Unofficial Start to Summer

3 kids in a small tub: Haley, Aiden and Francesca

Memorial Day Weekend lived up to its promise as the unofficial start to summer this year... after weeks and weeks of cold and dreary weather it was finally hot and sunny (with an occasional severe thunderstorm thrown in there for good measure). We headed up to Vermont for Saturday and Sunday to help open the camp on Lake Champlain and visit with HaPa and Grandma. The opening chores get finished pretty quickly when there's a good crowd to help, so we had plenty of time to visit with the Turner-Nocito-Bruhns clan and relax with a few beers on the porch. They have had so much rain up there that the lake is still incredibly high. I don't think we'll even see the cement dock this year since its 7+ feet under the lake right now, the highest water any of us has ever seen there. All the farmers' fields in the area are flooded too, and many roads are closed due to wash outs.

Walking the "loop" at camp

Mr. Aiden's Wild Ride

Haley and her HaPa

After the t-storms

On Sunday Andy and I went for an early morning birding excursion on Piney Woods Road to locate a Golden Winged Warbler (check) and a Blue Winged Warbler (skunk), among other good birds. Then we all headed to the Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington where Bob displays his life's work - a collection of incredible wood carvings of all of the birds found in the state. The detail work is amazing it seems like it must take forever just to carve one bird, and he usually carves at least two (the male and the female) of every species. Bob has been carving birds since he was 17, and he's now 91 and still at it. Amazing.

Birding at the Birds of VT Museum

Lunch was in the adorable town of Bristol, at Snap's Diner, where Haley ordered her first real item off a restaurant menu (mac n' cheese and applesauce, which she enjoyed immensely) and the rest of us were also very well fed. Then we explored Rocky Dale Gardens and splurged on a few perennial plants before saying goodbye to the grandparents and heading home for a day of chores on Monday. Mowing, planting, cleaning, weed whacking, power washing, and other chores ruled the day, but we also fit in a trip to Elkins Beach just for the smiles we knew we'd get out of our two great kiddos. Why do we always seem more tired after our "restful" weekends?!

Rocky Dale Gardens

Fun at Elkins Beach

Elkins Beach

Windy Hill Art Show

Aiden's school held an Art Show this week to display and celebrate all of the great artwork that the kids have made throughout the school year. It was held in Colby-Sawyers actual art gallery, with a full and fancy reception and everything. The "artists" roamed around placidly answering questions about their intent in different pieces and... ha ha. What I mean to say is, the artists ran around like whirly bugs, screeching and shrieking as they darted between parents' legs, stuffing appetizers into their mouths and generally causing a ruckus. Like many artists, I suppose, they are very eccentric beasts.

Aiden had some very nice drawings and paintings in the show, and we especially enjoyed his "interview" which was posted near some of his artwork. I'll copy it here for you to enjoy too!

"I live in New London. My house is on Gould Road. I live at home with my sister Haley, Mom and Dad. I have two parakeets Tupelo and Zaitsev and a fish named Surfboard. I like to play with my action figures at home. I mostly play with the Star Wars ones. I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I like to eat hard boiled eggs. My favorite games to play are lacrosse and Uno. At school I like to use the light table with the skeleton xrays. I like to exercise too."

My favorite part is the hardboiled egg line, I think. It made me laugh because it's so random, and also because he doesn't really even like them . Ah, to be four!

At Pizza Chef with friends after the show

Date Day

To celebrate the end of a long stretch of over-working at work (likely to be followed by another long stretch of over-working), Andy and I took a "date day" on Tuesday this week and went birding. No kids, no work, no real agenda except to enjoy the day and each other. We decided to head to Berlin Pond in Vermont, a perennial favorite springtime birding spot that is just over an hour drive from our house. It's a 5.6 mile walk around the entirely undeveloped pond (it's Montpelier's municipal water source) and the scenery is gorgeous. Old farmhouses flanked by rolling fields and apple trees bursting with blossoms (and orioles and indigo buntings), lots of rich deciduous woods, and marshes galore to look for things that like to get their feet wet. As usual, we struck out on the Virginia Rail, but no matter. It was a beautiful day and it was all ours.

Berlin Pond

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then headed back to New London for a bit of dragonhunting in the warm afternoon. The first dragons are out, but only barely... it's a late start to spring this year. We saw 4 different species, but some were so newly hatched that identification was difficult. This is the last year of the NH Dragonfly Survey so we will be trying our best to get our town up over 75 species (we've got about 10 left to go)... it's going to take a few more "date days" I think, or else the kids will have to become a lot more patient!

Chalk Fronted Corporal

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

Greetings from Haley

May Too Busy

Posting has been sparse this month since I am preparing for a big training at work- my biggest week of the year, basically, and the most stressful. I'm sure at this time next week I'll be calm and relaxed but right now I'm thinking of the million little details I have to arrange to pull this training off without a hitch!

Mothers Day weekend was lovely though, with a trip to the bog and lots of time outside. This past weekend... not so much... rain, rain, rain.... and more rain forecast for the next 6 days or so. We'll just wait it out and hope for the sun to shine eventually.... more when I'm a free woman again!

Tee Ball Time

Aiden started tee ball for 4-6 year olds this weekend, and as we suspected, it is as much fun (read: amusing) for the adults as it is for the kids. At this level they don't really play any games, though they are sorted into teams by shirt color... it's all drills, skill building, and learning the rules of the game. Some kids are pretty good but most are obvious beginners. I watched Aiden's group do throwing & catching drills for a good 15 minutes and I don't think I saw one kid actually catch the ball. Some good throws out there, but the catching... that is a bit harder to master. Andy helped run drills with a bunch of other parents while I got to hang out with Haley-doo in the sunshine. There are only 4 girls and 27 boys on the tee ball fields, so Haley will need to represent when she gets to be 4!