Break Week, For Some

Aiden's spring break was last week, so we asked Grandma Chris - had to really twist her arm, as you can imagine - to come up and stay to help watch Aiden while we were at work. Actually Aiden and Haley both got some special days with Grandma, so it worked out perfectly. On Haley's days she and Grandma played with play dough, had tea parties, dug in the sandbox, blew bubbles, went to the playground, and walked to arctic dreams for ice cream. On Aiden's, they got books out of the library and read together, spent a whole morning making a Garfield pillow, did some raking and yard work, got Aiden a haircut, and walked to arctic dreams for ice cream. On Friday, Andy, Chris, and both kids went to a family cooking class at King Arthur Flour where they made their own lasagna noodles and cooked an entire Italian dinner for themselves. Aiden is getting to be an old pro at making pasta, and Andy and I have been pricing out pasta makers on Amazon. Fresh pasta is so yummy!

I should say that through a good part of this week I was totally gone, running my annual new land steward training at work. The training was at a camp in Freedon, NH, near the Maine border, so I had to call home to hear about all the fun I was missing. They did save me a nice helping of lasagna though!

When I finally made it home late Saturday, grandma Chris was already on her way home, but I was so glad to squeeze my kiddos and Andy again. On Sunday we drove down to the sea coast for a "rocky beach/sandy beach" trip. Both rocky beaches (Aiden's favorite since he loves to explore tide pools) and sandy beaches (Haley's favorite since she loves to have sand tea parties) can be found in close proximity in Rye, NH, so it's a frequent destination for our family. We hit the tide just right for the tidepooling, and found all types of critters like green crabs, marine worms, sand eels, amphipods, snails and live mussels and clams to examine up close in our bucket. The salt sea smell in the fresh breeze was intoxicating- I was breathing it in in huge lungfulls and just realizing how much I have missed the ocean over this long winter. At the Seacoast Science Center, we added starfish, urchins, and sea anemones to the list of critter close-encounters, feeling around in the touch tank. One of the staff turned a sea urchin on its back and showed Aiden how it can use its tiny extendable sucker feet to right itself... It took a few minutes but was very cool to watch!

After a big seafood lunch -during which Haley enjoyed her first lobster- we headed to the sandy beach at Wallis Sands. Haley served me salt tea with sand sugar while the boys played paddle ball in the surf. When it got too chilly to sit on the sand without our jackets, we packed up and headed home... Little Doo was asleep as soon as Andy turned the key in the ignition.

Believe it or not, Monday was still vacation for Aiden. His last day, and parent teacher conferences. He and I took Kimball dog hiking up Silver Mountain in Lempster, a belated birthday treat for dergus. We enjoyed the hike and had sweet mountain tea and hard salami & cheese crackers for lunch on the exposed summit. Not many black flies yet, but a few here and there to signal a warning of things to come. Flies or no flies, I know we'll be busy getting outside and getting dirty!

The Triplets' Christening

Babies!!!

I don't know if we've ever driven down to Long Island for just one whole day before, but I'm sure we haven't done it since we've had kids.  Last weekend, we gave it a try though, in order to see our triplet nephews/cousins at their christening.  It was a crazy time, but so good to see everyone on both Andy's mom's and dad's sides of the family.  Daniel, Noah, and Carter have grown so much, and are so much more interactive at 8 months than they were when we last saw them at 4 months old.  They smile and giggle at peek-a-boos and funny faces, and all three of them were unbelievably good at the christening ceremony in the church.  Andy and I are honored to be godparents for Noah, and we got some extra snuggle time in with him this weekend, and promised to work on his birding education as well as other more "traditional" godparent duties.

The NH Deegans with Noah

Noah getting baptized

Grandparents with the triplets

Paulette and Daniel

Aiden and Haley had fun playing with all of their cousins at the reception...first, second, third, removed who knows how many times... it doesn't matter, they're family.  Then, when the long day was finally over, we crashed into bed at Grandma Chris's house only to wake up and head back home again.  The kids were sad and confused at the extremely short trip to the island, when they're used to a week to 10 days at holidays and summer vacation.  But with the promise of Grandma Chris visiting us NH in less than a week, they were easily assuaged.  When we come down to Long Island in August this summer, we're hoping to catch the triplets' first birthday party.  It's amazing how time marches on and beautiful things continue to happen all around us.  We just have to look.

Maggie and Haley

The kids playing with all their cousins

At a deli/bakery in Port Jeff- long island delis are the best!

By the bay at Grandma's house

Quick beach walk

Cooking with King Arthur

King Arthur Flour has to be one of the coolest local companies near us. Not only do they have the best tasting flour around, their headquarters in Norwich, VT (about 40 mins from us) is an amazing factory store, cafe and bakery, and cooking education center. When I looked online, I discovered that they had lots of classes for kids and families, so I signed Aiden and I up for an afternoon pasta-making class. Actually we made a whole meal: hand-made fettuccini with a goat cheese and fresh tomato sauce, salad, and zaletti (Venetian lemon cornmeal cookies) for dessert.

Aiden with our ball of pasta dough- time to let it rest

We had a great time. Aiden loved the cooking classroom, and I got to see a little of how he probably is in his own classroom at Newport Montessori- raising his hand to ask questions about different ingredients and offering to help whenever a volunteer was needed for demonstration. Aiden and I traded turns on being "head chef" for different menu items, and together we chopped, mixed, kneeded, and rolled out our dinner. Our favorite part (no surprise) was rolling out the pasta sheets, and then running the sheets through the cutter head to make ribbons of fresh pasta. When the class was over we zoomed it all home to Andy and Haley, who had salted water boiling to cook our pasta. Dinner was delicious, and I am sure we'll be back for another class soon!

Rolling out the pasta

Before we cut them into noodles

Slicing our Zaletti cookies

Indoor Thrill Seeking

We found high adventure last weekend- Andy and Aiden did, that is- at a place near Nashua that offers indoor skydiving. Basically, it's a giant clear tube, many stories high, from the bottom of which air is blown at high speeds...upwards of 200 mph. When you get in the chamber, the wind lifts you off the ground and you're flying. Now, I did not even step foot in the chamber (someone needed to stay with Haley) but from what I could see from the outside, I think it's harder than it looks! Some of the group Aiden and Andy were with had trouble just staying horizontal, flying in one place, never mind doing all the flips and spins and dives that the instructors were doing. Still, it looks fun, and the guys verified that yes, indeed, it is fun! They only flew for a few minutes each, but the last few times they got to zoom and spin way up and way down in the tube, holding on to the flight instructor. And, they're building a continuous wave surfing tank to open this summer, so you can bet we'll be back!

The skydiving was about as much excitement as we could stand, so after the boys were done we headed somewhere relaxing and zen- a butterfly greenhouse just over the NH border in Mass. At least it was supposed to be zen...have you ever tried to take a photograph of a blue morpho butterfly?! They're huge, with beautiful iridescent blue wings on the upper side, and they flap and flit around erratically daring you to get a photo. But when they finally land, they close those beautiful wings showing you only their mottled brown and moth-like underwings. Maddening! Aiden took several hundred shots on Andy's iPhone in attempt to get a shot, with no luck. I stuck to more cooperative subjects. It was an educational stop, in any event, and we watched new butterflies emerge in their chrysalis nursery and watched our steps for the tame little button quail scurrying all over the greenhouse floor. Until the weather finally matches the season, we'll be glad to find these interesting indoor pursuits!

Easter Here before Spring!

I don't think I ever remember so much snow on an Easter before.  But Easter was early this year, and Spring was late.  Is late.  Still has not arrived, I would say, and it's now been a week since Easter already.  We didn't let any of that dampen our Easter celebration last weekend, though.  The sun was sparkling off the snow as all the kids ran around the snowy town green collecting the colorful plastic eggs scattered around like confetti.  Had the eggs been white, the kids might have been in for a real hunt this year, but if anything the bright eggs were easier to see on the snow and the whole affair lasted about 5 minutes.  Grandma Sally barely had time to snap a few photos of stylish little miss collecting in her gingham dress and coat.  Haley and Aiden each collected a basket full, and went home with some new candy and mini toys.  

In their Easter finery- Aiden's collard shirt "burned" or so he says!

Later that morning, Micah, Becky, Phoebe and Fisher came over for the day.  We staged a second egg hunt indoors since Pheebs and Fisher missed the first one, and everyone filled their baskets again.  After that the kids ran around the house like crazy playing with toys in Aiden's room, Haley's room and the playroom downstairs. Easter dinner consisted of baked ham, freshly ground horseradish (holy sh*# that stuff burns your eyes just to look at it!), roasted root vegetables, salad, and (of course) lots of deviled eggs.  I love our chickens, and the eggs they make, and those eggs even look totally cool dyed even though they are brown... but man, those eggs DO NOT peel well.  The fresher the egg, the harder it is to peel... something about the thin layer of albumin sticking to the egg instead of the shell.  Once the eggs have dehydrated for a month or so (like store bought ones) they peel fine, but we never let ours sit around that long.  The kids eat hard boiled eggs all the time, so I knew they'd be hard to peel, but deviled eggs just don't look right if you only have a few bits of white left to pile your yolk mix on!  So I did some research online and attempted two trials- I boiled one batch of eggs with a teaspoon of baking powder in the water, which was supposed to make them peel easier.  No dice.  They were just as awful to peel as always.  And, I tried baking my hard boiled eggs in a muffin tray instead of boiling them.  The first batch i tried this way was underdone (runny whites on one side of the egg, firm on the other) so I upped the temp and the time and the second round was fully done.  They did peel just a bit easier, but they also had nasty brown spots on the whites where the eggshell was in contact with the muffin tray. Luckily no one noticed since they also had pink, blue and green spots from the Easter dye.  Anyway, the deviled eggs were a success, even though Micah sliced them the wrong way ;P

 

Mom made these smocked dresses for the girls- they looked so cute together in their matching gingham!

After our afternoon meal, some of us took the dogs for a walk up to Clarke's lookout.  The view of Lake Sunapee and Mt. Sunapee was stunning on this crystal clear day, and we could see people out "snow-sailing?" - parasailing with skis or a snowboard, we couldn't tell which.  It looked like fun, but we just wanted to sit in the sun and digest after eating so much.  On Sunday (the real Easter) we took Mom downhill skiing for the first time in 20 years.  It was warm and sunny, and totally empty since I suppose everyone else was at church that morning.  Haley got to show her Grandma Sally the ropes on the South Mountain at Sunapee, and mom did great- just like riding a bike, you never forget how.  After a quick lunch in the lodge, we all decided to take the high speed quad up to the summit and ski down, Haley's first time tackling blue trails since that disastrous single run we did together at Sugarbush when she was sick.  It was a totally different story this time- she sang and chatted all the way down, Baby Jaguar on the prowl, watch out!  Aiden zoomed down like an old pro, and I can tell it won't be long until Andy and I will be left in the dust by these two.  All as it should be. I just hope that really WAS our last weekend skiing... it's mid April, people!

 

Haley, post-skiing