Posts Tagged ‘food’

Best Weekend Of The Year 2018

Monday, October 1st, 2018

Previous years: 2017, 2016, 2015 part 1 and part 2, 2014, 2013, 2012

I really love the best weekend of the year. It kicks off the season of How Many Different Seasonal Activities Can We Fit Into Just Two Days? I love being able to walk to two different food festivals from my front door. I love taking the same photo of the kids at the fair every year. I love running into people I don’t get to see very often but then our kids are instantly best friends again. I love not cooking all weekend and saying yes to everything.

And I love looking back at the other Best Weekends and seeing how our family has grown.

In order: Greek Food Festival, Ledyard Fair, Taste of Italy, Mystic Eats

 

Easter 2018

Monday, April 2nd, 2018

Happy Easter! I didn’t take pictures of the bazillion eggs the bunny left all over the house – or the mess the kids made ripping apart their baskets – because I prefer to just remember the adorable, photogenic parts of our holidays. Even so, you will notice a distinct lack of pictures that include all four children. Did you know four children is a lot of children? It seems like even more than usual when you’re running around a busy farm full of old buildings, tempting mud puddles and tons of baby goats. Plus that’s an exhausting way to spend the morning if you’re a baby, so Finn slept through most of dinner.

But yay for baby goats at Beltane Farm! They also did an egg hunt, and Evan found the golden egg that said “winner” inside. He won the cheese of his choice from the store and picked something called “Duchess”, which was super delicious and not at all what you would expect an 8-year-old to be excited about. My kid is pretty cool.

That last face is Caroline trying the lemon meringue pie we made yesterday. She’s a fan.

Christmas 2017

Thursday, December 28th, 2017

Merry Everything! We had a lovely holiday here in New England. A Christmas Eve pouring rain turned into a Christmas Day snowstorm so we got a true White Christmas. The snow blew in with a cold front; it’s less than 25 degrees now (and in the single digits at night) so we’ve been hunkered down inside enjoying the truly enormous and unnecessary pile of presents. My parents came up from Virginia to help celebrate and the kids we SO happy to have Mormor and Bumpa here. My dad helped me get a bunch of house and car stuff done (as usual) so the rest of our break week I can relax and just stay on top of laundry while packing up Christmas decorations. My tree was dead and out on the curb by 4 pm on December 27th. I know my Roomba is relieved – and might actually finish a cleaning cycle without needing me to empty all the pine needles out of the bin.

We had a stroke of good luck with Navy scheduling and E was able to be in port on Christmas Day so he watched everyone discover their Santa presents via Facebook messenger video. It might be the last time we get to talk to him before he comes back (which is still months away) so it was a very nice treat. He was a little bummed not to have matching pajamas or a delicious beef roast with us, but we’ll make up for it next year.

Please enjoy many, somewhat blurry photos of our day.

Please note Caroline’s shirt in the above photo: it says “Young, Scrappy & Hungry”.

 

My Week(361) in iPhone Photos

Friday, October 27th, 2017

What day is it? Where am I? When was this? All the weeks seem both a million years ago and like they are still happening right now.

Sunday:

Sleeeeeeepy baby

This is Lincoln running away because I am the meanest

The kids are doing yoga right now while I am typing this recap

Monday:

Pajamas on the porch

When he outgrows these boots, he’ll go barefoot forever

MORE NAPS

Tuesday:

Picking up Brutus at the vet

Stupid bug bite turned into an INSANE rash

WHY AREN’T YOU SLEEPING NOW?

Wednesday:

Sure, that’s normal.

Someone wasn’t getting enough attention

Thursday:

Sick, miserable kiddo

Friday:

Back to the doctor for some prednisone

SAVE ME HALO TOP

Farmer’s market night

Saturday:

The price I pay for sleeping in for half an hour

Corn maze adventure

Caroline does handstands, Finn shares his juice

The weather went from being full-time amazing to rainy and dark and it reminds me that in a couple weeks daylight savings will end and it will be dark by the time the kids get home from school. AND THEN WE STILL HAVE TO GO TO ALL OUR ACTIVITIES. I do not love this part of the year in New England. At least in a few weeks I can start on Christmas and that will cheer me up.

The Big E 2017

Tuesday, September 19th, 2017

Previously: The Big E 2010, The Big E 2011

The Big E is what they call the Eastern States Exposition up in Springfield, MA. It’s like the state fair for all of New England – there are buildings for Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Each state has at least one “thing” that is very very popular. Some of them are obvious (Vermont has lots of maple things) and some are less obvious (Maine baked potatoes are a BIG DEAL and I don’t understand). This year Connecticut had lots of craft beer and wine, so obviously we picked the right New England state.

This is the second time we went to The Big E with these particular friends and I could not have done it without them. Two extra adults means we can actually have fun instead of having one long, sustained meltdown that snowballs from Lincoln to all the kids to me crying next to the fried cannoli stand because I can’t take it anymore. But that did not happen! We had fun! And I only lost Lincoln once!

(I did in fact lose Lincoln, but Lincoln was never lost. He just decided to go back to where everyone else was waiting while I stood in the Maine building freaking out. At least I know his sense of direction is really good?)

I did not take many photos (by my standards) because 4 kids is still a lot of kids even when I have help. But I did better than our visit in 2014, which I never got up on the blog at all! I don’t have a single picture of Finnegan, because he was either chilling in his stroller or on me the whole day.

Fake eating fake lamb pops in the “you should eat more lamb it’s delicious” booth located next to the adorable lambs.

A very nice 11-year-old girl named Clara let us pet her sheep. She won a bunch of ribbons. I can barely keep a houseplant alive.

This is a singing refrigerator.

No one wanted to eat here.

Evan recently learned what a “photo bomb” is.

Baby lobsters at the Maine building.

Lincoln loves rides.

And that’s the end of fair season! Next up: FALL FUN SEASON. Time for corn mazes, pumpkin patch, and cider mills.