before I start… I need to warn you… this is VERY picture heavy… :) AKA a picture heavy Thankful Thursday :)

It was the MOST BEAUTIFUL Columbus Day weekend EVER!!! 80+ degrees and sunshine all weekend long… in October… Crazy!!  We certainly made the most of this wonderful weekend!!  It started on Friday evening with a corn maze with friends from Mike’s work… Super fun, really… Great fun… but no pictures, ’cause I didn’t think (and it was dark)…

Saturday morning,  we had a few things to do… and we did a lot of work around the house… We went for a walk to the river… Hung around and got things done :)

Sunday after Church, we hopped in the car for an adventure…

We started by driving to Wachusett Mountain… And climbing to the top… It’s not that far (a little less than a mile) but seems to go straight up :) Did I mention that it was a beautiful day?

Oh, hey! Who’s that lady?? Oh yeah… it was me :) Mike grabbed the camera and took a few pictures  to make it look like I went hiking too :)

Whoo! We made it to the top!

Back down we go!

There’s that lady again!

When we got back to the truck… we decided to continue on down Route 2… Here’s a view from the French King Bridge… There were lots of wasps around the bridge… we didn’t stay too long…

We also stopped at a couple places along the way… We saw lots of damage from the flooding…

Then we came to the end of Route 2… well, where it ends now because of the flood damage… We turned around and stopped at Shelburne Falls… Walked across the bridge of flowers… saw the glacial pot holes… had lunch… and made a stop at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum… At closing time… but that didn’t matter… they were so nice, and we even got to take the last (and private!) Trolley ride of the day…

The Pump Car was a huge hit!

The Trolley Museum was the last stop (well, if you don’t count the Dunkin Donuts :) on the ride home…)

Monday… Oh, another glorious day!!  When we got to the top of Mt Wachusett on Sunday, we discovered (to Kathryn’s chagrin) that they were running the chair lift… So, we went back and rode up and back down… So much fun! and more beautiful views!

Hey… look, there’s our shadow as we go up the chair lift :)

At the top of Wachusett (again!)

So, of course… Riding the chairlift to the top of  the mountain isn’t a big enough adventure for one day… Next stop, Lexington and the Battle Road…

Amazing views don’t even come close to describing it… Add whiny perfectly behaved, happy children, and it’s the perfect package :)

So, when you’re out on a longish walk… in the heat, when you weren’t planning to go for a long, hot walk… and the kids ask “how much further to the car?” and you tell them that it’s not a loop, and we have to get all the way back to the car the way we came… These are the faces you get from the whiny   I mean… perfectly well behaved children…

Ending up at the Harttwell Tavern… then on to the parking lot while Mike walked back to the car and came around to pick us up :) because said perfectly behaved NON whiny children couldn’t walk one more step… :)

Well… That’s about it… also known as… “What we did on our long weekend…” What did you do all weekend? :)

Can you believe that it’s the end of September already??? I know I can’t!!  What a crazy month it was… But hopefully things will calm down a little bit!! It seems like it’s been a month since the last Thankful Thursday… Hopefully now that we’re back in the swing of school it will get better :)

I’m so happy to report that BOTH children are riding big-kid bikes!!! We watched a you tube video put out by the New York parks and recreation deparment which said to take off their training wheels. and then take off their pedals and just let them push with their feet and scoot around so that they can understand the feel of the balance… then put the pedals on and they’ll be able to ride… AND OMGosh!!! It’s TRUE!  Here’s Miss Kathryn scooting in the driveway… and a close up ’cause I just love that picture :)

I don’t have the pics of Sean on this computer, but will try to remember to add them later… He was NOT excited to try this, he just wants to be automatically “good” at things, and was a “little” bit cranky about trying… But he finally did, and is now riding his big boy bike!!

So, then we had to get the kids “big kid” bikes… There’s another whole story that goes with that, but Sean’s knee is fine now… anyway… here’s the pics of the kiddos with their new bikes… (you can see Sean’s knee here… from trying a bike that was WAY too big for him… I appreciate the store trying to save us money in the long run… but, a smaller bike that we have to replace in a year is just fine…)

Happy Thursday everyone!!!

Wow… Just got home from another wonderfully successful band camp!! I teach the color guard for a high school marching band… It’s exhausting, but wonderful! I am so thankful to have a group of girls that practically run themselves!  They take direction so well, and are always willing to try really hard (even if they are gonna be totally jacked on just the right arm!! Sorry girls!!)… I’m also particularly thankful for this year’s freshmen boys… and their chaperones… Who, because their cabin was small, invited Sean to be an honorary member… He participated in their Olympic events, and their variety show (and they won 2nd place in the variety show!!!).  He had a blast!! I was a little worried because there are other younger girls there (the nurse’s daughter and another chaperone’s daughter) for Kathryn to play with, but there’s no other younger boys… It was really nice for the “big” boys to include Sean like that…

Here’s a few pics I took this week (just on my phone, I didn’t take the big cameras)…

The kiddos playing ping-pong while the big kids are up marching… some much needed down-time for them :)

The little “chapel” area right by the water… So beautiful!

Sean in the Olympics… The Sheet relay… notice the ball on the ground :) they had to run back to the beginning…

While Sean was participating, Kathryn made this “monster” out of pine needles and sticks…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well… So much to be thankful for this last full week of summer vacation… Mainly… The GIANT limb that fell DID NOT hit the house!  It did briefly close the road… but didn’t hit the house… here’s the story…

Saturday, we spent the morning and afternoon at the Bolton Fair (I’m very thankful for fair season… We love agricultural fairs).  While we’re on our way home, I check my phone and see that I’ve missed a text from our across the street neighbor (and babysitter) who I rarley get texts from… It says “Hi Julie my dad just told me that a tree fell in your yard and knocked down the cable and power but they are fixing it right now. Just thought you would like to know!”

Wait, what?? It’s not stormy or even breezy?? AND, what tree could have possibly fallen down?? We have many huge and beautiful trees, and with one exception, they are all in great shape… It must have been the hollow one in the front yard, it’s close to the power lines, it’s not huge, and it’s hollow…

Nope… It’s a huge arm of our wonderful Silver Maple… the arm is as big around as the tree that we thought it might have been… It completely covered the road, but our neighbor (the dad of the babysitter) pulled out his chainsaw and helped get it off the road before we could get home…  We called our trusty tree guy… Collings Tree Service, in Wilmington MA… Walter is a stand-up guy, and will tell you straight… I was really concerned about the other arm where the split was because that piece hangs  over the house… He said that the whole tree didn’t need to come down (yeah!) and the other arm would be OK until he could get his crane guy here… He came Sunday morning and cleaned up all the debris from the first part, and then the crane guy came today… Man… We went out, but Mike was here and said it was amazing to see that crane in action!!

Here’s pics of our tree saga… Here you can see the trunk of our wonderful 100+ year old tree and the giant piece that fell off laying in front…

Here’s where that huge arm used to be… Notice the broken back piece that’s leaning directly over the house, and the same size as the piece that fell…

Here’s a view of the part where it broke off… Notice all the construction “stuff” in the background… I’d like to formally lodge a complaint against the construction people for causing my beautiful tree to fall apart… The house literally shakes all day with the construction “stuff” going by constantly…

Here’s a quick phone pic of the view of the tree this morning from the front stairs before we left to visit friends…

And here’s the same view after… notice the huge arm missing on the right side… They did a beautiful job, you’d never know that they were even out there… didn’t leave any sawdust even… but there hasn’t been sun on the front side of the house in 80 years… It looks so bare out there, and we love our trees and shade…

Even though we lost lots of shade, no one got hurt, and the tree is all fixed up… Happy Thursday!!!