Mother's Weekend Hike

After Mother's Tea, and a day of work, I dropped my car off at home and the boys and I headed up to NH. The last time we had the opportunity go up, we were skiing. We had a few things we needed to take up to the house and it was a great excuse to also escape the thick layer of construction dust covering our primary home. While there in the spring, a waterfall hike is a must. Despite a very foggy and somewhat rainy start to the morning, we took our chances, headed up to Franconia Notch and started out on an adventure.

The Fog Clearing Off the Notch

Covered From the Rain

I very quickly got discouraged that this would not end up being an enjoyable hike. Water is good for waterfalls but there was almost too much water...the beginning of the trail pretty much looked like a river. It was tricky to navigate it with 2 small boys. But we stuck with it a ways and eventually the path turned into an actual path. Stroke of genius on Mike's part for the boys to wear rain boots in lieu of hiking boots by the way.

The Path\River

Where the Water Should Be

Cute Boys on a Big Rock

Admiring the Forces of Nature

Keeping These Guys Close on the Bridge

Dry Brook

Now what you see in the photo above is the narrowest part of the brook to cross. Even if the little guys hadn't been with us, I don't think I would have been comfortable crossing it. We explored around a bit up and down stream and couldn't find a safer passing. I was ready to turn back but Mike thought we should carry on. With Mike's long arms and legs, one small fallen log for help and a very nervous Mom, we handed kids across and I somehow made it across too. Obviously I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think we could handle it safely with the kids but it was definitely on the stretching my comfort level of safety on that one. I looked up the trail after our return to the car and read about the crossing at "Dry Brook" that "might be tougher in high water." You don't say. Luckily, upon our return, there was another group coming across that brought with them a 2nd log to add to the crossing. And the groups helped each other cross from either side. It was much less dramatic on the way back.

And because of Mike's persistence, we made it to the first waterfall on the Falling Waters trail. Mike and I had done this trail with Mike's father as the last leg of our Lafayette Mountain hike way back before kids were a part of our world. And I must say, not a bit of it looked at all familiar. Of course it being the last part of an 8 hour hike, we were likely nose to the trail to get back to the car as quickly as possible at that point. So we got to experience it a little better this go round.

And of course, this is where we stopped to snack.

And there were still some snow remnants about.

Snow!
Cade's learned to "cheese" every time the camera's around.
Cute and good that he understands but doesn't really make for the most genuine smiles.

Family Self Portrait
Dylan wanted no part. Don't worry, I didn't let him escape so easily!

Got Him! Kind of.

I went up and took a look from the top.
Looking down to my guys.

Top of the Falls

Hiking Back

Cade is quite the little hiker. He wants to do it all by himself. It makes for a slightly slower pace but I am down with that if I'm building a little mountain man. The most fun the boys had was at the end of our trip when they tromped through the water in their rain boots and threw rocks in the water. The simple things.

Splish Splash

Rocks

The Always Gorgeous Franconia Notch

Then is was time for our post hike tradition...ice cream!!

With the beginning of the day giving us spooky fog and the threat of rain, it ended up being perfect weather for a hike. Nice Mother's Weekend gift from Mother Nature to me. Back at the condo, we got to watch our resident Groundhog (name yet to be determined) play around the rock wall.

Sunday, actual Mother's Day, was a busy day. It was an early departure from NH to get Mike to his soccer game in Massachusetts. The boys and I continued home, I unpacked the car (never a small job after a trip to NH) and a search for part of our sand\water table ended up with me spending some time cleaning the basement. Not exactly ideal for what I would picture myself doing on Mother's Day, but the cleaned space was something that had needed to be done for a while so I enjoyed a sense of accomplishment. Then the boys and I got showered, lunched and ready so that when Mike got home from his game, we would be ready for our next adventure.

A Weekend For Me

We are currently on vacation. Which means I actually have a wee bit of time to blog. The last few weeks have been extra nutty at our house due to construction and the last week has been a bona-fide insane pace. Everything just seemed to come to a head the week before we left and preparing for vacation adds another level of busy anyway.

Here's our last week or so in a nutshell. Mother's Tea, trip to NH, Mother's Day celebrations, cabinet installation, Early Intervention assessment, book club, charity breakfast, contractors, landscapers, work (of course), pack and leave for vacation. Writing it down, it sounds like less than it felt like (for whatever that means). I'll have more details on the rest at another time. For now, I just give you the scoop on the beginnings of Mother's Day weekend. The Friday before Mother's Day was Mother's Tea at Dylan's preschool.

Dylan had been looking forward to this day for a several weeks and, quite frankly, so had I. It's a big treat for me to even come to his school and we were both excited about it. All that morning getting ready, getting to his school, walking into his school, doing a craft project together, and having breakfast together with friends, he was mister excited and chatty.

Me and My Sweet Dylan in His Classroom

Once we parted ways and he had to go perform, he pretty much clammed up. My Dylan is such a sweet boy but the center of attention performer is just not his thing. Looking through my pictures of that day, this photo cracked me up because it really exemplified how I thought he felt about that portion of the morning.

Yeah...not so happy about it.

But I had been telling him how much I'd been looking forward to it and was there, looking right at him and smiling the whole time. I think that helped him with the courage he needed to do the basics of what was expected. After the performance, we went back to his classroom and I was presented with our craft project, a gift from him and a lovely plant.

He was pretty much over it and ready to plan with friends at that point. But he came and stayed with me while I opened the present and said goodbye. I left to go to work and he left to play with friends. We both have memories of a lovely morning that we've talked about several times since. I love my sweet Dylan!

One More Off The Boston Bucket List

Well, it's May and it's definitely Spring in New England. That means lots of rain but also an abundance of flowers popping up. Mike even mowed our yard for the first time over the weekend.

Also happening in our world, lots of dust. You know, the kind that happens when 2 renovation projects are taking place in our house at the same time. Efficient in the long run, but doubly messy in the short term. There's a fine layer of film covering absolutely everything in my house, several tarps hung up that making traversing rooms precarious and last minute\second decisions and shopping that we need to do to keep things moving along. It's all very exciting in the long term but in the short term, it makes our house not the most enjoyable place to be. Especially when the sun is beckoning from the outdoors.

One of the errands we needed to do last weekend sent us into Boston. We made a morning of it and took the boys to the Public Gardens. Great multi tasking - checking things off the renovation shopping list, getting out of our dirty house and getting some much desired fresh air.

Tulips! That makes it full on Spring.

Walking Hand in Hand

With George Washington

First on the park agenda was feeding the ducks. We came prepared with stale bread and goldfish. The  whole drive downtown, Dylan kept listing off all the things he didn't want to do that I had talked to him about. He only wanted to go the store, see the statue ducks then go home. He repeated this what seemed to be a million times in a 20 minute car ride. I was worried the morning was doomed. However, once we parked the car and started walking, he was happy and along for the ride. And he LOVED feeding the ducks which was #1 on his don't wanna do list. The boys both got really into pelting the food into the water for the ducks and geese to eat.

Looks at the wind up!

Then it was on to see the duck statues. For those of you that haven't been to Boston and been a tourist, this is a must see on the sight seeing list. The statues commemorate the Make Way For Ducklings book that is a children's classic. We prepared for this by reading the book for bedtime the night before so the story would be fresh in our heads. The ducks were very festive last weekend - not only did they have spring hats on, they also still had on their Boston Marathon "numbers."

Our next and final stop was something that I've never done in Boston - ride the swan boats! How I haven't gotten around to this in 14 and a half years I really can't fathom. Every year I say "this is the year" and every year it somehow doesn't happen. Well, this year it did! And it really couldn't have been a nicer morning for it.

Swan Swimming By Swan Boat

Of course, Dylan had to stop to get a picture with the "spooky tree" en route to the boats.

Just before hitting the portion of sidewalk that headed to the ticket booth, I heard a guy behind us, who was obviously giving a girl a tour of the city, that these were the swan boats....but they're a tourist thing. I turned around and said "hey, locals go on them too!" (Couldn't be confused as a tourist of course.)

On such a nice day, I really thought there would be a long line but surprisingly there wasn't much of one at all. We really only waited a few minutes until we were floating away. And I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but those 10ish minutes we were on that boat were the most ridiculously relaxing minutes I've had in some time. The weather was stunning - spring coolness, strong sun, big fluffy clouds - the water was peaceful and the kids were totally happy and into it. The peace I had during that short trip went deep into my core. Really a great experience.

The Cool Dudes I Got to Float With

Under the Bridge

And we even passed some nesting swans. Does that count as life imitating art? 

Rounding Past Duck Island

After our lovely little boat ride, we stopped to feed the last of our goodies to a different group of ducks, checked out some of the other statues in the park and headed home. A brief trip but a great one.

Weird side note, while we were floating, Dylan asked where George Washington was buried. He's become very aware of George Washington thanks to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer ("you'll go down in his-tor-y...like George Washington), our trip to the Museum of Fine Arts (saw some portraits of him there, and watching the movie Annie (there's a portrait of him in FDR's office whom Annie visits with Daddy Warbucks). He knows he's the first President (though I'm not sure he understands the concept of President) and, as you know, he's obsessed with spooky gravestones and tombs where mummies are buried. Natural progression to "where is George Washington buried?" We just so happen to be traveling in a couple of weeks to Virginia where George Washington is buried so Dylan will soon get his wish to see his tomb. Weird on several levels, right? But hey, when a kid is into something, you take it, run with it, and teach them what you can!

Easter - Also Known as Christmas in the Spring

I know! Can you believe it? This event JUST happened (a week ago) and I'm actually blogging about it. Yay me!

Our Easter was great and seriously hectic. We were the lucky ones to host the family (2nd year in a row) and there was much to be done beforehand. The Friday before it was good not only because that's what the calendar said but also because it came with surprises - a new dining room chandelier in the mail an new hardware for our kitchen cabinets. So here I was thinking, between all the errands, food prep and cleaning that needed to be done, I'd get those things installed too. Haha! Funny, right? My eyes are always bigger than my stomach...except with to do lists, not food. As always, I was far too expectant on what can get done so not much was. The dining fixture didn't go up (not only that, but it's back in it's original packaging waiting to be sent back) and the only hardware that went up were the "easy" cabinet pulls (ie the ones requiring no new holes being drilled or any other complicated maneuvering). However, we did get the boys' presents assembled and eggs filled for the big day. And, when guests arrived, there was a pretty clean house and food about ready to eat. So, it worked out.

The boys had a great time discovering their stash of gifts. On the one hand, I'm a little embarrassed with how much we gave them. It really was a mini Christmas. On the other hand, our gifts made sense in timing and we wanted to give them so we did. See, in New England, we have this thing called winter. It pretty much deems any outdoor activity without skis on your feet null and void for about 6 months of the year. That means it's pretty cruel to give a kid a bike and say "Merry Christmas....you can't use or touch this thing for a minimum of 4 months!" Dylan's birthday is more than half way to weather deemed inappropriate for outdoor again so, Easter ends up being a good time for those big outdoor toys like bikes and ride on cars. Guess what our kids got?

And, as on Christmas morning, we don't wait to go at it. It was throw the jackets on top of the pj's and go out to hunt for eggs with bed head. Dylan was really sweet showing Cade the ropes and leaving him eggs to find as well. Cade started by picking up eggs and them re-hiding them but soon got the gist of things and stored up some in his Easter bucket.

Ready for the Hunt!

After the bikes were given and the outdoor hunt finished, we took them to the garage for the big reveal - a new jeep! As you may recall, Cade got a (free) car for his birthday. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite grasp how to maneuver it himself yet and Dylan's too big for it. Plus, we don't really have easy\safe access to long stretches of flat pavement (that would be across our busy street). That's why we wanted to get the boys the jeep - Dylan can tote his brother around and they can traverse our yard with it. After jumping in and excitedly looking at it, they jumped out and seemed uninterested in it. Great. Well, at least I'll be able to have fun in it! I'm sure they'll love it when there's not so much else distracting away from it.

After we opened the eggs and dumped the candy in bowls, it was time for some major cleaning and cleaning up of ourselves. As we were so hectic that day, I completely failed in getting a sweet "boys dressed up for Easter shot." Mom fail. But, I promise they were dressed up and adorable. Take my word for it.

Our first guests to arrive were our friends that would be joining the family. They came early and were amazing\wonderful help in our preparations. (Thanks again, Eleni!) As Mike's family started piling in, we got to meet the newest family member, little Maggie who was born in December. Cade loves babies and gave her sweet kisses and pats on the head.

What a Cutie!

What came after was fast jumble of food, kids, running around the house (inside and out) and time with family\friends. We had a great day and I think everyone else did too.

Dylan, Cade and Justin

Maggie and Her Beautiful Mom, Leah
(Can you stand how cute that baby in a bunny hat is?!?)

By the Swings - Dylan, Cade, Me (Pushing), Isabella and Gustavo
In Front of the Swings - Justin and Ryan

Look! A Table Full of People!
Left Side - Davide, Robbie, Gustavo-Eleni-Isabella (barely seen)
Yep - That's both the boys in my lap for lunch at the end.
Right Side - Betsy, Tom, Jamie and Erik

And from the other end!
Left - Tom, Jamie, Erik, Ryan, Jessie
Right - Justin, Leah, Maggie, Davie, Rob and Eleni
Mike was the lucky guy taking these lovely pictures but I promise he was there too.

Another big holiday in the books at our house. Lots of memories getting made there, people. But, what's happening there is a whole lot of mess. Projects are underway and I hope to have some after pictures sooner rather than later.