family day & the wonders of facebook

before we headed off to family day for pat's work today, i remorsed on facebook about how i would be missing our friends who usually join us for family day, but currently live in japan. anyhoo, scott (the dad) read that statement a mere 6 minutes later and called to say he was in town on business. he was able to come with us. we had a blast even though we missed his family dearly. -APRIL, COLLEEN, BRIDGET & ASHLYNN - wish you could have been there too!!

here's a pic of scott with jake. scott was one of jake's first teachers at church when we moved to ct seven years ago.

lily was first on the bungee jump swing. here she is ready to take off.

the rest of us waiting for our turn. (note the scowl on gracie's face. she thinks it the greatest injustice that i tend to make the older child wait and the younger ones go first).


lily in mid-air.


fritz, all geared up.

fritz in the air. if you look up from him and a little over to the left, you can see grace doing a flip.

i have absolutely no idea how much cotton candy my kids consumed this year. it's all they asked for; their wish was often granted. other times, a certain 5 year old would just sneak to the cotton candy booth while we thought she was playing in the playground.


ready for the rock wall.

lily did really well on the wall and actually climbed up a good distance for her age.

first swim of the season.

so, exactly how much cotton candy was consumed? ...enough to totally hide gracie's face, multiple times...

...enough to make a beard...

...and enough to make your kids go like this the minute you get in the car.

truth be told, there are lots of actions shots of me today; i played volleyball, did the bungee swing, climbed the rock wall and flipped off the diving board. another little or rather large truth would be that i've gained 40 lbs since i went to family day last may. it's still kind of schock when i see current pictures of myself with all the extra padding. so when we got home and downloaded pics, the plethora of pics of overweight me in so many mid-air shots had me in stitches from laughter - just imagine a beached whale trying to do a back flip in the water. (now i know fat jokes are not appropriate and i steer away from them - but it's ok, when you're talking about yourself, right?) while i got a good laugh out of those pics, i'm not humble enought to post them. this one pic of me almost reaching the top of the rock wall was actually decent (or rather hid my weight) enough to post.

oh, and come next spring, if i haven't lost the weight, will someone please remind me to try and restrain myself on the diving board? thanks.

science fair

grace and her partner, darien, won the science fair for their grade at school and placed 2nd in the whole district. her project was testing the different forces that affect flight. after reading their results, pat was a little worried how reliable the testing was, but the girls came up with a good question and evaluated their experiments well. they also did the project on their own. pat got them started, but the rest was all them.


the girls with their teacher when they presented their project to the district for judging.

lily "patiently" waiting to hear what gracie's award will be.

getting their trophies - 2nd place - beat out by the tooth enamel experiment.

the girls with their trophies, awards and younger siblings.

grace also won her first math bowl and is now off to compete against another school next week. pat and i do find it interesting that she is a top math and science student at a performing arts school. that might help, but the girl is genuinely smart and has always had a burning curiousity and love of learning that i hope remains with her throughout her life.

memorial day weekend

we had a great memorial day weekend filled with outdoor walks, exploration, quiet time, puzzles, mud, canoeing, s'mores & visits with family & friends. could you ask for anything more?

we took the scenic route on the drive up where we crossed three covered bridges, lily "saw china" and i saw a sign with the words: "3 kids for sale" on it (drove by too fast to actually read the descriptions of the kids). a third generation "harry belafonte fan" was solidified as that was all gracie listened to on the drive up and back; (i believe harry belafonte was pretty much required listening when pat was growing up.)

we spent the weekend at my good friend from high school (darlene)'s house near montpelier, vermont. darlene and her husband were gone the first couple of days, but caught up with us on monday. sunday was spent visiting with our niece, chelsea, and her husband. chelsea just graduated from vermont law school. saturday was spent on the stowe recreational path (after both pat and i took turns having late morning naps). the pictures pretty much tell the rest -

who knew a little foot bridge could be so much fun? i think we spent a good 20 minutes here while we walking the recreational path in stowe.

jake with a swollen bug bite at the top of his nose. we weren't in vermont for more than a few hours before he had a bite. the bugs have always loved him, poor guy. (when mosquitoes get in our car, i go after them with a passion that verges on maniacal because i worry they will just bite jake).

we also found a museum (??fine art store) off the path. it had a sculpture garden and fun stuff inside like this couch made of nickles.

one of dar's cats, harry, totally clinged to us when she was gone. we were fully prepared to be completely ignored when dar returned on monday.


chelsea and jake came over to eat dinner and roast marshmallows on sunday. they are cute couple and we've enjoyed getting to jake better through these visits. he's a good guy which chelsea more than deserves.




we were able to complete 3 of the 4 american girl mystery puzzles. i was a little disappointed that the clues to solve the mystery were just written on the puzzle in glow-in-the-dark paint. i would have preferred a more challenging and subtle approach, but the puzzles were enjoyable to do nonetheless. during the first puzzle, grace did abandon me for other things (in fairness to her it was after a good amount of helping). it just reminded me of all the times, i had abandoned my dad on puzzles while growing up and came back after he had made progress to help finish things off. sorry, dad! but no worries, i'm getting my just desserts now.


on monday, we went to the beachfront near dar and gerry's house. they have a canoe and we had fun going out on it. lily was scared to be on the canoe at first, but soon changed her mind and enjoyed it.



the men with the kiddos.


fact of life #241: kids always gravitate to mud, n'est pa?

dar and i holding our own in the canoe. we had done canoe trips together when we were teenagers (CUE "Memories" music - not "Memory from "Cats" - but the other one - doesn't barbara streisand sing it?).

jake fell asleep on the blanket and got a sunburn on the part of his arm that we left exposed.

grace and i went out together after this pic was taken. we did well until some high winds kicked in and struggled getting back to shore. but we made it once the wind died down - only to find out that dar was the only one who had faith in us returning. THANKS for the vote of confidence, DAR!!!!

THANK YOU!!

my brother, jim, and his wife, amy, sent the whole lot of us birthday cards - (well, the whole lot of us who had birthdays). he gave each of the kids a dollar bill for how old they were (cute) and drew pics on the envelope. for my birthday card, he called me a dork and misspelled birthday, but it's ok - i still love him!

THANKS FOR MAKING OUR DAY, JIM & AMY!!!!

daily laugh

my brother and sister-in-law sent this to me this morning. the text at the end of this commercial translates as: "your teeth also want to be white." enjoy!!!




still don't get it? maybe this next one will help.

for tice

i just had the following conversation with your son:

tycen (handing me a wrapper): "here's garbage."

me: "thank you, buddy!"

tycen: "my name is tycen."


hope that made you smile since i certainly did.

for stacey

...and megan, you would like this too, and probably any of my "wicked" (as in the musical, folks) loving friends - Chess in concert is coming to PBS in june!!!

i've been watching horrible copies of this on youtube for months. sooooo glad it's finally ready to be released. i have to admit josh groban is not my favorite voice, but i think kerry ellis' voice is as beautiful as idina menzel. i will definitley be watching.

FOUND!!

...in the nursery, under the table, crammed well by the arms of one little boy and found by the loving care of a special nursery teacher. hallelujah!!!