2016 – Page 2 – NILL FAMILY news

One Year in 01760

Well we just hit the one year mark (we moved 9/30/15) on our life in Natick Massachusetts. It’s gone by fast and slow at the same time hahaha. True to form, we did not let much time pass before launching into our projects. Our major ones included the mudroom and kitchen, as well as some updates to our downstairs bathroom. But, you know how some things stay the same for so long and you just live with them to the point where you don’t even notice them anymore? It doesn’t make it any less awful, just that you’re immune to the sight of it. For example, we had a mind to paint our guest room right around this time last year. We put some samples up but beyond that? Nada. The squares are still there.

Oh, and our foyer remains completely unfurnished. Not only that, the shelves next to the fireplace have looked like this since, well, we moved in.

There are tools and contact paper and a picture hanging thing and a shoebox full of Jason’s random paperwork and a camera…this room will eventually be a piano room even though no one in our house plays the piano but a baby grand would fit perfectly along with two chairs so, it’s a natural choice for decoration. Utility is secondary here. I just want a pretty room 🙂 But wahhhhhh pianos and rugs and furniture and the lamp I want and all that is so expensive so, it’s kinda empty and I’ll probably be whining about it next year too. People that come in the front door DO ask, hesitantly, if we are moving. I don’t blame them, it is an odd way to enter a house.

But basically, we love it. Here, exactly, are all the things I love.
1) There aren’t too many neighborhoods like ours – you aren’t driving back there unless you live there, really. So it’s quiet, there’s no traffic, no cut through streets, no shortcuts. And it is all perfectly flat, which makes bike riding super enjoyable. The outer perimeter is over a mile, and zig zagging through all the little streets makes for some pretty long rides! I put Alex in the toddler seat on the back of my bike and off we go.

2) Our neighborhood has a pond! A great destination for when we are out walking and feel the need to go see if there are turtles or frogs (there never are, but I up-sell the possibility to the boys to get them excited about leaving the house) or throw some pebbles.

3) On the other side, we also have a little playground, with tennis courts and a big field to run in.

Also a good destination. We frequently need to get out of the house.

4a) We have a great front door. In Watertown, we painted our door a fun yellow except it didn’t face the street, so it’s like, why bother to hang a wreath or something when no one will enjoy it? It’s a small thing, but I particularly love how visible our front door is and how much it lends itself to good decorations.

4b) Speaking of decorations, we had two Christmas trees last year!! One in the front foyer window seen above, and one in the back in the family room. Dizzy with happiness, I tell you. I love Christmas trees.

5) I also love Wayland Town Beach. This gem is about 6 minutes from our house.

I’ve already written about that. But it was my zen spot all summer.

There are so many other things too, truly! The boys have their own bathroom. The trees are beautiful. We are within 10 minutes of any shopping experience you could ever want. We have met so many new people and our neighborhood even has its own Facebook group. Jason has plenty of projects to keep him busy. We are living the dream in all its suburban glory. The only con is that everyone else is too. We live in a pretty trafficky, busy area in general, and my commute to Waltham can be a little nightmarish. If Jason were here he would jump in and tell you that it’s because I leave too late (7:30 am), but I wish it were a quick zip to work no matter what time it was and it’s not. There are a lot of turns, waiting, lights, stop signs, cut throughs, etc. It’s 30 minutes on average of not-the-easiest driving and I’m still working on accepting it.

When we were looking at houses last year, I was looking for a place where the kids could ride their bikes and with top notch trick-or-treating. The latter is not so much about collecting candy of course, it’s symbolic of the type of community I wanted to be in. And our neighborhood is a party on Halloween. It is fast approaching, the boys have their costumes and can not, will not be stopped! Start guessing…

Davis Farmland Love

If you have a child/children under the age of 12, and live near enough to Sterling MA, sweet christmas go to Davis Farmland straight away. This place, this nirvana, is not just kid-friendly, it is actually designed for them. Like, you wouldn’t even come here if you didn’t have kids. I simply don’t know where to begin regarding the completely awesome wonderful time we had there yesterday. There is so much to do and see, but somehow it is a manageable, easy, and relaxed environment. We stayed all day and it was not hard to do!

So Davis Farmland is a great place to take your little animals to see other little animals. They sell $3 feed cups at admission, which you quickly realize is the best $3 you will ever spend. There are animals everywhere. Most are in little pens but you can freely enter and exit them, get as close as you would like to and touch and feed almost all of them. The ones that aren’t in enclosures just roam freely, basking in the sun and not even thinking about what life would be like on the other side of the fence. It’s the only explanation for how peaceful they all were.

Actually, we were told that the one animal who ever made an escape was this guy:

The slowest of them all, isn’t that funny? They found him a half mile down the road. Allegedly.

The goats and sheep, for their part, were very eager to eat. There was no evidence whatsoever that they are tired of the same feed being shoved down their throats by the gallon every day. They see someone coming who is under 4 feet tall and holding a red cup? They know what’s next and they line right up.

The boys held a TON of different things: baby goats, lizards, kittens, chicks, mice…

That mouse right there did a huge (by mouse standards) #2 in Ashton’s palm. Which brings me to: just as you are thinking that your kids’ hands have been slobbered all over by these animals and you are looking around for a place to wash them or for some Purell…voila. There are sinks and hand sanitizer dispensers all over this place. The sinks and toilets are even kid height! I’m telling you, Davis Farmland FTW.

After all the animals, we hopped on a hayride. This was the last picture Jason was in charge of.

Can you see any four-legged animals? Any hay bales or a tractor or anything that would indicate this is a hay ride? Or the other half of Jason’s face for that matter? No, you cannot. I love him but his pictures are terrible (he knows).

After that, we sat at one of the zillion covered picnic tables (that had complimentary wipes on them!) and had lunch, which I had brought, but there was an awesome BBQ stand as well as an indoor cafe. We didn’t sit long because the boys were itching to sift for some treasure (which, obviously, they “found”):

They fished:

Slid:

Posed:

And raced.

Not pictured is the Halloween parade and candy hunt they participated in, as well as learning how to milk a faux cow, the pony ride, and all the playgrounds. There were play structures all over the place – plus little interactive and pretend areas, plus a bounce house, PLUS in the summer they have a huge spray park. I just can’t even describe how much there was to do here.

At this point you may be thinking this all sounds busy and nightmarish. It was not! There was no sensory overload in any way, for kids or their parents. I would not have objected to a beer tent, but other than that, I literally have no recommendations for improvement. It was perfect.

On our way out we noticed that the orchard across the parking lot was still open for apple picking. We were like, well, we’re here, so…$7 bought a half peck and off we went!

Well I’ve done it. I’ve overposted for no reason. But I couldn’t help myself. Our day at Davis Farmland was a 10 so if you meet my initial criteria, go. You are guaranteed to have fun AND get naps on the car ride home! What else is there to want 😉

Project Preview: Dining Area

Our house has kind of a strange floorplan, having been converted from a cape to a colonial about 12 years ago. The original living room is now just a pass through from the new main living area to the guest room/bathroom and staircase. It is an empty space still (and we just passed our 1 year mark in the house) and oh how I wish I could borrow from it to make a proper dining room.

Alas.

So the “new main living area” is one big open space that includes the kitchen, family room and dining area, which is off to the side that looks out over the top of the driveway. It is framed by two doors – one leading outside (left one) and one leading out to the screened in porch (right one):

There are two walls to contend with. One big one:

And one smaller one.

We really want to warm up this space to make it cozier and a more welcoming part of the room. My go-to idea when it comes to making things feel customized…built-ins! You may recall the ones Jason constructed at our old house. Those were pre-built Home Depot cabinets that he raised and built shelves on. They worked for that living room but…I wanted fancier this time. Glass! Lights! And we went back and forth a lot on how to do this. Should we make the cabinets a color to offset the kitchen? Maybe a dark gray like our old fireplace? Should they be off to one side, using that one big wall?

But the more pictures I looked at, the more I knew something like this would be my inspiration photo:

And because the space is shared with the kitchen and living room, keeping the cabinets consistent was probably the safest. We turned to our trusty Martha Stewart catalog, picked out a few options, sat down with our designer at Home Depot and came up with a rough rendering.

Here is the space pretty much straight on.

We are going to put floor to ceiling cabinets on either side of the windows and connect them with a bench seat that runs the entire length under the windows. Akin to:

Except with glass cabinets on top, three little drawers and then a box at the bottom.

The built-ins should add some much needed height and character to the space.

NOW for the fun part…design elements! I created this mood board for my ideal choices. You know, if there was no such thing as money.

It’s a hard thing because our whole room so far is white/gray/blue/tan. It’s very muted, so I can’t go out of the box and introduce a crazy new color in the area. The whole room has to flow so I fear my choices for the bench cushion and the roman shades on the windows might end up being a little safe.

So that’s where we are at! We actually did order the farmhouse pedestal table you see above – it’s from Ethan Allen and we are in the middle of our 7-9 week wait time for it. Hopefully only another couple of weeks before the cabinets are in as well, We are hosting Thanksgiving this year so Jason needs to get a-buildin’!

Apples…are they or aren't they?

Yesterday was our annual apple picking adventure! We headed to Tougas Family Farm in Northborough and we had great company once we got there: the entire state of Massachusetts. I kid you not – the line to park (just to park!) was almost a mile long. That may not sound like a lot, but when you are snaking up a hill after driving 40 minutes and you know they have just opened at 10 am, how can so many people be ahead of you?? It’s nerve-wracking and I swear I almost made Jason turn around. I have lost the ability to wait since having kids.

Well you can guess. Although we faced the seas of humanity…

our boat sailed on just fine.

TOO fine. It was a curious experience in fact. There were no, like, trees. Instead of an orchard, the apples were in rows, grown almost like grapes on a vine. Look at the “trunks”:

And the “branches” were all strung up. Some were on these V-shaped structures.

I don’t know why this really threw me off but it did. Not very orchard-y and the apples were just dripping off.

It was all a tad suspect. The fruit was too perfect! And the picking was too easy. But, we were not about to let a little genetic engineering get in our way. The honeycrisps, I have to admit, were completely amazing. Alex took itty bitty chipmunk bites out of all of his,

Ashton took monster bites,

and in general we all enjoyed ourselves for the 20 or so minutes that it took to fill our $38 bag 😉

If we could have stood in the most terrifically long lines you’ve ever seen, there would have been cider doughnuts and kettle corn and all sorts of other treats. But we got the heck out of there and the line to get up the hill was even longer on our way out. At some point they must have stopped letting cars in – it was completely full.

Currently the giant apple bag is sitting on our counter and I think tonight the boys and I might make some anonymous donations to the neighbors. How many can one person really eat??

After we make some applesauce, apple muffins, and apple crisp, and after we use them for stamping and possibly another craft, I’ll be apple’ed out. Just in time to pick pumpkins…

p.s. Jason and I have been married 7 years today!!

Happy half birthday to Alex!

Alexander Michael is 2.5 today! Let’s talk about him 🙂

Alex is very spunky and happy, except when he’s not, and then things are very, very bad. He is either smiling, laughing and goofing off or crying and whining. He’s always been like that. But I’ll tell you, you cannot beat smiling/laughing/goofing off Alex. He is a little charmer.

As far as stats go, I don’t have any height/weight info, but he’s really getting heavy. Like, I-can-no-longer-comfortably-hold-him-and-walk-very-far heavy. He’s in a solid 3T for clothes, just graduated to a size NINE sneaker, wears a size 6 diaper and climbs out of his crib on the regular. Who is this gargantuan kid?

First tattoo: Batman, left forearm.

Skillz: He can scooter and poop on the potty. Not at the same time.

Chipped teeth: 1 (of mysterious origin)

Toy obsession: Magnatiles. It’s actually incredible how much he plays with these. He’s not so much in to the trains like Ashton was, then again those are all in the basement now that I think about it.

Big brother Ashton: “AH-tee”

Favorite word: “Me.”
Second favorite word: “No.”

Favorite phrase: “No Mommy. Me, me, ME!”
Most often heard: any time I try and do something for him. Which is often.

Other “words”: water is “WAH-wee”, open is “OH-pee”, dogs are all puppies or “PAW-bees”, bunnies are “hop hops”, Legos are “woe woes”, swords are “hi-YAHs”, ketchup is “tup-tup”…some of his other phrases are impossible to even write out how he makes them sound haha. He still has EI once a week and speech every other week, but he’s really not making much progress. He does try, very much so, but a lot of it is barely understandable even by us. He has his 1 year EI evaluation next month so it will be interesting to see what they propose.

Currently attends; Miss Tammy’s Playschool, 2 mornings per week

Favorite foods: honestly this depends a lot on whether he is hungry or not. But he will most always eat a hot dog (or something resembling a hot dog, like sausage or kielbasa), and garlic bread. He loves garlic bread. Who doesn’t.

Looking forward to: a big boy bed. He loves to lay in Ashton’s, they play “bedtime” and turn off the lights, say shhhhh and close eyes. Which is funny, because real bedtime is nothing like that. Joke’s on me.

Mostly likely found: wherever Ashton is, or close behind.

Best friend: this is a tie between Addie, the 18th month old that lives on the corner of our street (I think because he can say her name, conveniently also “AH-tee”), and Kayleigh, our 9 year old next door neighbor. Here he is trying to woo her at dinner.

Kayleigh also happens to be Ashton’s love interest. I don’t see this being a problem at all. You know, later on.

Sleep: I always shoot for an 8 pm bedtime, but after all the nonsense involved it’s usually 8:30 pm along with Ashton. He still takes naps in the afternoons.

Signature “handshake”: a fist bump for the right hand and a high five for the left hand, done simultaneously.

Bet you didn’t know: Jason and I considered naming him Ames. I didn’t give Jason the green light and so we settled/chickened out and named him Alexander. We’ve regretted it ever since. If we thought it was a reasonable thing to do, we’d change it. But it’s not.

Hopes and dreams: presidency of the Clean Plate Club

A lofty aspiration, considering his brother also eats everything in sight.

That about covers Alex’s highlights at the ripe old age of two and a half. On to three! But not too fast 🙂

Back to School!

This is it! We’ve nearly made it! Our two kids are in school. Of course this means two tuitions plus our nanny every month (insert face with X’s for eyes), but we’ll make it work by selling all of our stuff. Signing Alex up was technically optional, but we found the cutest spot for him and everything fell into place: the schedule (2 mornings a week), the program (play-based), and the location (right over the Natick/Wellesley line). Plus he’s ready for a little structure and socialization so we couldn’t not send him. His first day was today!

Ashton has already been back in his classroom for a week. As a reminder he is in TK this year with Mrs. Cooney. If he is a genius by the end of the year (doubtful), he could jump straight to first grade, but in all likelihood this is going to be a bridge year to kindergarten. The cut off date was August 31, his birthday was August 3…eh, we held him back. I’ve been seriously second guessing this decision as I’ve been watching all his friends and other kids his age hop on the bus to public school, but we weren’t ready for it. Luckily he has not seemed to have any issues with not going.

Just for fun, I thought I would now share our family schedule. A sample week, if you will. Keep in mind, this does not include the fun extras like Alex needs to bring a lunch to Miss Tammy’s on Wednesdays and Ashton only eats at school on Mondays and Fridays. Speech is every other week, and Jason’s day off is maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday, maybe none at all. Naps for both boys vary. Also Ashton commutes with me so we leave at 7:20 am to get to Belmont by 8 am and then I have to trek to Bentley after that…mornings on MWF are long. But more or less, it looks like this.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Jason	9:30 am Alex EI group drop off 10 am – 7 pm work	10:30 am – 7 pm work	8:45 am Alex drop off 9 am – 8 pm work	10:30 am – 9 pm work	8:45 am Alex drop off 9 am – 9 pm work
Kristen	8 am Ashton drop off 8:15 am-3 pm work 3:15 pm Ashton pickup	8-4 work	8:15-4 work 8 am Ashton drop off	8-4 work	8 am Ashton drop off 8:15-3 pm work 3:15 pm Ashton pickup
Ashton	BNS 8-3		BNS 8-12		BNS 8-3
Alex	9:30 am -12 pm \| EI Group Class at Criterion in Framingham		8:45 am – 12:45 pm Miss Tammy’s including lunch bunch	11:45 am EI with Amanda	8:45 – 11:45 am Miss Tammy’s 1 pm speech
Jen	12 pm (pick up Alex) – 4 pm	10-5 Both kids	12 pm (pick up Ashton then 12:45 pm pick up Alex) – 5 pm	10-5 Both kids	11:45 am (pick up Alex) – 4 pm

Even with this, there is no such thing as a “normal” schedule. This week for example I also had a dentist appointment, Ashton has another food challenge downtown tomorrow which is a half-day thing, Jason squeezed in some golf, there’s an open house for gymnastics on Thursday, etc etc. So you see, it’s busy. And we have *just* two kids. Some people have more! Or have a dog! Or have both more kids AND a dog or other pets! Phew. I need a towel and some water.

Anyway I have been ready for a new season and back-to-school (or, in Alex’s case, starting school!) is always an exciting time. Should be a great year! Ashton is already talking about Halloween and so far his two costume ideas are “hot water” and “half of a dragon and half of a ghost”. ??? I better get going…

LDW 2016

Labor Day weekend had its ups and downs this year. There are a lot of holidays like this where we really have no plans due to Jason’s work schedule but luckily, the boys and I were able to stay busy! And enjoy the weather; it was absolutely lovely. Heading into the weekend everyone was squawking that Hermine was going to dump all kinds of rain on us, but it held off until Monday evening. We spent all three days outside, beginning with:

1) the Home Depot kids workshop. This is a regularly scheduled thing on the first Saturday of every month, a drop in event from 9-12. It’s always on my calendar but we have never gone…until NOW! The project was “back to school whiteboards” and they had all the paint, tools and supplies out…the sound of all the hammers going was deafening.

Naturally I had to do most of it and my fingers and hands were stuck together with wood glue, but voila!

A closer look at Ashton’s masterpiece shows his name written completely backwards.

Perhaps our “let’s wait another year for kindergarten” decision was a good one haha.

2) Wayland Town Beach part 1. We went after naps and were the only ones there!

It was really warm out so it was nicer than it looked.

3) Sunday brought some errands with Jason and nothing really picture-worthy. After he left for work, I took the boys to Toys R Us and we bought remote control boats. Pause for effect.

After loading them with one zillion batteries, it was time for Wayland Town Beach part 2. Alex’s boat crapped out almost immediately and we had to launch a rescue mission.

Ashton actually succeeded in pushing it back to the dock where, bizarrely, Alex kept kissing it.

Like, what a relief that his non-functioning $14.99 boat had been saved!

But Ashton’s little yacht was solid and kept him busy for an hour. There were several “THIS IS SO AWESOME”‘s and lots of jumping up and down 🙂

So that was Sunday.

4) When we woke up on Monday Jason was already gone so we hit a new (to us) playground in Framingham called Cushing Park. I wish I had known to bring bikes or scooters, there were huge wide paths and the play area was really neat.

I wish I had gotten more time out of this place but when the boys decided they were ready for a snack, that was it because we had to walk all the way back to the car. So there they were, in their carseats chomping away and it was about 11 am and I thought “Sigh. Now what?”

5) The what became…Honeypot! We went back for more blueberries because why not, we’re crazy.

I knew the season was just about over, and we could have done apples, but there is plenty of time for apples still. Plus if I’m out in an orchard I need to have my sweater and boots on and it needs to be slightly chilly and feel like fall. It just does.

Alex, again, just ate and ate. He got right down to it.

Reminds me of someone…

Anyway, the usual pics…

until Alex grabbed my phone and took a few of his own! These are the ones that weren’t of the ground, his foot, or my butt.

It was a no makeup day for me, as you can likely tell.

My little farmers:

Ashton and I turned the blueberries into muffins when we got home/while Alex napped.

6) Jason got home around 4 pm on Monday and, drumroll please, it was time for the weekend’s encore. It looked like this! No training wheels!

Yesterday afternoon I put Alex in the toddler seat and rode with him on my bike right behind Ashton, loops and loops around the neighborhood. We had so much fun! And I thought, my gosh, I have a five year old who is riding a bike! Whaaaaaaat! I think I know what I’ll be doing a lot of this fall…

Naked and Afraid – 3 Days, SOLO

The unthinkable has happened. The never-before-experienced, awe-inspiring incredibleness of it nearly renders me speechless. I have spent the past three days alone. Unaccompanied by a husband or children. That’s right: I was all by myself on Sunday, Monday, AND Tuesday.

Here’s the background: Jen is on vacation this week and I definitely could not take time off from work to stay home with the boys. Jason’s schedule is more forgiving with this kind of thing so he said “Maybe I’ll take the boys to Long Island for a few days instead of just sticking around here.” I told him it would be cruel to joke about something like that. I’d have the house to myself? He claimed to be serious.

For several days I daydreamed about the coming silence. I would not be responsible for anything or anyone! No diapers! No baths! No unsatisfactory meals or laundry! I could leave the house at the drop of a hat! Like, instantaneously could decide to leave the house and then do it!! This kind of freedom has not been mine in more than 5 years. Sure, Jason and I have had a night or two away, but to be home and alone for more than 2 hours? Not since before Ashton was born, no sir.

So Jason pulled out of the driveway on Sunday morning at 7:45 am, small hands waved out of both windows and I did not know whether to laugh or cry. I wasn’t exactly naked and my house is in the suburbs, but I was afraid! Of spending two nights by myself AND of wasting even a single minute of this newfound freedom.

First things first. I drove into the city and met Katie (hi Katie!) in the North End for a walk. She lives there currently, I used to. Sniff. We ducked into a cafe for iced coffees and were barely inside the door when we hit the end of the line. Normally, I simply do not have time for lines. They make my throat close up – I have lost the ability to ever wait patiently in a line because either Jen’s meter is running (so to speak), I’m inconveniencing someone, or the longer I am standing there waiting, the more time until I get home. Most moms understand that time is never at a bigger premium than when you have small kids. There is always someplace else to be besides in that line wasting precious minutes.

But today there was not! The word “rush” did not apply to me on this gorgeous morning. So we meandered all around the North End and I got to look back on what an awesome time I had in my 20’s (how fitting, haha). Such a fun place to live, seriously. I even made Katie take my picture in front of my old apartment building (125 Salem #11! Woot!).

This was my home when I met so many of my friends and when Jason and I started dating. When I had plenty of time to exercise and go out and shop and do whatever I wanted. It was me for me back then.

Katie and I had a lovely catchup, I enjoyed every minute of it! When we said goodbye around 12:15 pm I was right on schedule (don’t think I didn’t have one! I had even packed myself a lunch) and tackled all my errands. After my morning of fun, sadly it was time to get ready for them to come home. Yes that’s right. I calculated I had about 56 hours left. 16 of those I planned to sleep, 18 more at work including the commute, which left 22. I started to cook.

Cook? HELL yes. I had the chance to actually get ahead on the zillion meals coming my way once school starts. I seized it. Ashton has breakfast in the car 3 days a week when we commute together, so I wanted to get prepared for that as well as stock the freezer. I had picked a bunch of new recipes with all the healthy things, like zucchini, sweet potato, flaxseed meal, almond flour, yogurt, kale and even quinoa. Things that even required me to get out my food processor (which has been in its box since we got married. I’ve always been very deterred by all the parts and cleaning – too much time. But currently I had plenty of it!). My kitchen looked like this or worse for the better part of the three days.

I made 7 things, all freezable:

SMOOTHIES

COOKIE DOUGH

BAKED ZITI AND MEAT SAUCE

MINI MEATLOAVES (meatloafs?)

MUFFINS

MEXICAN CHICKEN (later to be served with rice)

and

CHEESY CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI PASTA

Phew! The freezer was FULL. Side note, isn’t this a crazy long carrot??

Those went in the muffins. Anyway, I was BUSY! What else did I do. In no particular order, besides all the cooking, I washed my hair, I went and sat with the designer at Home Depot for our built in cabinets and at Ethan Allen for our new table (next project alert!), I scrubbed my wedding rings (so much gunk!), and spent some time on my eyebrows. The entire house was cleaned and vacuumed. Extra wine happened, more so on Sunday night so I could fall asleep in a big quiet house without imagining someone breaking in to murder me. And of course on Monday and Tuesday I had to work.

While I was slaving away, the boys were at the beach or jumping in the pool.

They went fishing, ate ice cream twice a day, and didn’t take a bath the entire time. Primarily because they never changed out of their bathing suits. They rolled in last night around 8 pm, bubbling and smiling and so excited to tell me all about it. I hadn’t really missed them (sorry not sorry, haha) until that moment when they filled the house back up with their chattering and stomping feet. I was glad they were home 🙂

Naturally Jason was exhausted but they had had such a great few days together I suggested he make this an annual tradition. Looking forward to an end of August “boys’ weekend away” will keep me going all year, you have no idea. Only 362 more days 😉

Another year, another blueberry

As the years tick by on this blog, I’m noticing I basically do the same post roughly every 365 days. There are the school posts, the holiday posts, the vacation posts, the woeful winter posts, etc. At this point I could say to myself, hmmm, what month is it? August? And it is a virtual certainty that, besides Ashton’s birthday, there’s a blueberry picking post in the archives. Yep.

2013 – working hard to fill up the container 😉

2014 – carrying a sweaty baby

2015 – carrying a sweaty toddler

2016 (no longer carrying anyone [choke, sob] – Ashton’s smile though, that’s something.)

So there we were at Honeypot Hill, again, picking blueberries, again. By the way, with Jackson and Adrian too, again.

Same activity, different year 😉 Honestly nothing happened except we had a super fun day- Honeypot has animals, a great farm stand, a tunnel maze and also a huge hedge maze, which we went into and I admit I started to panic because we couldn’t get out! And we could not cut through because the hedges were lined with fencing. We kept looping and looping and finally found an emergency exit. I’m serious. The sign actually said “Emergency Exit”. So if you’re into that kind of terror, go try it.

Alex ate his weight in blueberries the second we got to the field. I mean he was shoveling them in at an alarming rate.

I was helping him in the beginning but it was no use. My crop was decimated as soon as I dropped them in his carton.

Ashton was much more fastidious and after all these years picking, finally grasped the concept of only the big ones and only the blue ones.

Action shots from the 20 minutes this took:

VICTORIOUS!

Celebratory picnic lunch:

Followed by a trip to Wayland Town Beach to cool off with a swim. Not a bad day 🙂 I tell you, I should rename this blog “My life as a cruise ship director”. SO MANY ACTIVITIES! NEVERENDING ACTIVITIES! Come, embark! Our current passengers only complain about the snacks, which I have pledged to improve upon. Join us and please, call me Skipper.

Ahoy.

Summer Vacay 2016

There’s been a quite a delay here on this post! We usually take the third or fourth week in July for our family vacation and this year was no exception! However, the house we have rented on Block Island for the past couple of years was not available, plus we just renovated our kitchen which was a sizable chunk of change, so we played it easy. Instead of BI (like in 2013, 2014 and 2015), we headed to Long Island for a week with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Chris, Aunt Lizzie and Cousin Owen (aka Jason’s family – I mean, they’re my family too…you know what I’m saying).

Of course the weather was beautiful and we fell into our vacation routine straight away. Breakfast, pack up the lunches and the car, head to the beach, come home and go in the pool. Whilst floating, agonize over the most important decision of the day which was always “What should I drink right now?” Once that was behind us, the rest of the evening sailed on by.

Ahhh it was perfect. Jason and I got out to do some shopping and on the last night we got all dressed up and went out for dinner. Other than that, I think we were in our bathing suits the whole time!

Here is the part where I cringe though. I use Dropbox religiously and uploaded half of my pictures (ahem, like 200) and then once they were “up”, I deleted those 200 photos from my phone to make room for more. (And yes, I deleted the deleted folder.) This is the story of my life. Turns out the Dropbox upload never completed, and I couldn’t restart it because I had already deleted the pictures with no way to recover them. So I only have pictures from the second half of the week 😦 I took some of Jason’s though, and here is how things went in general. A week full of wet bathing suits, sunscreen, sand, water, turtles, minnows, fishing, crabs, snails, swimming and shirtless dinners (uh, the kids). Per usual, no award winners, but that’s my life haha. Except maybe this thread on Alex’s first time boogie-boarding! I die.

[the wave totally flipped him over right after that but he still came out smiling!]

Liz told me one day that there was a (deceased) turtle stuck in the lattice under the deck. Apparently it had tried to crawl through but had gotten stuck and had been there almost a week. I was beside myself, I just kept saying how bad I felt for it and finally, because I could not stop thinking about it, sent Jason in to get the body. Well he poked it and IT MOVED!! It was alive!! We gave it some water and I tried to feed it some lettuce (not interested) and Ashton and Owen had a quick play with it before we set it off into the woods.