A few more thankfuls:

To finish up the Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I'd comment on our trip "over the river and through the woods" to eat Thanksgiving dinner with family. Or, shall we say, over MANY rivers and through MANY woods? Our weekend was packed with lots of "thanks" and "FULL"s.

We made the trek to Pittsburgh to be with David's brother, Brian, and his family. David and Brian love being together, Wendy and I get along famously, Grace and Jeremiah grew to be fast and inseparable friends, the teen-agers graciously entertained Hattie, and the dogs even have fun with their doggie cousins, so we all had a great time. These are the things I was most thankful for:

*a very reliable and nice car with a luggage box on top to travel in
*getting there and home safely and in under 12 hours each way
*kids being pretty darn good in the car on the way
*dogs also being extremely good the whole time
*my gut instinct that Grace had strep, almost as soon as we got there
*my insistence to take Grace to a minute clinic for a strep test
*antibiotics that were finally granted to us, allowing Grace to feel better before leaving and also to go to school tomorrow
*my kids' cool taste in music allowing me to listen to my own playlist in the car
*beautiful, traditional, Thanksgiving dinner made by the whole family (Wendy - turkey and potatoes, Clare - desserts, Alec - stuffing, Jeremiah - rolls, Me - random side dishes)
*eating Thanksgiving dinner with family
*chances to go on lots of outings - Fantastic Fox movie, dinner, Frick museum
*Grace and Jeremiah playing endlessly and happily with each other
*getting up early enough to nearly avoid the New York traffic on the way home today
*the brain power to think to bring lots of paper towels, wipes, and plastic bags, especially for the return trip (our little Hattie seems to be prone to car sickness. ugh.)
*very few squabbles in the car, even when I took a turn driving
*the gps and the iphone (ok, so I don't want my own iphone, but I do love that David has one when we travel.)
*I am also thankful for the start of the Christmas season. I love it.

(the kid table)

(the big people table)(Brian and David checking out a sun dial at The Frick)(Jeremiah, Grace, and Harriet doing an I Spy scavenger hunt in the green house at The Frick)(Hattie should have asked Santa for her own iphone)(Grace says "the sun is in my eyes!")

one quick thankful

Before I do my last one for the month, I want to put in one quick thankful post about our little outing in Boston last weekend. I have wanted to see The Old North Church (you know, one if by land, two if by sea) the whole time I have lived here, but have never made it to that part of Boston in 5 years. Thanks to some great new friends who live in the city, and who graciously hosted our family for a fun afternoon and night, we were able to eat lunch in their awesome neighborhood, see the Museum of Science, and eat dinner in the Italian NORTH end, where we fortuitously walked right past THE OLD NORTH CHURCH! YAY!! Thank you Jon and Elisa! You are definitely the coolest. I am thankful for new friends, and for kids who are old enough to explore Boston!

(my little brainiac)

(the mommy/biology teacher couldn't pass by the cool DNA without a long pause)

(my little bird watchers found stuffed varieties of all their favorites, I didn't have the heart to tell them they were all dead)

(and FINALLY, the Old North Church. ahh....)

Being Thankful

A friend of mine posted on facebook that "counting your blessings does NOT mean making a list of your personal property", or something like that. While I agree with her that we should be thankful for MORE than material possessions, I'm sure God doesn't mind that we are also thankful for the STUFF we have too. We sure have a lot and I know so many who don't. I know we're lucky and blessed in lots of ways.

But, truly, infinitely more than personal possessions, these are a few things I am most grateful for:

A very, extremely awesome husband who makes a pretty darn great Daddy too:
Two little princesses (Grace, you ARE a princess whether you like it or not, and Hattie thrives in her princess role):

Two adorable, sweet, loyal doggies:

(I am especially grateful for their current health after a scary month.)

An incredible and loving family:

(forgive the old, outdated, and blurry picture, but it's the only one I've got)

And friends. If I posted one picture, I'd have to post a hundred, so I won't even try, but I have the most amazing friends. You know who you are. Whether it's only little comments on facebook, or people who call and text me, those I see a few choice times a year, or those who live near enough to enjoy things like vacations, dinner, book group, and other outings with, I love my friends.

I think that's what it all boils down to, right? The creatures in our lives are the real stuff that blessings are made of. And, I'm thankful for every, single, one.

the cutest kids

Sorry folks, I got 'em - the cutest kids in the universe. Yours are cute too, but mine are definitely the cutest. Too bad for you.

I just got the school pictures back. I couldn't believe how beautiful the photos were. Since they go to different schools, they had different photographers. I worried that one would turn out and the other wouldn't. Both were amazing. I was going to post them, but I think I'll wait until I've mailed them to the fam first. I've got other evidence to prove my point though:

Hattie is simply delicious (I have wanted to eat her alive since she was a baby):

(helping momma rake the leaves and haul them up the hill)
(Hattie getting her yellow belt after her first karate test last week.)

Grace is just downright gorgeous:

(Grace finally earned that purple belt!)

(Grace celebrating w/best friend Eamon - they got to test for purple belts together.)

(although, now that Grace has lost that first top tooth, she's maybe got one more notch in the cute column and may have lost one in the super model category. it doesn't help that she makes these strange faces!)

What's that saying "there's a reason they're so cute..." Let's just say that it is absolutely true at our house lately. The cute factor has to be HUGE to outweigh the sassing your mom, not doing what you're told, and fighting with your sister, factors. They're as tough as they are cute, and with the karate skills in the mix, you might need to think twice before letting the cute take you over.

The V Dog

Our funny, smart, sweet, loyal, Velvet dog, has survived another near death experience. Let's see, she's nearly died of chocolate consumption, nearly given up on as lost, and nearly chewed her way through the 220 line to the a/c in our old house just to name a few. Well, she really wasn't "near death" this time, but she was saved from a sooner demise than she might have met.

Last week, we took her in to have a lump on her lower abdomen aspirated to see if it was one of the common lipomas (fatty tumors) that older dogs seem to get. So far, she's had one tested and Shadow has had 2 and all 3 have come back as something not to worry about. I really hoped that this one would as well, but when the vet came back from looking in her microscope with that "this doesn't look right" speech, I knew it wasn't good.

To be sure she was right about it, our vet sent off a slide to an outside pathology lab to be tested. We found out on Thursday that Velvet definitely did have a cancerous tumor. She's 11.5 years old, so she's not exactly young, but other than this she is a super healthy, happy, energetic dog. We were hoping she'd live at least a few more years before having to deal with this kind of thing.

The surgery was expensive, not out of the ball park, but expensive enough to consider carefully that we can't start a string of such actions. We decided to do it once, hoping to cure her of this cancer in one shot.

Velvet went in for surgery yesterday. They got the whole tumor and think that she probably won't need more treatment. But, still they sent off the tumor to be analyzed to be sure. We're really hoping that it's a done deal and that we've bought her a few more healthy years.

(no one likes to be a cone head)

(gee, thanks for the cute haircut for the holidays!)

In the mean-time, we've found a couple more lumps on Shadow. I hardly dared call to take her in to find out if they were more lipomas or something to worry about as well. She's 2 years younger, so I'm hoping they are just the same as the others she has. We'll find out next week.

All said and done, we've started a season of years that I have dreaded for a while. Aging pets are a constant worry and heart-ache. It's so hard to have to keep evaluating their quality of life vs. quantity of life left vs. our emotional attachment vs. the cost to do anything about it. These dogs have been with us nearly our whole marriage and are definitely part of our family. Grace and Hattie have never known life without them. I just hope we can keep them healthy for a few more years without too much intervention.

We love you V-Dog! Get better and go fetch the ball some more!

(Velvet and Shadow playing tag last Saturday - before surgery)

p.s. - got the results today (Wed)... the tumor was malignant and is likely to return, but had not yet spread. So, we're in the clear until it comes back. Hoping it won't be back for a long time.

The Halloween Post

Well, my friend Jared, just reminded me that it is NaBloPoMo, which means National Blog Posting Month and you're supposed to try to blog every single day for the month of November. I've already blown it since it's November 2nd. Since I've only got one post a month for the last 2 months, I'll just try to do better this month and get a few more in, but there's no way I'll get to it every day.

So, for the first one, we'll do the Halloween report:
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, might be second to Christmas. I love candy, I love dressing up, and I actually love spooky stuff (a little less now than I used to.) Now that I have kids, I also love seeing them get excited about their costumes, going pumpkin picking, and helping them eat their candy! (ok, I'm trying very hard this year not to raid their buckets and stick to our leftovers from only having 2 families come trick-or-treating to our door.)

We started the holiday off with the wARd trunk-or-treat. I just couldn't top my costume from last year (Sarah Palin - scariest AND funniest thing in October 2008.) Then, when David announced over the pulpit in sacrament that "we'll see if my wife can out-do her costume from last year," the pressure was just too much. I totally flopped and used someone else's idea to be a facebook page. It was kind of a cute idea, but Hattie wanted me to hold her all night because she was scared of everyone dressed up, so I had to take off the white board hanging around my neck. David, who seriously couldn't care less about Halloween, does not dress up unless I make him and I was too tired this year, so we were sans costumes.The KIDS though, were totally thrilled with their costumes. It was a squeaker to try to find what they wanted though. Grace wanted to be a tiger and Hattie wanted to be a pumpkin. Turns out that the costume companies make animal costumes for kids up through the 5T size and pumpkin costumes for babies up through the 2T size. Well, I needed a size 6 tiger and a size 4 pumpkin!! I finally found a size 4 pumpkin (definitely on the small side though) and Grace had to settle for a size 5 tiger and deal with it being a tad too small too. If I had the sewing skills and the time, I might have been able to solve the problem myself, but when Old Navy has totally nice costumes for $15, you just can't justify the $30 at the fabric store and the endless hours of sewing. Kudos to all those moms who make costumes every year!

Our town schools here don't celebrate the holidays. I can see not doing the religious holidays, but come on - Halloween?! So, poor Gracie did not get to wear a costume to school or have a school Halloween party. (They do a "pumpkin activity day" which means a pile of worksheets with a pumpkin theme and I think they got to weigh a pumpkin for math.) I let her wear her face painted like a tiger in protest though.

Hattie's pre-school did do a Halloween party. Oh, wait, excuse me, a "Fall Harvest Celebration." But, they did let the kids wear costumes and since her pre-school is part of a high school, the kids got to trick-or-treat through the offices of the high school. Her party was a total blast. I've never seen so many Halloween crafts! Our dining room table is covered with them now. (actually, now that I look at them, I guess Grace did do a couple of crafts at school too...) In the grand tradition of my children, Hattie was the only girl in her class not dressed up as some sort of princess. Hattie is even my daughter who LIKES princesses! Grace wouldn't be caught dead in a princess costume.

Halloween evening started out with some pumpkin carving. The kids drew their own designs on the pumpkins and I did all the knife work.

(Grace, the tiger, looking fierce with her "two faced" pumpkin)

Poor Daddy caught the flu either from the trunk-or-treat, or from church that weekend, so he was DOWN for Halloween. We left him to man the door which wasn't too hard considering a grand total of 7 kids/2 families. Don't worry - we didn't pass out swine flu with our candy. I made sure it was a sanitary situation.

I took the kids out. It was a nearly perfect evening with 70 degree weather and a spooky full moon with some wind that kept blowing wispy clouds in front of it. Our neighborhood scarcely has any kids at all. No one trick-or-treats around here, and very few turn on their lights to hand out candy. There are about 3-4 houses with older couples nearby who literally wait all night for our kids to show up and are so excited to see Grace and Hattie. Now that the kids are older though, I knew that going to 3 grandma houses wouldn't quite cut it. Grace's 2 best friends live in little cul-de-sacs nearby, so I told her that we could go visit them, take them a treat, and possibly do a few houses in their circles. I had no idea how perfectly my plan would work out! Grace's friend Corey and siblings had just headed out to the neighborhood when we pulled up. So, Grace and Hattie got to do the whole neighborhood with them.

(Haley, Corey, Brady, Grace, and Hattie)

Then, we headed over to Eamon's house quite a bit later, expecting to find that he was already done, but he had just headed out as well, so we caught up with him and did their whole neighborhood too!

(Eamon, Grace, and Hattie)

I would never have let the girls do so many houses in multiple neighborhoods if they were being greedy about "how much candy." But, they never once mentioned getting more candy, they just LOVED going with their friends. They wanted to do "more houses" because they just love running up to the porch and ringing the doorbell. It was seriously such a fun time to get to see the kids trick-or-treating with friends on a street filled with kids!

By the time we got back to our house and went to the grandma houses, they had almost given up on us and thought we weren't coming. I felt so bad - they had seriously prepared and waited for Grace and Hattie all night! Well, we WERE on the tail end of the town-announced Halloween holiday hours of 5-8pm.

(Grace and Hattie trick-or-treating at "Grandma" Jeanne's house. It's nice to have adopted grandparents when yours are more than 2000 miles away)

(walking down our dark empty road - I love Grace's tiger tail from behind)

Hattie was SO TIRED. She came home and immediately fell asleep on the couch in her costume.

Whew! Check off a successful Halloween! I think my kids are at the perfect age range right now to understand the holiday, for everything to be super fun (just a little bit scary), and not be too much work (like the hauling the baby around years.) I'm so looking forward to Christmas for the same reasons.

nothing much to say lately

I haven't posted for a long time. Actually, it's not so much that I don't have anything TO say, it's just I don't know WHAT to say lately. I feel like we are in a total holding pattern with so many aspects of life, yet the days, weeks, and months are flying by so fast I can't even catch a glimpse. I am really starting to feel how long it's been since my kids saw their grandparents and how long it's been since our last Utah trip together, but at the same time, I don't know where the year has gone.

To add to my speechlessness, we've had a string of tragic events happen in/around our ward recently and it's left me pretty numb and unexcited to write about anything from the changes in season, to fun things we've done, to how much the kids are growing up. I guess writing random things on facebook is satisfying my need to make any kind of comment about life too.

Still, I know the grandparents love to see new pictures and video of the little darlings. Grace and Hattie have really filled the fall season up until it's bursting at the seams. New school schedules this year, for both of them, are making them very tired and hungry by the end of the day. We can't seem to get a grip on a routine that works yet. They are both in karate classes and riding lessons now too, which entirely consume 2 of the 5 weekday evenings. It's a lot for them. Who are we kidding, it's a lot for ME!

Well, here's the report anyway, for the Grandmas and for the book:

Grace: loves 1st grade, but not as much as kindergarten; still refuses to do anything with her long goldilocks hair; is nearly impossible to get ready for school by the time the bus comes - it's a squeaker every morning; is a pro spelling test taker; does homework with painful precision and attention to detail yet does everything else at home with as little effort as possible; continues to ride Tink in her riding lessons and is getting very good - can now post the trot quite well; continues to love karate and is anxiously awaiting her invitation to test for the purple belt but needs to polish her forms for the test first (and gets a little lazy about the polishing part, thus, no invitation for her yet); finally learned how to do a real somersault at karate; has a new friend, Corey, at school - continues to play with the boys, although the name Rachel has cropped up a couple of times - maybe there's hope for a girl friend!; has a very loose top tooth that seriously makes it hard for her to eat; is extremely excited that it started snowing today and was the only one enthusiastic to put on her ski jacket and go outside.

(Grace and Corey playing Mario Kart Wii)

(Grace and Hattie doing their karate exercises)

Hattie: LOVES preschool and wishes she could go to school every day- has a hard time understanding Tuesday/Thursday; insists on wearing a pony tail every single day, all day long to keep the hair out of her face; has discovered "on demand" on the TV and is becoming a junkie; is letting go of some of her OCD habits (THANKFULLY!) - bedtime is 1000 times easier than it was 6 months ago; wants to do everything all by "her own self"; started riding Peppe in a little riding class with a 3 year old boy - they switch on and off to ride and take care of him together; was awarded her second stripe on her white belt at karate last night and is SO excited -will be testing for her yellow belt soon; can now write the letters H, T, and O and spots the letter H wherever one pops up (H for Hattie!); not so sure about friends at school, but the name Megan has come up; does. not. eat. anything. (except instant breakfast, spaghetti, ice cream, and candy - won't even finish a cookie!); asks for ice cream every single time we drive by Erikson's dairy, which happens about 1 minute before we arrive home, so she eats ice cream upon arriving home OFTEN (good thing we have our freezer stocked with Erikson's!); wants to go outside in any weather, constantly disappointed that mom doesn't like bugs, rain, cold, or snow.

(Hattie and Mommy baking in the kitchen; you can find us here together quite a bit.)

(Hattie's preschool interview)

(the fam stopping for a fall pic on our Columbus Day bike ride)

(Grace crossing a bridge on the bike ride; she rode 5 miles all by herself on her little bike!)
(have to admit that our neighborhood is very beautiful in the fall; our neighbors always comment about the colors on this tree in our yard)

The Future Needs a Big Kiss

At least, that's what the front of my newest concert t-shirt says. I know, David, my family, and long-time friends, are rolling their eyes, but you'll all have to indulge me on one good long post about my favorite band. I checked. I've never posted about them before, so once won't hurt ya.

I saw U2 live last night at Gillette Stadium "near" Boston. This was my third opportunity to have what I used to think might be a once in a lifetime experience. They've toured the U.S. 5 times since I became a fan, so that's not too bad to catch them thrice.

First off, I must say how much I LOVE going to concerts and hearing live music. In the days of $20 face value tickets, I used to go to just about every band who came to town, some of the time splurging $100 for a front row seat from a ticket broker. Sometime in college, those splurge prices became the face value and I had to become much more selective about where I could dump a wad of cash on a rock star, especially once I hooked up with David who couldn't care less about going to concerts. I will also say that I have not been to a concert since before Grace was born. My last one was Sheryl Crow in Feb 2002 at the Winter Olympics!

My dad took me to my first concert ever when I was in 5th grade along with my little sister and cousin. We saw Tiffany at the Salt Palace. I was hooked, right away, on the concert experience. There is just something about seeing someone sing their life and guts into a microphone, play their guitar so intently and expertly, you wonder if they even know a stadium is watching, or rail on the drums with a force and precision that can only come from another cosmic realm. When you combine that with songs that pretty much make up the sound-track to the last 18 years of your life, and a band who cares about things you care about in the world, you've got what it feels like for me (and apparently millions of others) to see U2.

David thinks I'm turning into a Grateful Dead-type fan. Admittedly, I'm wondering how many years, or months, or minutes I have left before my favorite band begins to look like the cast from Tales from the Crypt (has anyone mentioned this to the Rolling Stones?) Worse yet, is the aging crowd you're forced to see these concerts with. Maturity definitely doesn't come with age when you're talking rock and roll, so these people look like even bigger idiots when they're half drunk and falling over stoned at a concert at the age of 45 instead of 25. I could count on one hand the number of high school age kids I saw last night. The ones I saw were with their parents and appeared to have been forced to go.

Ok, I'm not 17 anymore, but I'm not 70 either. 30 something is the new 23 right? I'm still hip. I've still got a little sass, don't I? Sure, it's hidden beneath my "mom clothes" and my kids' ipod playlists which dominate MY U2 issue ipod, but I still love rock and roll. What did they used to say? Rock and roll will never die? Well, the rockers might, but I think that the music is here to stay to be enjoyed by anyone of any age willing to put down their hip-hop crap for just a darn minute. I just feel pretty lucky that my favorite band is still alive and well, playing better than ever, writing new stuff, reinventing themselves, and touring so that I can keep on enjoying them.

Oh, and speak of ENJOYing them. THAT I DID. I took a camera last night. I've never taken a camera to a concert before. Truthfully, this was the first time I've been to a concert since owning a digital camera. (how weird is that?) I was so torn between trying to get a shot (which would be trash anyway with the distance and lights), or pausing long enough to get a little video, or just putting it away and being in the moment. I've learned the painful truth from trying to capture moments with my kids, that if you are taking pictures and video, you are missing the moment yourself. You instantly change from participant to distant observer. Then, when you go home, you have a picture or a video of something you never actually saw. I tried to make a good balance, but most of the time, I was so content to just enjoy every minute of the music and dance and I didn't try to do too much with the camera.

For all y'all who are my fellow die hard U2 fans (all both of you left?) here's the set list from last night. I thought it was a pretty ambitious and more original combination than they've done in a while and definitely made for an interesting show: Magnificent, No Line On The Horizon, Get On Your Boots, Mysterious Ways, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Elevation, Your Blue Room, Beautiful Day, Unknown Caller, Until the End of the World, Stay (Faraway, So Close), The Unforgettable Fire, City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo - Stories for Boys, I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (remix), Sunday Bloody Sunday, MLK, Walk On, One - Amazing Grace, Where the Streets Have No Name, Ultraviolet, With or Without You, Moment of Surrender

The most amazing part was the stage. They just can't stop trying to out do themselves with the stage-to-fan connection that they strive to create. They've gotten a lot of flack about how environmentally UNfriendly this enormous stage is, which takes 200 semi trucks to move. I have to say though, it was truly amazing and phenomenal. The tour name is "360 degrees", which refers to this space-ship claw thing with a cylindrical screen underneath in the center. The rotating circular stage also connects to 2 orbiting ramps that take the band members to another circular walk through the audience. It is definitely genius in design.The thing and the screen are so huge, it makes you feel like you are on the front row, no matter where you are sitting. (although I did hear reports that the sound in one end of the stadium wasn't too good.) From my vantage point, almost BEHIND the stage, I could see and experience everything. The speakers were face-level with me and I heard everything crystal clear and just as loud as I like it. The idea was that no one in the stadium would have a bad seat, no matter where you were sitting. worked for me.Other things that make a concert great: A GOOD CONCERT BUDDY! We decided that on a school night, there was no way for David to go with me and get a babysitter that late. Good thing we abandoned that idea pretty quick because I didn't get home until 2:30am this morning! I ended up taking my friend, Shawn.

She's mmmmmmmm, um, not my age, but even though her birth certificate might out-date mine (sorry Shawn, I know, you're only 29!), her style and enthusiasm are definitely even younger than mine by a good decade. When I was choosing something to wear, I finally gave up trying too hard because I knew that nothing in my closet would be as young and hip as what she'd be sporting. She and I had THE BEST time dancing, singing at the top of our lungs, and jumping up and down for the duration of the concert. We also had some fantastic (and revealing!) conversations while we drove down and back. The only buzz kill of the entire evening was the really lame-o section where we sat. We were on the 7th row of the section, and pretty much, all of the rows behind ours were filled with "old ladies" trying to sit down to watch the concert, continually yelling at us to sit down so they could see. Last time I checked, it's still a free country and if I pay to see a concert, I'm not sitting down. Plus, as far as I could see, the rest of the stadium was all standing, jumping up and down with their arms in the air in one big pulsating mass, so really? we need to sit down, why?

To quote Bono:
And -- and I've heard people say that even if they don't like the band, that they have an involuntary reaction when the band walks out on stage.

Their hair stands up. What they don't know is -- is -- and it's a strange thing, but, that also happens to us. I don't know what -- what that is.

I don't know what it is either, but something happens to me when the stage turns red and I hear The Edge's guitar ramping up Where the Streets Have No Name. It makes me want to get in the car and drive down to New York to see it again on Thursday.

(sorry it's not the whole song, but like I said, I had to put down the camera and dance!)

I have to give a huge thanks to David. Even though HE doesn't care about seeing any of it, he does recognize that I do care and he knows how much it means to me to see U2. When the tickets went on sale, I was supposed to be helping out a lady in our ward all morning and I couldn't stay home to make the order. I threw my hands in the air and figured I'd just have to be adult about it and take anything that might be left at the end of the day, if there was anything left. But, David was SUPER nice and gave into my teen-age side. He called me from work when the tickets went on sale and said "ok, I've got 2 tickets on hold for you, do you want 'em?" Thanks babe. You totally rock my world (and yes, I'd choose you over Bono if given the choice... can Bono please be our next-door neighbor though?)

mercury FALLing

As I watch the outside temperature start to fall, I get this sinking dread, fear, and well, allergic reaction, to the thought of another winter coming. For most New Englanders, the fall season is the very best one. It is when we get a little bit of dry weather, crisp air, and the bugs die down and the gorgeous colors come out. Still, I know all those dying trees are going to need to be raked up soon and that heavy, thick, long, wet winter will be upon us. I do like the first day you have to put a sweater on, and I like the first snow fall, but after that, I have no use for fall or winter.

So, for this post, I think I'm going to put some of my favorite New England moments from the past "warm" season. Maybe it will help me remember that New England has some great things as I curse it for its weather. (hopefully pictures that haven't already been posted on the blog):

Grace and Hattie running through a fountain in downtown Boston:
Strawberry picking at Shelburne Farm:
Attending a lecture by local author, Julie Berry, at the School of Philosophy at Orchard House (the school was originally built and used by Louisa May Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, and lectures were given there by Emerson, Thoreau, etc. It was SUCH a cool place to be and to sit and listen and learn where some of the greatest thinkers and writers from this area once did.)Eating ice cream ANYTIME at Erikson's Dairy:
Fun moments at the barn with Tink:
Watching Hattie and Grace run up and down the hill at NARA park on the 4th of July:
ANY moment at Cape Cod:Getting to play soccer with Grace in a parent/child game on Grace's last day of soccer camp. Any peaceful moment out on our river, the Assabet:Finally getting to see the INSIDE of Orchard House (I am utterly fascinated with the book Little Women, the Alcotts, and all that they did to raise educated daughters and an enlightened family.):This isn't MY moment, but I know David loved waking up to this view with Grace next to him on his first daddy/daughter camp-out : our first experience at a local ducky race (this one was at the grist mill near Longfellow's Wayside Inn):

(even though this little guy didn't have our number, he was the one we picked to root for... he didn't win... neither did the ducks with our numbers...)

(can you see the duckies coming over the waterfall?)

Apple picking at Shelburne Farm with Aydan and Bret (ok - this is supposed to be a fall activity, but last year we waited too long and weren't able to go at all. Grace has never gotten over it, so I wanted to be sure to fit this activity in before the season got away from us. Fall weather, and the virus season is just too unpredictable!)

(Hattie enjoying fresh apple cider just after eating a sugar-coated cider donut)