets incredibly thick, while reaching very far down into the depths of the soil. Unfortunately, I didn't learn this until after all mine had gone to seed last year (the birds loved all those giant berries,) so I am determinedly staying on top of it this year.

The last kind of weed we have (that I care about at least) hurts when you touch it. Or back your butt into it while you are weeding in front of it. The leaves are all prickly. I get those the moment I see them, but they go really deep too, and are tough to get. Okay, enough rambling about weeds.

I also really enjoyed looking at bugs. We sure have a lot of different kinds of them. Here's a beautiful spider guarding her egg sack. Boy, she was all over that thing.

We also all enjoyed watching the ant colony under a plaque I keep propped up on one of my rows. The tunnels were way cool. E took a ton of pictures.

I picked some flowers from my cutting garden. The daisies look so fresh in my bathroom.

The other vase contains a Zinnia and some Cosmos from seed, a Dahlia and some Calla Lilies from bulbs, and even some teeny white flowers that came from the tops of all that cilantro which reseeded last year. That Zinnia popping out of the top is quite fine; sturdy and strong. It will last in the vase for a long time. The Dahlias are looking good too, however I wish their stems were longer. Cosmos are so mushy and only last a day or two. They are so easy to grow though, it's hard to give them up. Calla Lillies are too short for cutting and will get planted in the front next year.

I can't believe almost everything which came up at the same time went together color-wise. Only a lonely orange Dahlia, and a simply gorgeous small-sized sunflower remain out there now. I have to get myself a few bud vases. I am so loving having flowers in my house!

E has really learned to play well by himself. He is always in another world with his knights and cars inside, or his roads for cars in the sandpit outside. R on the other hand, still thinks about the kids in the neighborhood. They have been mean to him and he has decided he has too much integrity to allow them to treat him the way they do. But he really misses when they were nice and he had someone to play with. I feel so bad for him, I remember vividly how it was to be on the receiving end of mean kids. I am glad he made the decision to stay away from them himself. My story about Roseanne helped, I think. But in the meantime, he does get caught up in the "I don't have anyone to play with" thing when he gets tired of playing with E.

We had a movie night and ate dinner in front of the TV watching the second half of Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines. I could remember seeing it when I was a kid and figured the boys would enjoy it. It is filled with cultural stereotypes, but it's funny. The boys loved it.

B and I watched The Libertine after the boys went to bed. As Roger Ebert puts it "The film doesn't follow the earl's rise and fall so much as his fall and fall." It would have been better if it followed the rise too, and showed a little less of the fall. However, it was Johnny Depp, and he is always great to watch, even when he has no nose because he has VD. As Ebert aptly puts it "You will not like the Second Earl of Rochester. But you will not be able to take your eyes from him."

Today was more laid back. I spent most of it on my computer, trying my best to catch up on CT Homeschool Network stuff, and answering some email. The boys all went blueberry picking, then enjoyed the afternoon watching the Soccer World Cup. Then we had dinner at Senor Panchos with some friends. And here I am back on my computer.

It's a busy week for us, so I may not get here every evening. Sign up on this page, under all the links on the right, to have an email sent to you when I update the page. It's cool, and it works. This way you don't have to check in every day, unless you get an email!

Cheshire Pool and a Birthday Party

This fun Friday we couldn't go too far from home, since we had a birthday party to attend this evening. So we spent the afternoon at Cheshire pool. It was a lot of fun. Even all the camp kids couldn't detract from our enjoyment. We did lots of swimming and R enjoyed jumping off the diving board several times.

We came home for a while and after I showered R read me half of Green Eggs and Ham.

From 6:00 to 8:00 we attended a party at Imagine Nation in Bristol. R and E had become friendly with K in Craft and Swim, and were invited to his birthday. He's the one with his tongue sticking out. B was invited too - he's the one all the way on the left.

The boys had a very fun time, although they would have preferred to have more time exploring the museum. They spent an hour and a half having pizza, ice-cream, and cake, opening presents, bopping eachother over the heads with balloons, and making slime out of borax and glue. So that left only half hour for exploring. It was a fun museum that we will probably visit again sometime. And the boys decided they would like to get to know K better. So I'll be emailing his mom to set up a playdate this week.

Goodbye La Leche League

I have been a La Leche League Leader for over four years now. I accepted phone calls at my home from mothers who have questions about breastfeeding, and led monthly meetings with three other terrific women. For one year I also led a separate meeting for mothers who were nursing toddlers. In addition I was on the CT Area Council for that entire time; I was the layout editor for ConnTact, Connecticut's quarterly Leaders' newsletter for three years, and have been a District Advisor for this last year. (The five groups in my Area would send me all their monthly paperwork, and I would condense it and send it up the line. I also provided support for the Leaders of those five groups.)

Well, it is actually with a very light heart that I now retire from LLL. I dropped off my box of paperwork to my supervisor today. And this weekend I hope to find time to go through the two feet of shelf space the rest of the paperwork takes up. It was a (mostly) satisfying four years, but I have moved on to the next level in my life.

I am now on the board of directors for CT Homeschool Network. However, I have started to feel that my volunteer positions are taking too much time away from other things I'd rather be doing, so I have committed only till September. At that point I would really like to revamp my business, which I am embarrassed to admit, I have barely thought about since December. I need to redo my website so that Google can find me more easily. It is a big task which I have not been thrilled to think about, let alone start.

I would also like to start scrapbooking again...

Independence Day in Maine

We had a wonderful time this weekend in Maine. Normally we don't go on 4th of July weekend, but we decided Grandma could use some hugs, and we headed up.

We had fun swimming in the river behind Grandma's house. B and the boys swam quite often, but I went just once; it was cold!

We enjoyed some miniature golf with Grandma. Her neighborhood course is much nicer than ours; it had obstacles and everything. R did exceptionally well, which saved us from the sensitivity thing this time around.

We also enjoyed a great day up at Granny Kent pond, where my Grandmother has a house. My aunt and her husband were up for the weekend, and we had a chance to spend some time with them without the usual mob around. We also enjoyed swimming there, although the water was incredibly mucky from all the boats whipping up everything off the bottom.

Another day Grandma joined us for some candlestick bowling. We also played lots of arcade games while at the bowling alley. I played some Skee Ball and Mrs. Pac Man and the boys played some car racing games and pool, while Grandma cheered us all on.
On Monday evening (the 3rd) Grandma worked at The Lion's Club booth selling hamburgers, while we all enjoyed a ski show on Number 1 pond. Aunt Debbie had arrived in Maine and was able to join us too. We enjoyed ice-cream along the way, and the people next to us were nice enough to share some sparklers with E.
The fireworks began at nine and went until 9:20. It wasn't too bad getting out of the area either; we had chosen our parking spot with escape in mind.

My favorite part of the weekend though, had to be getting to see Grandma and all the Red Hat Ladies in the parade the next morning. They had spent two hours the afternoon before working on a truck which a lumber yard had provided for them. They all looked fabulous. Grandma is the one all the way on the right.
She had also glued some purple flowers onto red umbrellas for herself and her friend, Pam.
It was loads of fun. Really, very cool. The boys really enjoyed the parade, mostly because they collected lots and lots of candy from people throwing it down from floats. I didn't see much of the rest of the parade though because I was too busy playing with my new nephew. I am glad we ran into my brother so I could.
Baby Mike is five weeks old now, and a real cutie. He must be a handful for his parents though, because he definitely has a preference for being upright with his legs extended. Must be challenging for parents who don't use a sling. I was perfectly willing to hold him upright for the time I had him though, and I had lots of fun making baby talk with him.

After the parade Grandma went to Granny Kent for the giant family get-together, and we headed out to an enjoyable lunch with Aunt Debbie. Following that we headed home.

We haven't been to Grandma's house in Maine for a plain old visit in quite a while. For a long time it had been family parties which sent us up there. And this is the first time in a long time which I didn't want to go home when it was over.

I hope Grandma had as much fun as we did.