Father’s Day…

…can best be summarized by this book:

I have so wanted to get this book and read it with the kids since I heard about it.  It was so funny.  I think that anyone that has children and has watched Star Wars will appreciate it’s humor. 

For father’s day, I wanted to go on a hike – I’m obsessed with hiking if yo couldn’t tell. My husband and son aren’t too into it (although with my son, it more depends on the day and the most difficult part of the battle is getting him ot of the place and keeping him motivated.  It’s hard to say because I am ashamed to say; I don’t know what will keep him motivated). We went to Pack Monadnock and hings seemed to be going well ’til we got about halfway to the top and then my daughter had a complete and utter meltdown. She had been walking and I had the big old back pack.  i offered her the option of going into the pack and then she said yes and then no. So we walked on a bit further and nothing wold comfort her. So we ended the trip by returning to the car, with her in the pack and screaming in my ear the whole way – not the way I wanted to end it; however better than nothing. 

The day ended with s making cake for the hubby and a good dinner and then relaxing for the rest of the night. Off to watch the rest of the hockey game…and hope my co workers are happy come the morning. 

What a difference

..a year makes.  At this time last year, I was one week from beginning a new job. I was excited and scared (don’t et me wrong, I still get scared sometimes).  But  I have to say that it was worth it. 

This time of year also has lots of interesting and mostly good memories for me.  Two and a half years ago, I hobbled around the Ribfest (which we went to today) in one of those stupid air cast boots after having broken my ankle when I was 20 weeks pregnant (thanks for coming to my house Ben!) and having gone through surgery. I was watching The World Cup (and loving the fact that I could TiVo games and watch them when I wasn’t in pain – although I wish that I had a DVR when the World Cup was in Korea and Japan) and cheering for the US and the Netherlands.  I was watching and reading The Millenium Trilogy another year and loving Lisbeth Salander (and wishing there were more characters like her when I was a teenager – and just for the record, the Swedish language movies are better than the American one). I loved getting a big hug from a few of the people that I was going to work with when  I saw them at the functions that I was attending.  I just have great memories of this time of summer.  

Today, we went to the Ribfest and I have to say, it wasn’t bad. We went early enough that it wasn’t crowded – in fact it was super crowded when we left at 2:30. I loved seeing people and introducing my husband to my co-workers.  It is so nice to relax and have a nice day.    

More tomorrow – when I know that we’re going on a hike!

“I used to spend hours looking at him…”

…and then Cersei talks about how she loved to look at Joffrey and how people never know what makes a child go bad.  It’s the one time that I think that she was actually somewhat human in some ways.  Don’t get me wrong, she is still a terribly flawed character; however this was the first time that I felt like at one time she was probably not a bad person.  That being said, I don’t know what I’m going to do all summer now without one of the only shows that I watch with any regularity. 

***

This past weekend, Gabby and I went on a hike on Mt. Major in Alton Bay, NH. It took us approximately 90 minutes to drive from our home to the trailhead and took about three hours to get to the top because, surprisingly, Gabby walked the vast majority of it with the exceptions of the very beginning and the very ending.  We took a lot of breaks because her little legs needed a fair amount of rest; however the end results were well worth it:

Post-Vacation!

We were at the Happiest Place on Earth last week, so not much was accomplished besides walking around massively crowded parks in the absolute heat.  I guess I shouldn’t say that – I was relaxed for once on vacation (or as relaxed as I could be) and my sister in law brought her family with her.  Nate and Gabby were so excited. Nate was so excited that he was up at 4:30 – much more before the alarm went off for us to get to Manchester for our 7 AM flight. He came in and woke us up to tell us that we had to get ready to go. We stayed here, which provided us with extra sleeping space. There was a master bedroom downstairs.  Inthe living room area, the couch pulled out.  There were two full baths downstairs – one in the master bath and the other off the main living room and kitchen area.  Upstairs there were two more bedrooms, both of which had two double beds and their own full bathrooms.  There was a loft as well that had a TV and pullout couch. The kids all were in one bedroom with the exception of Gabby, who slept in our room.  The adults had their own rooms, again with the exception noted.  I think that the only glitches happened on the way home:  I had a wicked bad sinus infection that was beginning to wreak havoc on my ears en route. I did have a script for antibiotics but had forgotten to pack it – my own fault and I suffered miserably for it.  I’m feeling much better today since I was able to take a nice long nap yesterday. Also, Izzy’s bag literally got mauled en route. Apparently, the luggage handlers at Orlando’s airport dragged his suitcase on the tarmac all the way from the terminal to the plane.  And then, they proceeded to pick up the parts and put it all in a plastic bag for us to pick up when we got home.  We literally got there and were like “WTF” because it looked like a wild animal had gotten a hold of the bag and ripped it and its entire contents apart.  There were only like two things that were salvageable.  Izzy ended up getting a new piece of luggage and cash to replace ALL of the clothing that he lost in the process.  Needless to say, I’m less than thrilled about having to fly THAT particular airline again.

In the few days I’ve been back, I’ve tried to recover from vacation. That  has included naps, antibiotics, sifting through mail and blogs and getting back to work. We also planted our garden:

 

There are peppers, two different types of tomatoes and two watermelon plants. I’m experimenting with the watermelons. I’m not sure how well they will do, but I’m willing to try. Last year the tomatoes rocked but the pumpkins didn’t do so well.  The year before the strawberries didn’t do well either.  So I wanted to try something new.  

Surprisingly, I’m doing all right post-vacation. I normally get really down about returning to the normal humdrum of life but this time it’s different. I think it’s for a few reasons:

• I felt ready to come home, in part because I wasn’t feeling well and I was tired. Seven days seemed to be enough in Disney and I was really happy to have a few days to recover.
• I actually wanted to get back to work and my “normal” life. I came home with big plans – hiking, writing, blogging, reading, hanging with the kids when I could.  

That’s where I’ve been. Sorry to have been so quiet lately…

In Memoriam

 

Amazing how a tragedy like the Boston Marathon Bombing makes you willing to go out and be active. This past week, I have been running more and i have started using the RipDeck App on the days that I do my running program. Over the weekend, the kids and I did the first real hike (not nature walk!) of the season. We climbed here - the Sothern one. It was the perfect hike. The trailhead is pretty easy to find: the GPS got the kids and I to the mountain road and then got confused as to where the parking lot was.  However, the road itself actually dead ended into the trailheads. We elected to take the winding trails to the top – that trail was well maintained and well-marked.  It was also very well travelled – we saw many other hikers going to the top with dogs and children.  The view wasn’t that bad either although I didn’t like the fact that there were a TON of cell towers there:

 

The day was perfect and the hike was a good one for families. We ended by going down the shorter path – it took less time; however the trail was much steeper and not nearly as well maintained.  There were loose rocks all over the place that made me scared that I was going to turn my ankle or that my kids were going to fall down.  This week, I’m hoping to do Mt. Major with the kids and maybe Mt. Monandnock on my own. 

Well I love that dirty water…

…yeah, Boston you’re my home.  I’ve been living this for the last 5 days:

I felt so many things – and they were all really similar to 9/11. In some ways it felt worse.  Marathon Monday when I was in college was always like a holiday.  We were right at mile 13, so there was an element of pride and cheer. It was truly a party atmosphere – bands, picnics and watching the runners.  We were affectionately dubbed screech alley because we had the best cheerers. So this bombing completely stole those happy moments from me.  Then there was the sheer terror of the experience for the people that lived through it and the deaths that followed – a total of 4 (3 from the day of the incident and the fourth from Friday when an officer from MIT was shot and killed). I had walked down Boylston Street hundreds of times when I went to college in the area and even recently, with my children. This was supposed to be a happy day for everyone and it ended up being just plain awful.

The week felt like we were all walking on eggshells although I don’t think that we realized it until everything culminated on Friday evening. Pictures of the suspects were released on Thursday and I thought for sure that we would have leads to hear about on Friday. Definitely nothing crazy.  Oh boy though…i woke up Friday morning and turned the TV on. I hadn’t had any coffee yet so it didn’t quite register that the press was talking about how the suspects had fired gunshots at MIT, executed an MIT police officer, carjacked a car, released a hostage 30 minutes later, tried to rob a grocery store and then got into a shootout with officers in Watertown, resulting in the death of one of the suspects, the injury to another officer and the escape of the other suspect.  This resulted in a massive lockdown of all of Watertown, boston, Cambridge and most of the suburbs surrounding them, closure of all MBTA buses and trains, closure of AMTRAK service and restrictions on flights leaving Logan. Eventually the suspect was located, injured in a pool of blood and in the back of a boat. It seemed just surreal…like I was watching a movie that I was participating in to some extent.

I’m now at a point that i’m almost morbidly curious. I want to know so much more about the people that were involved from the people that lost their lives to the people that did this.  I want to know why.

Hiking Season is Upon Us…

…and I’m trying so hard to get into shape. Part of my exercise regimen is doing this once a week:

I 

I get the little one in the pack and I attempt to walk a nature path or trail or two for an hour or two to get my strength up as well as my stamina. Hiking season is upon us and I want to try to get at least another 4K or two under my belt this summer. As a mom of a 5 year old and a 2.5 year though, who also works outside of the house full time, in all likelihood it’s going to have to include one or both of the kids, one of which will be on my back. Best to get started the training sooner rather than later.  In the upcoming weeks, I will be upping spinning and running and some weight training which are wonderful cross training.

Yesterday, we went to Monson Village. The story behind Monson is absolutely fascinating. Monson was the first inland settlement in New England – and was settled in 1737 but then abandoned in 1770. Many of the foundations of the buildings still exist as do the main roads and the tremendous cleared field that must have comprised the center of town. One of the homes was reconstructed and is a museum that details the history of the town. The village was abandoned in 1770 because of skirmishes with the local Native American tribes and because the land was very unyielding, making it difficult to live.  I can completely understand the inability of the settlers to not be able to grow food because the land was very rocky and would have taken a lot of time to make friendly to crops on a practical level.  During the time period that the settlers were trying to make the land arable, they wold have been dependent upon other communities and the Native Americans, making them vulnerable to some degree.  What was also really interesting was that a lot of the settlers left and then lived very lengthy lives, many dying only in their 80s and 90′s.  It was really neat

On another note, our .  More pics:

On another note, our bathroom is coming along nicely: