The Greek church in town went and moved their food festival to NEXT weekend, so my Best Weekend Of The Year is now divided into two weekends. But the good news it there is even more stuff next weekend (a vintage market, the Garlic Festival and THE BIG E) so I get two Best Weekends instead of one. I LOVE FALL IN NEW ENGLAND.

We started Saturday at the Ledyard Fair. They do free rides from 9-10 and since the kids love rides and I hate paying $75 to go on them, we skipped our first day of soccer in favor of the fair.

For dinner we walked downtown for Taste of Italy. I love that we can walk. I love the free bounce house. And I looooved my lobster mac and cheese.

While we were waiting for Evan to be done bouncing, we heard Sweet Caroline come on the sound system. This was her reaction:

Then on Sunday we headed out for lunch at Mystic Eats. It used to be called Taste of Mystic but now it’s…not? It was very dramatic and lots of small-town paper editorials were written. But it’s exactly the same as all the other years. Tons of delicious choices, with Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream for dessert.

Shrimp and corn fritters

All my photos are of the back of Linc’s head. Too bad he’s such a shy kid.

It’s a parrot. Obviously.

Now I will spend the rest of this week doing all the walking and eating all the vegetables so that next weekend I can eat even more stuff. Did I mention I love the fall? in New England??

The kids went back to school this week, which mean my photos are going to be Linc-heavy for next…forever.

Sunday:

SO READY

Grocery store assistant

High chair? Why would I need a high chair?

Monday:

Where am I?! What year is this???

Preparing for her show

I bleach shampooed my hair. I’ll do a real post about it but the short review is A++

Tuesday:

Babies are hilarious

Evan agrees. Babies, man.

How we got through Back to School night

Wednesday:

First day of school! BUH-BYE!

A rainbow wrap and a pink truck. MY KID IS DOOOOOOMED.

The Book Barn is my new favorite

Thursday:

Aquarium playdate

IT’S SO QUIET

Starting her young

Friday:

Waving bye-bye to the bus is super fun

Living the toddler dream

Fair Life

Saturday:

I’m not sure we brought enough watermelon

He’s going to miss eating sand SO MUCH

Blankets are pretty much his favorite thing in the whole world

I am SO happy to have the kids back at school, even though school brings a whole new level of stress and deadlines and homework and one zillion pieces of paper that need my attention. They need the structure of school and the friends and the break from me (and my often short temper) right now. I figure by Christmas we’ll all be super excited to hang out together again. Right now I’m just going to enjoy the crap out of my one tiny baby who can’t talk back.

And if I say “Christmas” again before December, please punch me in the face.

The Brooklyn Fair is the oldest agricultural fair in the country. But don’t worry, besides the adorable little fair museum building everything else was the true country fair experience. I don’t really mean that as a compliment, but it still makes me happy. People watching and deep fried stuff are two of my guiltiest guilty pleasures.

Linc was a champ, hanging out on my back almost the whole time. The kids liked the animals and teh food but they mostly wanted to go on rides. Since I am the meanest mother in the world I only bought a book of tickets, not wristbands, so they each got to go on a few things. As far as carnival rides go, everything seemed really sturdy – sturdy enough that I actually went on one of the high swinging things with Evan. No one died!

The Brooklyn Fair was the warm up for September, which will be absolutely full of fairs, food and long fun days with a baby on my back.

The boys at pizza and nachos…

The girls (and the baby) had clam strips.

We don’t know that girl. Evan just asked her to pour corn on his head. Of course she said yes.

Caroline was really good at milking the fake cow.

Those are apparently the biggest whoopie pies in the state. Country? World? I just remember they were very proud of them.

She would have watched the horses all night.

I love love love this picture. I’m going to enter it in next year’s fair’s photography category.

The big kids wanted to go on the “roller coaster”. Caroline was technically too short to go without a responsible person, but Evan was good enough for the guy working the gate.

She did NOT love the roller coaster. Poor child.

Can you believe I’ve done this nonsense for 250 weeks? Caroline wasn’t even BORN when I did the first one. So I suppose I can’t even think about quitting, despite the fact that I can barely remember to do them. This one is late and I had to check my dates three times because it’s so hard to believe a week ago we were still on vacation. Real life happens SO FAST.

Sunday:

Evan is doubtful that 3 people in a one person kayak is wise.

Linc loves vacation

Caroline is ALWAYS ready for more pictures

Monday:

If you look hard enough, you can almost see New York down the river

I liked the reflection in the back of that tanker

Linc is happy to see all his stuff again

Tuesday:

Caroline is writing a song

Grumpy pants needed a walk to get ready for bed

I really, really love this front porch.

Wednesday:

The zoo was so fun.

I will never get tired of these photos.

I had three ladies tell me they liked my hair and none of them even notice I was nursing a baby.

Thursday:

Lunch at Quincy Market should always involve a lobster roll

Boston Children’s Museum

Linc was over Boston (and I was over my poor choice of shirt on a 90 degree day)

Friday:

SUPER COOL PRESS EVENT POST COMING SOON

I was really good at juggling, if my really good you mean terrible

Red Lantern at Foxwoods = ORDER ALL THE SUSHI

Saturday:

They must have bought those water bottles at Target. Poor confused children.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaap

What? I’m hungry.

I forgot I had Virginia vacation photos to post, plus I have the post about our fun date at Foxwoods, so as long as I don’t die of heatstroke (we’re on day 5 or 6 of 90 degrees plus) I’ll have more new blog stuff up soon.

I went to the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC. When I was looking at colleges, I picked out ones with strong marine biology programs because I was 1000% sure I wanted to be a marine biologist when I grew up. And look how that worked out! Here I am, an extremely successful marine biolo- what? I’m not actually a marine biologist, because sometimes the thing you decided you wanted to be when you were 7 years old isn’t a thing you are actually good at? I never would have believed you when I was 17.

When I was 16 I learned to scuba dive and went on a 3 week dive trip in the British Virgin Islands, which made me even more sure I wanted to be a biologist. One of my instructors/adult supervisors was named Will and he was a professor at the College of Charleston. He also drove a motorcycle and had a huge scar on his leg from where he was bitten by a nurse shark once. I figured if C of C was cool enough to have him as a professor, then I should definitely go there.

After I narrowed my college choices down to a handful, my mom and I drove south for 8 hours to visit the schools I was thinking about. We drove down I-95, took the exit for I-26 and followed that directly into downtown Charleston. I hadn’t even gotten out of the car before I decided that was where I was going. During the campus tour I barely paid attention because it didn’t matter – I was moving to Charleston. My mom suggested I apply to some of my other schools at back ups, which I did, but only because they didn’t require essays. There was no point. I was so in love with Charleston I would have moved there even if I hadn’t gotten in.

You can tell I really love my husband because I was willing to leave my favorite city to be with him, although I did insist my entire family, all my friends, his entire family, most of his friends, plus my husband himself (who had been transferred to San Diego) all come back to Charleston for the wedding.

It’s just a perfect coincidence that Kiawah, the site of our borrowed beach house, is just outside Charleston. This year my college roommate (who feels the same way about Charleston as I do, at least I’m pretty sure) had the good idea to stay an extra night in the city before the beach, so we could eat there and walk there and take pictures there without dragging all the kids back in from the beach. I think we’ll make it a tradition, so I can get a picture of my kids in this alley every year for the rest of their lives.

Our hotel is that one right behind Evan. I’ve alway wanted to stay there, and not just because I love that fountain.

That restaurant is where my college roommate and her husband got married, so obviously we all had to go there.

That pink house is the narrowest house in the city, less than 15 feet. I would live in it in a second.