Trip to New York

A few weeks ago, our family went to upstate New York to visit my family. We had a very relaxing and enjoyable trip, and were lucky enough to come in just between 2 waves of very high humidity. As you can see, we played in the cool creek, relaxed outside, visited a few places (including a nursery that had a bunch of old farm equipment that Oliv*er is still talking about), and had lots of nice meals together. The boys are good travelers, the only significant challenge being that they don't bunk together that well. No*ah just needs a lot more sleep, and after waking up with his brother for a week, he was pretty exhausted. It's good to be aware that for now, we'd better keep Ollie downstairs in what we hope will eventually be the guest room. But they had a great time anyway, as did Jo*el and I. We I just celebrated our tenth anniversary, and to celebrate, we left the boys with my parents for a couple of days and went to stay in a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont. The boys did great with their Omie and Opa while we were gone. We explored a bit, perused bookstores (which we've been doing together for about 13 or 14 years) and hiked a bit of the Long Trail. The Green Mountains are among the most beautiful places I've ever been. The soccer games were very closely followed by the men, even Jo*el, and Holland hadn't yet been delivered its crushing defeat. Below, a couple of them are still in orange, hoping for a win.

I hope you all are also having some lovely trips and time with friends and family this summer.


































This is very typical No*ah! He waters our garden regularly, and knows the names of a lot of the flowers.












There's a wonderful organic farm right near my parents' house. One of these trips, I need to offer to do a bit of fieldwork in exhange for asking all the questions I want, because I get some great ideas and tips every time we stop by there. For example, they just pull a few spuds from the edges of the beds when they need them instead of harvesting the whole plant at once. My little farmers liked that approach too.






















(Forgive me, I have a bit of a mushroom obsession going at the moment. The bottom one below was as big as a dinner plate!)




Can you believe this is my husband at a bed-and-breakfast? I will say that we got lots of time to talk, and that there was a book of spanish poetry on his nightstand. (No pics, but we also visited the Farmer's Diner, which will be familiar to anyone who has ever read Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.)







My parents had some sand hauled in, which the boys loved so much that when we got back, we asked Grandpa (Joe*el's dad) to help us put together a proper sand-box. I was going to get the wood and do all the hauling of sand, etc, but St*eve built it, delivered it, then helped me get all the sand. So nice of him, and the boys are so happy playing in it.






Goodbyes....






Thank you for a lovely visit, Omie, Opa, and Oom (uncle) Kean! We hope it's not too long before we see you again.

summer fun

I uploaded some pictures of what we've been up to here. Hope you're enjoying the summer as well!