T and E Birthdays

Erin's birthday meal wish was for dim sum, to stuff herself with ship rools

 Grandma Joan and Grampa Ed visited and helped Erin make her cake

 Can you tell that she iced it herself?

 A couple of weeks later Erin had her friends party at an indoor playground

 

 The day after Thanksgiving we visited the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy

 Completing the Junior Ranger book

 

the girls received their final badge from the 14 Massachusetts National Park sites

Since we had so much fun at Mt. Wachusett we decided to tackle Mt. Monadnock next. As we learned, "moderate" is a relative term, especially when going out on a rainy day in late November. 

After 30 minutes on a forest trail, we faced scrambling on the wet rocks for another half-hour

Then another hour of slow climbing on the rocks above the tree line until we reached the cold, windy, fogged-in summit. Going down was far slippery than coming up, but to the girls' credit they marched cheerfully with wet hands and feet all the way down.

We had the lucky coincidence of running into Santa at the Christmas tree nursery. Sadly Caroline and Erin did not find the coincidence so extraordinary.

 

 For the first time in the history of our family, Tessie did not freak out when receiving her gift from Santa at our day care

 We piggy-backed Tessie's birthday party onto Erin's

On her big 3rd birthday Tessie was all smiles

 

 and she wore her crown all day

 Caroline's exhibit on water resources

and remember that concert in Symphony Hall where Erin heard the Planets? We can't forget it because Erin has been humming the Jupiter theme day and night, and especially at bedtime. Poor Caroline has had enough.

 2nd piano recital

 Is this anyway to treat an old lady?

 Sorry Clio

Finishing this 1000-piece puzzle was a team effort

Foolishly, we thought that having Alex play upside-down with arms crossed would be a fair match for Caroline's recital piece

Tessie's 3rd birthday meal

Dancing

Busy October

 As a special treat, the older girls saw the Ringling Bros. circus


and they attended their first BPO concert to hear The Planets at Symphony Hall. As always the cellos sounded outstanding.


Erin completed another session of U7 in-town soccer

It's a sad time of year when we swap out the sun hats for the winter gear


Those glasses are empty

Poor old Max can't climb on any bed except Tessie's and when he does he takes up half the space


 Max had to make a return trip to the hospital for another radioactive iodine treatment. After a scare with his kidney function, he seems to be OK now and has thyroid levels back to normal.

We love Caroline's 3rd grade teacher who in addition to teaching all the usual stuff, is working on cognitive behavioral techniques. To overcome frustration, we can now tell Caroline to "use more grit" - love it! 


And lately Caroline has been a great big sister to Erin - even writing up math and reading worksheets


This year the garden produced 5 jack-o-lantern worthy pumpkins

Both of the older girls costumes required boots


 but the fuzzy blue monster already had clawed feet

A 2-hour marathon on the streets resulted in a record loot haul

The next day we did our first bona fide hike at Mount Wachusett

and the girls absolutely flew up and down the trail with Dad scrambling to catch up

Not sure what this means, but the sleepy apples produced tasty cider

 Dave's 41st birthday

On the way to the airport to pick up Heather, we stopped at Revere Beach. In the off-season with the riff-raff gone, the beach was surprisingly beautiful

Another off-season adventure was to Cape Cod for a couple of nights in Hyannis. The first night Tessie stayed up past 10 pm partying with Cheez-Its.

 Since we were all in one room, the next night the girls had little space for snacking and reading

We did visit the Cape Cod National Seashore and pick up a cool patch

Tessie taught us a couple new Halloween songs

No, the girls did not get sick after this

Tessie's usual bedtime craziness

Back to school back to work

As September started, we couldn't just go cold turkey with our junior ranger badge collecting. A couple of nearby sites were within reach. First, JFK's boyhood home in Brookline.

 

and then Washington's headquarters / Longfellow's house in Cambridge. I must have passed this marker on the Cambridge common dozens of times without reading it

 

and the plaque showing Washington taking command

 

During our recent road trips I started thinking about how much valuable park-hopping time is eaten up by finding and consuming food. There has to be a better way. Enter Soylent, the brainchild of life hacker techies who are too busy to eat. Amazon even sells version 1.0 and it's the ultimate protein shake, formulated for complete nutrition, as you can see.

 

Here's what the one-day supply looked like. It tasted kind of oatmealy, with an awful thick texture, and a weird grainy smell. You're supposed to sip it down gradually over the course of the day. Halfway through, however, my body must have figured out that it was under experimentation and rebelled, because I became more and more nauseous and could not finish it. But this may not be the end. Soylent version 2.0 is supposedly much more palatable and may yet be our solution to the fast food drive-thru. 

 

First day of school for our 3rd grader and 1st grader

 

and first day of work in the Shire for Dad

 

 It was Erin's turn to accompany Mom on the trip to Atlanta to see Grandma Lu

 

 Their big outing was to the Georgia Aquarium

 

While Dad was on his own with Tessie, one night she made her way upstairs and put herself down alone

 

 At daycare Tessie's bestie is Lukie, and they will run around for hours on the playground

 

 As a treat the older girls went to the Ringling Brothers circus

 

 September was warm and beautiful for picnics

 

 and our annual trip to Portsmouth for the fairy house festival

 

 This year's blue ribbon winner was not very impressive, in our opinion

 

 but we were proud of our construction

 

 Apple picking

 

 Erin loves her honeycrisps

 

 After a few weeks at home Dad was back in Tessie's good graces 

 

 One weekend the older girls were given free rein to create their own "this n that"

 

Beanie boo village

 

Props to Erin for designing her own quest and spirograph prizes

 

And props to Mom for finishing the Bowman 5K adventure run

 

 

Tessie's tatoes

 

Polly want a cracker

 

Beach running

 

Croaky Tessie

 

Dancing Erin

 

Sweet Caroline (thankfully they didn't act out "warm touching warm")