A pictoral view of the weekend

1st, and foremost weekends rock!

2nd, they are far too short!
3rd, I'm on vacation so everyday is a weekend for the next 2 months! YIPPEEE!

Here is a pictoral view of our awesome weekend!

Mt. Carmel Feast on Friday night

Dinner in A-bay on Saturday night

Biking Sunday morning

Staining the deck Sunday afternoon

We had a fab weekend and here is to a fab week filled with walking, soaking up the sun, going to the beach, going to the farmer's market, having Uncle J for dinner and celebrating the 4th of July with family! I'm sure there will be many more pics to come!

Strawberry Picking

On Tuesday afternoon we took Seth strawberry picking for the first time and it was super fun!Now we are on vacation for what I am told is 67 days! YIPPEEE! We started out our vacation back in Clayton with Erin and Storm this morning. We walked, went to a book sale and then to the playground. What a great morning we had! Here is to many many more great days!

More Random Weekend Pics

In other news my mom and I are taking Seth strawberry picking tonight! Seth is super excited to go on a wagon ride and pick berries. I'll take pics of what a huge red mess he will end up being! It's all good summer fun!

2 days and counting until vacation!

Memories & More Home Improvements

It was a super busy weekend filled with family, friends and fun! Friday night we went to The Voss' for a delicious dinner. They always out-do themselves, BUT we love it! The kiddos played extra well and we even squeezed in a camp fire in the backyard.

Saturday we worked around the house and ran errands before the big 60th Anniversary Celebration. It is amazing that my grandparents have been married for that long, what a testament!

Seth LOVED my Aunt Jody!

Sunday we ran more errands and Ro and Rod tackled the installation of the new backdoor. I thought it would take an hour, well 6 hours later, a trip to Lowes and a trip to Panera Bread and they were done. It looks amazing and I'm so happy with it. Thanks for all of your help Rod!

Outside viewInside view

During the installation process the kiddos played outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

I have a ton more pictures from the weekend so I will try and post a bunch tomorrow!

Vacation is almost here, I can feel it! Thursday here I come...

I'm FULL

I don't think I have ever eaten as much as I ate last night at my Gramp's birthday dinner. First off I was starving so of course my eyes were much larger than my stomach, BUT I ate everything I ordered and had a super belly ache on the way home. It was ohhhh so worth it though. I ordered fried mushrooms for an appetizer, tableside made caesar salad, sirloin tips with onions and mushrooms and a baked potato and then my gram ordered a cake for dessert. YIKES, I'm still full!


It was a great night to get all of us kids together and I loved hearing all about their adventures. My cousin Emily has just graduated from The University of Miami and she is in limbo right now looking for and interviewing for jobs. I wish her all the luck in the world and I can completely understand how frustrating the whole process was and is. I had 10 interviews the summer after I graduated from OSU! Keep the faith girl!

My cousin Molly just finished her first year at Boston College and she loved it. She told us how she and a group of her friends watched most of the Boston Marathon and even saw Lance Armstrong. Very cool!


My cousin Chris, who goes to Fordham just got home from spending 3 weeks in South Africa working in orphanages with children who have HIV or AIDS. He spent 18 hours on a plane to get there and his adventures and experiences sound amazing. He said that while he was there he tried many different foods, but the one that sounded very interesting to me was that they ate ostrich eggs. He said one egg would feed 20 people with the equivalent about 3 of our eggs for each person.

Last, but not least my little brother who is not so little anymore got to share some of his experiences from his trip to Italy. He came home with over 1200 pics and I was only able to get through 300 in one sitting. It is incredible how different the world is outside of our NY bubble. I can't wait to look at the rest!

All in all it was a great night! I was able to spent time with my cousins and my grandparents whom I love dearly!

We love you Gramp!

82

Today is my Grandfather's 82nd Birthday! My grandma called this past weekend and was trying to arrange a special dinner for my gramp tonight and she has succeeded. The five grandchildren have been invited to join my grandparents for dinner at Memories in Lowville. This was no easy feat since my two girl cousins live in MD, my cousin Christopher lives in NYC, but is home for the summer, my brother just got home from Italy and well, I'm always free! Anyhow, to make a long story short we can all make it tonight and we are very excited to get together just the five of us. Hopefully I will get some good pictures of all of us to share!

Happy Birthday Gramp, we LOVE you!

How we Spent Father's Day

A pictoral view of how we spent Father's Day!

Brunch at our house for all the father's
A little playing action in the driveway while our yard grows
Naked water wars
A picnic with Daddy at the beach
A picture with Mommy eventhough it isn't her special day

I just got word from Ro that our new playground is being delivered today, now we need our grass to start growing at warp speed. It is coming in pretty well, but now it needs to pick up the pace!

Video Catch Up

Just a little catch up, I've been lacking with the blogging lately!

Bring on the Sun

Our second to last home improvement for the season is under way. Last week we hired Shawn Granger to come and fill our yard, level it and seed it. Here are pics from the process...

Step 1: Haul the dirt into the backyard with a big old tractor, which Seth loved!

Step 2: Repeat step 1 many many times with many many truck loads of dirt!

Step 3: More dirt and then pack it down!

Step 4: More dirt, level, seed and water!

The grass has started to grow and with all this sun and rain it is growing great! The last step will be to build Seth's brand new playground that we bought from the Amish. It will be delivered in 2 weeks! Then the summer can really begin!

Look How Close!!

Can you say 5th row center?!!! That is how close we were to the stage at the Sugarland Concert on Sunday afternoon. A BIG Thank You goes out to Tom for getting us the tickets. It was an amazing show and our seats were incredible! These pics were taken by one of Seth's teenage babysitters, Stephanie, who was in front of us from her iphone, but there is no zoom needed, we were this close!

What a great afteroon!

Quote of the Day

Last night we all went for a short walk and took Rocky just up the block and around a little bit. Seth wanted to hold the leash so we let him. At one point Seth was about 5 steps behind us and he says in all seriousness...

"Hold on everybody, Rocky has to go potty!"

Quote of the Day

Seth's quote of the day is...

"Daddy, I like your pants!"

Overdue Pics

Last Friday, my sitter was closed for the day so I had (wink wink) to take the day off from work. It just so happened to also be the most beautiful day of the month so I took Seth to the zoo with a long lost friend and her daughter Lucy.



The kids had a BLAST together and they both took super duper LONG naps that afternoon after all of the excitement from the animals and our picnic lunch. We can't wait for school to get out so that we can hang out together again!

To Do

This is what my wall of honor looks like at the moment. It is full of memories and tidbits of our life currently.

Right now I feel like the minutes are ticking away and I have a million things to get accomplished. At work I have to complete the end of the year slide show for K-5, report cards, teach classes and organize my room in the next 10 or so days. At home we will be getting the yard done in the next few days and then our playground will be coming in the next two weeks. I shouldn't sound so stressed because most of the things on my to-do list are fun, but when the list keeps growing, that is when my stress levels grow as well. One thing at a time is what I keep telling myself.

Anyhow, our weekend was great, Seth is great and Ro is sporting a sinus infection/allergies so he is feeling a little like crap. Hopefully his meds kicked in today and he is on the mend! I have some pics from the weekend that I'll try and upload tomorrow. Till then...

One w/ Nature

Sorry for the vacation wrapup delay, but this week has been crazy busy and I've had little to no computer time. We had a great reunion with our dear friends the Gilbert's in Burlington, VT. We ate, chatted, swam, letterboxed, walked.... for two days straight and we all had a great time. Our time together is so short and it always flies by so quickly! Here are some of the best pics from the trip.

We only left for 2 days and look at all the luggage!Seth and Nin; one of my favorite pics from the trip!

Love during our letterboxing hike!

Group letterboxing shot!You can't go to VT w/o eating some Ben & Jerry's.Friends for life!

I have a ton more good pics, but there are the best of the best! Happy Thursday!

PS

PS- Happy Belated Birthday to Sheryl! Please come home and visit SOON!

Home Improvement Time

Let the season begin because we are in full home improvement 2008 mode! So far this year Roland has ripped off the front porch and steps and redecked it all. Now, our second project is complete and our fully completed fence is DONE! Now our entire yard is fenced in and matches.

The next phase of home improvement 2008 is to fill the yard back in with dirt and build it up, reseed it and we will have a brand new lawn. Following that madness we would like to buy and construct a playset for Seth. We hope to get all of this done before school gets out so we can enjoy it for the summer! Wish us luck!

PS- I will post pics from our weekend in VT tomorrow.

Top 5

This weeks favorite top 5 list consists of...

1. My belated Mother's Day massage last night was amazing. I went to a new girl and she was the best massage therapist I've ever gone to. Thank you Ro for a wonderful gift!

2. Seth's new saying for any and everything he sees is "My like _______!" All through the grocery store he liked everything and this morning while I was putting on my jewelery he says, "My like jewelery!" Priceless!

3. My two favorite shows were on last night (Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill) AND they were the season finale so they were extra juicy. Now I have to wait until September though to see what happens. Damn those finale cliffhangers!

4. My brother leaves for Italy tomorrow for three weeks so I'm having he and my mom for dinner tonight while the men golf. I'm making taco pie, it's delicious and I can't wait!

5. Saturday we leave for an adventure. We are meeting our close friends in Burlington, VT for the weekend. Pray that we make it there with no potty disasters and that we don't get completely lost! Thank you to everyone who is helping out with Rocky while we are gone. We appreciate it more then you know!

What is your top 5 list for the week?

Is it November?

If you came to Watertown today you'd think it was late fall. It is dark, cold, windy and rainy here today and not too spring like so I pulled out the fall-ish clothes to try and stay warm at work today when I really wanted to wear some bright springy clothes. Anyhow, the weekend was a success yet again. We had all sorts of plans and then some spontaneous events popped up too!

Saturday we went to Kidnastics, but left early because we wanted to go to the Arms Forces Day Parade. We met up with Jen and Sophia and Kristin and Jacob so we all watched and Seth was in love once again with all the fire trucks, ambulances and tractors. He was in awe! Then we walked downtown and listened to the Drum and Bugle Band. They put on quite a show!

Saturday night we headed to Nate and Beth's for our first shrimp boil. We did not know what to expect, but we were sure surprised. It was utterly delicious and there was enough food for about 50 people. We had 6 appetizers, fresh fruit of all kinds, salads, the actual shrimp boil and dessert. I went home a stuffed girl! Seth did well too, no potty accidents, but we did have to haul him into the bathroom kicking and screaming just to get him to go. He didn't want to stop playing long enough to go potty. We made him!

Sunday, we did the normal routine and then I actually napped while Seth napped. It was a great weekend, but too short as always. This weekend coming up is a 4 day weekend and I am pumped, PLUS we are headed to VT for the first time ever to meet up with our good friends The Gilbert's for our annual vacation extravaganza! We are counting down the days...

Decided

I have decided as of this morning that Seth has to stay young. He needs to stay young enough to need and want to be with us and to be protected from the crazy world we live in. I have decided this because I found out this morning that a former student of mine who is only in the 6th grade... is pregnant. She graduated from my building just about this time last year and is about to have a baby. What is going on in the world that something like this is happening. It is one thing to hear about young girls getting pregnant, but quite another to actually know one of them who is only 12 years old. What gets me even more is that there are tons of wonderful couples out there who can't have children and who are on waiting lists to adopt, but a kid can have a kid. I am frustrated and sick to my stomach today. So that is what is on my mind for today and I'm ready to be done with work and spend the afternoon with my son while he is young.