Catching Up with a New Summer

Well, summer is officially upon us in New England, after a shaky and uncertain start. If ever more evidence was needed than this photograph, I am not sure.

So despite the fact that I have a couple more days of work at school, everything has taken a decidedly summer feel since Memorial Day. Even the grass seems to have excitedly come to life like never before, growing at a mutant-like pace, although I think that has to do with my wife’s tinkering with a secret chemical cocktail of fertilizing agents. That being said, the lawn has never looked better. Now all I need to do is wrap up school and some National Writing Project work for the real summer to start.

In fact, Ali and Hadley already kind of got started with Keri in the now annual Girls’ Trip 2011 (Version 4.0 in its current iteration I believe.). This time the three ladies headed north to the Green Mountains of Vermont for Ben and Jerry’s and Cabot Cheese tours among other sites. The slideshow below bears a nice witness to the trip.

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Since then we have had a lovely Mother’s Day. In fact, Hadley and I awoke early to make orange-cranberry muffins, only to discover that neither kids would eat them once they were baked. Hadley decided it was the cranberry that she opposed. Still, it was a beautiful day, rendering one of my favorite recent pictures of my girls.

This weekend Father’s Day arrived, which has been another lovely day. French toast and bacon for breakfast and a few small gifts made for a great morning. Yet even more impressive was my daughter’s second race on Saturday. Shortly after Ali and Keri ran a 5K, Hadley participated in a kids mini marathon for the second year in a row. Last year she did well, but was a little intimidated with all of the people and action surrounding her. This year, however, she performed wonderfully and very nearly beat everyone to the finish line, if not for slightly tripping over another little girl near the halfway point.

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Of course, none of us was worried about winning, but she was pretty impressive on the track. She certainly was proud of herself, although I think her mom and dad might have even been prouder.

Pre-First Night Trip to Boston

One of the local events that is a huge draw in Boston is First Night, an elaborate New Year’s Eve celebration of the culture and community of the city. While many other cities and towns across the nation now hold First Night festivities, Boston is the original and standard bearer. It is really quite grand and kicks off well before midnight, starting around 9AM and carrying through to midnight fireworks.

One of the cooler features are the marvelous ice sculptures, no pun intended. They are enormous and beautifully ornate. Since heading downtown with 2 million other people really isn’t in the cards for us. So while I was busy completing some work, Keri and Ali packed up the kids and headed east to see if they could catch a glimpse of the sculptures the day before the official unveiling.

The trip on the train was apparently quite fascinating for our little man, as revelaed by the intense studying visible in this photograph.

Unfortunately, the trip proved to be less than fulfilling on the ice sculpture front. Since the weather has started to warm a bit, it would seem that preservation is of major importance. Also there was some work still to be done. Consequently, most of what they got to see was this.

Ali sardonically referred to this part of the trip as “Gumdrop.” This is a kind of kidsafe code for an excrement expletive, as well as being a reference to one of our infamous exploits to exotic local sights. Sadly in the transitioning this site to a new platform, the images from the original post have been lost. I’ll have to look into digging some of those photos out again.

Nevertheless, they all managed to still have some fun. Hadley got to walk around the city and covered a whole lot of ground. It proved to be quite a journey for both of the kiddos. They were pretty wiped out from it all.

The Big Fall Wrap-up

Fred has set another personal record! His last Fritzwinkle posting was almost three months ago. The man has been busy. But when he’s not busy, or avoiding other work, he’s unwinding with some Playstation soccer. Our daughter knows the sight so well that she tells me, “Daddy watching soccer game.” She’s kind of a narc about Fred slacking.

Snowman Hat
Little toy

Lovin' the Leaves

A lot has happened since the end of September. For one thing our son is now five months old! He’s rolling over, eating rice cereal and jars of vegetables. Squash and green beans seem to be his favorites so far. He’s a big chunk of a boy, weighing over 18 pounds. He’s pretty solidly wearing nine-month sized clothes. It’s fun to remember what our girl was like at this age…and size, which are very different.

Puppygirl
Checking the Candy

Our daughter has really been getting into the Christmas season. She is starting to enjoy all of the holidays, like her mother. Hmmmm…is there a connection? She started off by dressing up as the cutest witch in the world for Halloween. She walked from house to house trick-or-treating on our cul du sac. Then she really enjoyed getting to eat the candy she was given in her plastic pumpkin. As soon as she learned how to say, “Happy Halloween,” it was time to learn how to say “Happy Thanksgiving.” She picked this up much quicker. In the blink of an eye, we were packing up all signs of the fall holidays in order to make room for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Letter to Santa

First Snowman

Our little girl got to mail a letter to Santa this year. She had watched some Christmas specials on TV, so she understood the concept. So after I went to vote in the primaries for our new Senator, we walked across to the big red mailbox that had the word “Santa” painted on the side. She posed for a few photos, and then gleefully dropped her letter into the box. Yesterday we actually got a letter back! She loves the Christmas tree, but has a really hard time not touching the ornaments. That’s understandable since she’s two years old. She’s enjoying eggnog – “This is really, really good!” – and opening a door on her Advent calendar every day after lunch. Her absolute favorite thing about Christmas so far is the music. She wants to listen to Christmas music all the time. Then she walks around singing Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Up on the Rooftop. We have several books with the words, so I can sing along correctly. I don’t know what she’s going to do in a few weeks. I’ll probably be listening to Christmas music for months.

All Dressed Up

I will take this opportunity to wish you all Happy Holidays. Check back in early 2010 to see if Fred has made a New Year’s resolution to keep up with his fritzwinkle posts.