Time Flies
The past week has flown by. I was so faithful at the beginning of this vacation, but now I have gotten behind in my blogging. Here are some of the highlights:
Sunday, July 13
It rained all day, and we spent most of the day inside. I got caught up on my blogging, we read, watched TV, and played games. At some point during the weekend, the kids had discovered a "Clubhouse" inside our house, so they spent a lot of time playing up there on Sunday. It is basically a storage area above the stairs. They found that they could get to it by standing on the stairs, bracing themselves with each hand on an opposite wall, and then walking across a piece of trim to the landing. They put pillows and flashlights up there, and made a nice cozy area for themselves. They wished they could have shown Kyra, and were excited to show their other cousins when they come up again. Katie even made a sign, that read: "Welcome to the Clubhouse" and then explained the rules.
Monday, July 14
We went to the library for preschool story time. Doug and Katie read, while Zoe (sort 0f) listened to stories read by Mollie, the children's librarian. Afterward, we played at the playground, then went home for lunch and quiet time.
We were going to go out after dinner, but as we were finishing up, we heard a loud thump followed by some smaller thumps in the stairwell. Jerry reacted first, running toward the stairs so fast that he slipped on some paper towels that were on the floor. He still got to Katie quicker than I did. Sure enough, she had fallen trying to get up to the clubhouse. She had landed on the stairs and then fallen the rest of the way down. Luckily, the only damage she sustained was some scrapes and bruises, but it was really scary -- for all of us. Needless to say, that was the end of the clubhouse. She sadly pulled down the welcome sign, while Doug bemoaned the fact that Matt, Brooke, Meghan, and Connor would never get to play up there. I told him not to worry about it, because their mothers' (wisely) would never have let them up there anyway.
Tuesday, July 15
I had this little fantasy that while we were here in VT, Doug & Katie would be so excited to explore and play outside, I wouldn't have to force them out, like I do at home. But, alas, even VT is no match for the allure of Spongebob, Timmy Turner, and Jimmy Neutron. After they sat around all morning, I told them they had to get up and go for a walk with me. This was cruel and unusual punishment for them. Doug & Katie sulked, cried, and complained loudly, assuring me that I "always ruin everything." But I was strong and I stood my ground. "You must go outside." I repeated, "You have no choice." They finally gave in, but not happily.
Once we got out on our walk, Katie perked up. Here she is running up our road with Zoe and Rosie Doesn't it look like an awful day to be outside?
Doug perked up when he started finding some cool rocks. He is always happy when he is finding (or throwing) rocks:
The highlight of the walk came when Katie found a critter. A sweet little slug, pictured here on her hand:
Then, I had the brilliant idea that they should use the rocks they had collected on our trip so far, to build a mini waterfall in the ditch next to our driveway. I turned on the hose, and they got to work. This turned out to be a wonderful project, which has provided hours of entertainment -- it actually has managed to win out over Nick Jr. once in awhile over the past week.
Jerry decided to knock off work a little early, so we headed up to Smugglers Notch for some rock climbing-fun. What a cool area! We all loved climbing on these huge boulders:
Here is Doug, standing in a cave which we learned has been used over the years by real smugglers to hide goods, and was even used to hide slaves who were escaping to Canada:
As we were leaving, we wanted to take one last picture. Some kind folks from -- you guessed it -- FL, offered to take a picture of the 5 of us:
Afterward, they told us that if we drove up to the next turn off and looked up, we could see "the Hunter and his dog." Here it is:
After dinner, we went on another walk. The sun was setting, and we had a great view of Mt. Mansfield:
Wednesday, July 16
The library had been advertising a magic show at 10:30 in the morning. In the meantime, Erin invited us to come up and swim at her house again. I decided we could do both, because the magic show would end at 11:30, and it would take an hour to get to St. Albans. Erin gets home from work at about 12:30, so it should have worked out perfectly. HA!
The magic show was fun, and did end at 11:30, but then we had to go to the bathroom, etc. etc., so it was actually 11:50 before we got into the car -- and everyone was hungry. I passed out fruit, and promised we'd stop along the way. I also decided to take the scenic route, up and over The Notch, which I knew would take about the same amount of time, but would be shorter mileage, and prettier.
This ended up not being such a good idea. Doug & Katie started complaining about feeling carsick almost as soon as we got up into The Notch. When we finally got through, there wasn't anywhere to stop for food. When we got to Bakersfield, I noticed a little store along the side of the road. We stopped, got out, and got some food, then brought it across the street to a picnic table which overlooked a pretty graveyard. Everyone felt better, and we piled back into the car, for what should have been a short ride to St. A. HA!
As we drove along, we chatted about all kinds of things. All was well, until I saw a sign that said Jeffersonville 15. Jeffersonville? That is back toward Stowe. Pretty soon I saw a sign that said Smugglers Notch 25. OMG, I was headed in the wrong direction! I immediately turned around, amidst lots of questions from my back seat passengers. I explained that I'd gotten a little turned around, but that we were back on the right track. Soon, I saw a sign that said Bakersfield 10, which meant I had gone 10 miles back the way I had come from!! What a pain. 10 miles on those roads probably took 15-20 minutes
By now the kids were feeling carsick again, and we were still at least 25 miles away from St. Albans. In the end, we didn't make it to St. A until 2 p.m. The kids were troupers about the whole thing. They did make fun of me quite a bit, but otherwise they hung on, and managed not to get sick. We took the interstate home!
Thursday, July 17
We spent this day getting ready for Marie and Joe's pending arrival. They had decided to use some frequent flyer miles to come and visit for a few days. I tortured my kids with chores like sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, and changing bedsheets.
In the afternoon, my great-aunt Barb, and 2 of her children, Tracey and Ronnie, came to visit for a little while. Barb is living in a nursing home after suffering 2 strokes in the past few years, but she was doing remarkably well. Her mind didn't seem affected at all. She certainly knew what was going on, and knew us. We ended up making plans for the Lamoile County Fair which is coming up next week.
Marie and Joe arrived at about midnight, after an uneventful flight. We had decided they'd be more comfortable in "Doug's room" upstairs, so Doug had moved down to the foldout bed in the den. He heard us talking, and got up to say hi, claiming he'd been awake the whole time.
Tomorrow, I will post more on our adventures with Marie & Joe.
P.S. Kyra: Sorry I forgot to give you credit for the great pictures you took at Moss Glen Falls. I have edited that entry to give credit where credit is due!
Sunday, July 13
It rained all day, and we spent most of the day inside. I got caught up on my blogging, we read, watched TV, and played games. At some point during the weekend, the kids had discovered a "Clubhouse" inside our house, so they spent a lot of time playing up there on Sunday. It is basically a storage area above the stairs. They found that they could get to it by standing on the stairs, bracing themselves with each hand on an opposite wall, and then walking across a piece of trim to the landing. They put pillows and flashlights up there, and made a nice cozy area for themselves. They wished they could have shown Kyra, and were excited to show their other cousins when they come up again. Katie even made a sign, that read: "Welcome to the Clubhouse" and then explained the rules.
Monday, July 14
We went to the library for preschool story time. Doug and Katie read, while Zoe (sort 0f) listened to stories read by Mollie, the children's librarian. Afterward, we played at the playground, then went home for lunch and quiet time.
We were going to go out after dinner, but as we were finishing up, we heard a loud thump followed by some smaller thumps in the stairwell. Jerry reacted first, running toward the stairs so fast that he slipped on some paper towels that were on the floor. He still got to Katie quicker than I did. Sure enough, she had fallen trying to get up to the clubhouse. She had landed on the stairs and then fallen the rest of the way down. Luckily, the only damage she sustained was some scrapes and bruises, but it was really scary -- for all of us. Needless to say, that was the end of the clubhouse. She sadly pulled down the welcome sign, while Doug bemoaned the fact that Matt, Brooke, Meghan, and Connor would never get to play up there. I told him not to worry about it, because their mothers' (wisely) would never have let them up there anyway.
Tuesday, July 15
I had this little fantasy that while we were here in VT, Doug & Katie would be so excited to explore and play outside, I wouldn't have to force them out, like I do at home. But, alas, even VT is no match for the allure of Spongebob, Timmy Turner, and Jimmy Neutron. After they sat around all morning, I told them they had to get up and go for a walk with me. This was cruel and unusual punishment for them. Doug & Katie sulked, cried, and complained loudly, assuring me that I "always ruin everything." But I was strong and I stood my ground. "You must go outside." I repeated, "You have no choice." They finally gave in, but not happily.
Once we got out on our walk, Katie perked up. Here she is running up our road with Zoe and Rosie Doesn't it look like an awful day to be outside?
Doug perked up when he started finding some cool rocks. He is always happy when he is finding (or throwing) rocks:
The highlight of the walk came when Katie found a critter. A sweet little slug, pictured here on her hand:
Then, I had the brilliant idea that they should use the rocks they had collected on our trip so far, to build a mini waterfall in the ditch next to our driveway. I turned on the hose, and they got to work. This turned out to be a wonderful project, which has provided hours of entertainment -- it actually has managed to win out over Nick Jr. once in awhile over the past week.
Jerry decided to knock off work a little early, so we headed up to Smugglers Notch for some rock climbing-fun. What a cool area! We all loved climbing on these huge boulders:
Here is Doug, standing in a cave which we learned has been used over the years by real smugglers to hide goods, and was even used to hide slaves who were escaping to Canada:
As we were leaving, we wanted to take one last picture. Some kind folks from -- you guessed it -- FL, offered to take a picture of the 5 of us:
Afterward, they told us that if we drove up to the next turn off and looked up, we could see "the Hunter and his dog." Here it is:
After dinner, we went on another walk. The sun was setting, and we had a great view of Mt. Mansfield:
Wednesday, July 16
The library had been advertising a magic show at 10:30 in the morning. In the meantime, Erin invited us to come up and swim at her house again. I decided we could do both, because the magic show would end at 11:30, and it would take an hour to get to St. Albans. Erin gets home from work at about 12:30, so it should have worked out perfectly. HA!
The magic show was fun, and did end at 11:30, but then we had to go to the bathroom, etc. etc., so it was actually 11:50 before we got into the car -- and everyone was hungry. I passed out fruit, and promised we'd stop along the way. I also decided to take the scenic route, up and over The Notch, which I knew would take about the same amount of time, but would be shorter mileage, and prettier.
This ended up not being such a good idea. Doug & Katie started complaining about feeling carsick almost as soon as we got up into The Notch. When we finally got through, there wasn't anywhere to stop for food. When we got to Bakersfield, I noticed a little store along the side of the road. We stopped, got out, and got some food, then brought it across the street to a picnic table which overlooked a pretty graveyard. Everyone felt better, and we piled back into the car, for what should have been a short ride to St. A. HA!
As we drove along, we chatted about all kinds of things. All was well, until I saw a sign that said Jeffersonville 15. Jeffersonville? That is back toward Stowe. Pretty soon I saw a sign that said Smugglers Notch 25. OMG, I was headed in the wrong direction! I immediately turned around, amidst lots of questions from my back seat passengers. I explained that I'd gotten a little turned around, but that we were back on the right track. Soon, I saw a sign that said Bakersfield 10, which meant I had gone 10 miles back the way I had come from!! What a pain. 10 miles on those roads probably took 15-20 minutes
By now the kids were feeling carsick again, and we were still at least 25 miles away from St. Albans. In the end, we didn't make it to St. A until 2 p.m. The kids were troupers about the whole thing. They did make fun of me quite a bit, but otherwise they hung on, and managed not to get sick. We took the interstate home!
Thursday, July 17
We spent this day getting ready for Marie and Joe's pending arrival. They had decided to use some frequent flyer miles to come and visit for a few days. I tortured my kids with chores like sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, and changing bedsheets.
In the afternoon, my great-aunt Barb, and 2 of her children, Tracey and Ronnie, came to visit for a little while. Barb is living in a nursing home after suffering 2 strokes in the past few years, but she was doing remarkably well. Her mind didn't seem affected at all. She certainly knew what was going on, and knew us. We ended up making plans for the Lamoile County Fair which is coming up next week.
Marie and Joe arrived at about midnight, after an uneventful flight. We had decided they'd be more comfortable in "Doug's room" upstairs, so Doug had moved down to the foldout bed in the den. He heard us talking, and got up to say hi, claiming he'd been awake the whole time.
Tomorrow, I will post more on our adventures with Marie & Joe.
P.S. Kyra: Sorry I forgot to give you credit for the great pictures you took at Moss Glen Falls. I have edited that entry to give credit where credit is due!
posted by Lisa at 10:42 PM
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