Fall 2023

Tessie's start of 5th grade was our family's 12th and final year at Bowman Elementary School

With the rainy summer, the apple orchard was in great shape for picking

Tessie has quite a few Mom-knit sweaters

And she chose her band instrument: the French horn

Our annual pumpkin weight gauging at Wilson Farm

Erin started 9th grade and joined the cross-country team

With the summer training and her heel not hurting, she has run some races on the varsity scoring team

At a New England meet in Rhode Island she ran with the freshwoman team

Their team placed #1 and Erin picked up a medal for finishing #10

At that same meet I ran a 5K but did not win a medal

In addition to starting 11th grade, Caroline completed her driver's education hours and passed her driver's test

Now she can help ferry Erin and Tessie around town

I took another trip to Gothenburg Sweden for work

More sustainability: paper ice buckets in the hotel

Water glasses at the cafe

Driftwood art in the park

On the way home we passed through Munich. It was Octoberfest season, which explained all the guys in lederhosen on the plane. I had to try a pretzel.

After the bunnies ate all my potted milkweed, we planted potatoes instead

Tessie helped prep them

for her favorite side dish

smashed potatoes

After years of claiming there were no horse riding farms in Lexington, it turns out there is one and Tessie can walk to it from school. She took on the challenge to walk there from school and started lessons.

Grandma Joan and Grandpa Ed came up for a week

and cousin Colleen, who was in town for a conference, joined us for a Canadian Thanksgiving meal over Columbus Indigenous Peoples Day weekend. We all agreed that the meal was tastier this time of the year during harvest season as opposed late November, when produce has been in cold storage for weeks.

Concert Season

This Spring and Summer was concert season for me and the girls.  In the first iteration, we were lucky enough to snag regular price tickets for Taylor Swift at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.  Caroline, Erin, and I attend the May 20th concert, which TayTay referred to as the "rainiest rain show that ever rain showed".   If you are reading this by e-mail, there are a number of videos that you will only see if you read from the actual blog link here.

There was a lot of outfit planning leading into the concert, which was largely rendered moot by the impending rain.  Val had a friend that was running a pre-concert tailgate, which we visited before going into the stadium.

You can see the bottom of Erin's cardigan, but also, you can see the boots, the converse, and Caroline's friend's rainboots, arguably the best footwear choice of the bunch. 

The concert really was an amazing production.  Everyone received wristbands on the way in, which lit up around the stadium in sync with the music.

The special effects were over the top!

Still more effects.

If you look at the ginormous video monitor you can clearly see how intense the rain was the entire night.

We managed to also snag commuter rail tickets to and from the concert.  Here we are trudging back at 11:45pm through the huge puddles of water outside of Gillette to get back to the commuter rail.

The girls sang along to every single song the entire night.

Video of the first surprise song of the night, Invisible.  Note the rain pouring down on the piano.  The next night the piano started malfunctioning because of the rain.

Toward the end of the night she played Antihero from her Midnights album.

Erin and her friend Alexis decided to continue in Taylor Swift tradition in the form of decorated cookies.  Can you name the Eras?

More Eras!

A closeup of TayTay's debut album cover.  

Next up in June was a trip to Toronto with the same group to see Ed Sheeran's Mathematics Tour at Rogers Centre.  The air had eau de forest fire due from smoke from the Quebec fires.

We arrived a day early to do some sightseeing.  We went to Casa Loma and walked around downtown Toronto.  

Out in front of Casa Loma.

In the solarium at Casa Loma.

If you know any Ed Sheeran albums, they are brightly colored, which we aimed to achieve with our outfits.  Here we are before going into the concert with the CN Tower in the background.

The albums making up Ed Sheeran's Mathematics Tour.

We weren't quite as far away for this concert.

Our view of the stage with the CN Tower in the background.

A-Team

Khalid was the opening act, and he came back out on stage to sing Beautiful People with Ed Sheeran.

Last on the concert circuit was a trip to see P!nk's Summer Carnival at Fenway Park, this time with Tessie. Fenway is a quick walk from my work, so it made for quick in and out for the concert!

Since we were visiting Fenway park, and one of the Red Sox' mascots is Tessie, we had to get the obligate picture.  

Patiently waiting for the concert to start (dressed in p!nk)

P!nk really puts on an amazing, acrobatic show.  It was a really fun concert, and Tessie loved her first concert experience.

Here's Just Like a Pill.

A hallmark of a P!nk show is the flying through the stadium.  Here are the theatrics during So What at the end of the concert.