Deegan Family Blog: Late Fall Vermont Trip

A late fall family trip to Vermont included a list of chores to help get everything ready for winter, but also we (the kids especially) found lots of time to have fun. Aiden and I took a King Arthur Flour cooking class on our way up north, "Tapas to Go"... we weren't sure what types of tapas we'd be making, and as it turns out they included lots of things like curry and anise, so Aiden wasn't too thrilled to eat them. He loved making them, just not eating them. He did like the almond shortbread pictured above though, which he thought was especially fun to make because it included both butter and lard. It was tasty.

In the Sauna

The girls were in pure "bff" mode all weekend- most of the time they were inseparable and gushing over one another, and then every so often one or both of them would erupt into tears over not sharing or not playing the right way or "she said i was a ______"... They are sometimes a challenge but for the most part it's pretty awesome to watch them already making silly memories together. They went back into the woods to play in their "fairy fort" created over the summer, and Aiden chased them around, first as a big black bear and then as a knight. Fisher thinks they're all crazy, I'm pretty sure. The other thing the girls loved doing was putting on bathing suits over their tights (ala 80's aerobicize, just missing the legwarmers) and having a dance party. Too cute.

Dance party in your bathing suits!

The fairy fort

On Sunday all the chores were done, so we headed into B-town to the ECHO center. We hadn't been there since Aiden was about 2 and Haley was non-existent, so it was fun to explore and see how things have changed over the years. By far the biggest hit of the day was the watershed table. I know, that sounds so totally, boring... watershed table. But this thing was awesome! It was basically a giant tray full of "moon sand" coated with something so it feels really satisfying and won't stick to your hands. You can mold any kind of topography into the landscape, and 3D cameras above sense the changes and add coloration and topo lines constantly as you change the landscape. Then, you can make it rain, and watch the rain run down the hills and mountains and valleys you made into the lowest reservoirs of your landscape. Even the adults could not be torn away from this exhibit. Turtles and frogs had to take a back seat. After our visit, we had a great lunch at American Flatbread, where Aiden created his own pizza with sausage, onions and salsa. When it came, he declared it was delicious, and then left it to the rest of us to eat while he wolfed down plain cheese pizza with the rest of the kids ;)