Family Sail 2015

My calendar tells me it's not summer any more. And while the weather isn't quite summer weather, it definitely doesn't feel like winter around here. If the forecast is right, the boys will be taking their new Christmas toys outside to play on Christmas day wearing sweatshirts only, no heavy coats. So, even though I'm months late in posting about summer, the weather is making me like I'm only a little bit late. So, thanks for that mother nature!

In other news, it's no surprise that I haven't been on the blog ball as of late. I've never really had a plethora of time for blogging, but my heart was behind it so I always made the time. It's been a great venue to keep family and friends from far and wide updated on our whereabouts. But now, I find myself just wanting to use that time for other things. So, I've made the decision to stop blogging. I have a few already in the queue that I'll post up, but the end of the year seems a good time to stop. However, I think I will still post semi annual updates on the boys and may still be inspired to post an update now and then. So don't give up on me completely. 

Ok, and now for pictures. Mike's uncle, Captain Bob, treated us to our annual family sail back in August. He arranged for perfect weather and it was a completely fabulous day. I'm not sure if he'll be able to top it next year.

Dylan, Cousin Justin, Cade

We set up our family camp on a sandbar on Crane's beach which was absolutely perfect. The kids played in the shallow water between the sandbar and the beach and we didn't have to watch like hawks to make sure they weren't drowning or being swept away by undertow.

Cousin Erik, Mike

The little kids ran around and played, the big kids (adults) ran around and played. We ate, we dug in the sand, we enjoyed each others' company.

Betsy, Jim, Kristina, Jamie, Nancy and Maureen

Cade and Mike

Maureen and Captain Bob

The big boys made a sand alligator.

Ryan and Dylan

Cade

Me, Jamie and Maureen

The intensely serious football game (not really)

Dylan, Corwin, Jacob

My Sweet Babies

I walked down the beach with my sister in laws and got to take in the beauty of the place.

And when all the kids were played out, we loaded back on the boat for a very long trip back around Cape Ann. Normally, we would go back up the Annisquam River but thanks to a super moon and a very low tide, the boat would have bottomed out. Not a person complained. We had beautiful scenery and the calming motion of the boat to stir all into naps and total relaxation.

Cade Napping

Batman Dylan and Still Napping Cade

And we even got a nice view of the Boston skyline in the distance at dusk. It was a really, truly amazing day!

Teen Titans Go!!

Happy Halloween from the Hines family! AKA Teen Titans!

Halloween Eve Eve Trick or Treating in Maynard
Joy, Joy, Robin and Beast Boy

Sugared Up and Running!

Halloween Eve Performance and Parade at the Preschool
(That's our Robin in the middle.)

Waving At His Fans

Halloween Night
Robin (with Starfire plush), Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg...
altogether forming the Teen Titans!!

A Bumpy Ride

Another cool new NH experience we had while on our staycation was doing an off road adventure. A company there has these old vehicles designed to traverse the Alps with a 4 cylinder engine. They were pretty impressive!

We drove a short way on the roads to the dirt road up the mountain. We were warned of being cautious with our hats in the wind. And we were. Except for this moment when I asked Dylan to turn for a picture and his hat blew off....

No worries. The driver turned around and we retrieved Dylan's hat off the road. Also on the land where they do the up mountain driving adventure, the company also does ziplining. In a nice case of cross advertising, we got to walk across their tree to tree bridges and watch some of a group start their ziplines. The boys thought these bridges were pretty cool. Then it was back to the vehicle and up.

It was a very bumpy ride! We all enjoyed it. Even got a nice family picture at the top.

Apparently it wore Cade out. No car is too bumpy for napping.

Totally cool activity. And as they do it year round, it could be interesting to give this adventure another try in snowy weather!

Staycation

Given that freezing temps happened overnight last night and I even saw some snow flurries in the sky briefly yesterday, summer is pretty much a distant memory. However, in the effort of "catching up" the blog, I've got to get our last summer hurrah documented.

Our initial big summer vacation plan was to do a Disney cruise. Well, for multiple reasons, that got scrapped and we quite frankly couldn't find a destination we were as excited about as the cruise. Since the kids were sick most of the summer and we hadn't done a lot of summery stuff as a family, we opted for a staycation to fit in all of the summer fun we had missed.

First off, of course, was a few days at our beloved NH home. We hit some familiar favorite spots and even did a few things that we hadn't done before.

The Polar Caves is one of our favorite places in the world and we always enjoy going there. And, this year, they even had fun new stuff to play on before getting to the climbing of the rock caves.

New Fun Cut Outs
My cute polar bear and moose!

Our Old Bear Pal

Always gotta get your smooches on the kissing bridge!

We hopped up on this chair and then all were surprised by the quick slide back.

One of the new things we did was the Cannon Mountain Tramway in Franconia Notch. We've passed it about a million times but never stopped to take it up.

Waiting For Our Tram

The views from the top were absolutely stunning! The clouds were threatening rain but passed around and over without getting us.

Heading Back Down

The below is a picture is a small mountain at the top of the notch that is one of our favorite hikes. You you can see it here from earlier in the summer. Little did we know the rocks we've scrambled down several times held a profile of a face. Can you see it?

Our vacation was off to a great start!

First Day of School!

We are well settled into the school routine after being back in school for over a month now. The boys are LOVING school and are doing really great.

Dylan started kindergarten. Kind of a huge deal. He handled the first day with quiet bravery....Mom was not quite as put together after dropping him off. I've heard these stories of silly over emotional moms making a huge deal of dropping their kids off for their first day of school....I just didn't think I'd be one of them. I mean what's the big deal? I've done it for preschool for 3 years. BUT it isn't just a big deal...it's a HUGE deal! This is school...real school! Focused more on learning and rules than craft projects and play time. It's structure and learning that are pivotal to get down so that he continues to be successful in subsequent years. It's him going from my little guy to a full blown kid. It's going from being a little kid who's sole responsibility is having fun to a kid who now has to take on more mature tasks and take responsibility for those tasks. And he now goes to school every single week day and be away from our loving eyes for hours of each day. So yeah, it is a big deal!

And he's handled it like a champ and really embraced it. I've seen an amazing transformation in him in the last month. He's gone from a kid content to have everything done for him (seems anything he needed to be independent doing, we've really had to push to make him so) to a little man who is very proud to be taking on new things and looking for more responsibility. It's amazing!

The main reason we waited to send him to kindergarten until this year (last year would have been an option too), other than the fact that it seems very common here to wait for summer birthday babies to start after they turn 6, was that Dylan just wasn't interested in desk work. Sitting and focusing on a paper in front of him just wasn't his thing. But now...now....it's all he wants to do! Even when he's not in school, he wants to color, or draw, or do activity books. I mean, who is this kid?

I'll tell ya who this kid is, he is an awesome kindergartener! Confident, loving his class specialties - computer, art, gym, music and library, making new friends and learning their names (not something he's been that great at...remembering names). I'm so incredibly proud of him!

And then there's this guy that I'm equally proud of....

My sweet Cade. He's in his 2nd year of preschool and has gone from 2 days a week to 3. And the 2 days not at preschool he goes to speech therapy. He also is loving school. He brings home songs from class and he is really practicing his lessons from speech class every day.

My little babies are really growing up. And their personalities are developing and thriving. And they love their mom. And I love them so completely and try to eat up every moment I get to spend with them.