Busy Weekend

It's been a busy weekend. It started off Saturday morning at 9:00 with a T-ball game. This is Cole's very first t-ball game, ever. Let's just say, it's a good thing Wes is the coach so Cole can get in some extra practice sessions at home. Actually he did quite well. You can tell from the swing in this picture that Wes has already been training him.
Wayne is an old pro. He smacked a few good, hard line drives out to center field. By the way, you don't see the batting T in these pictures, because in this league, the coach throws 5 pitches and if the player hasn't hit yet, then out comes the T.

It was such a cold day, that everyone had to wear jackets over their uniforms. It was freezing.

Then after lunch, Joanie came and took the boys to do some "greening up."
They found a lot of beer cans and bottles.
When Heather was up from her afternoon nap, she, her brothers, Joanie, and I went to Runaway Pond to clean up the area. Joanie had seen a lot of mess there a few days ago, but when we got there, someone had already done a nice job of picking up. Still, we filled one garbage bag.

In this picture, Heather is telling Cole all about Runaway Pond.
Today we went to the home of Wayne's piano teacher, along with about 10 other of her young students for what she called a "piano playing party." Sort of a casual type of recital. I'm sorry to say, that I have no pictures of that because the camera wouldn't work. He did a beautiful job on the little song that he played. It was fun to hear some of the kids who have been taking lessons longer, like Dante and Sophia. We had some refreshments and got a chance to meet some of the other students and parents. And thanks to Heather's restlessness, Wes and I alternately got a chance to tour the grounds of Alice Perron's home.

We'll all be sleeping well tonight.

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Dinosaurs

Cole has reminded me that I have shared several of Wayne's creations on this blog, and that now it is time for you to read one of his literary works.

Warning: this story is not for the faint of heart. There is a strong Jurassic Park influence at work here. You have Wes to thank for that. I, who censor Titanic, discouraged the watching of Jurassic Park, but I guess Wes just wants to toughen them up. Just want to go on the record about that.

The title page:

Click on the picture to see it enlarged. Please ignore my misspellings. Dinosaur names are too difficult for me to pronounce or spell. This shows a brontosaurus with a long neck eating leaves from the top of a tree.

A stegosaurus approaches an unsuspecting person.

A long necked brontosaurus and short armed T-Rex, which just happens to be eating a person. The scribbles on the belly of the T-Rex are Heather's contribution.

Funny how the people in this story are all smiling.

Cole is more fascinated with the meat eaters than the plant eaters. The X drawn through the person indicates that there really were no humans during the time of the dinosaurs. What a relief!

Wayne, Cole, and Heather are all very excited about their new little baby girl cousin, Lena. We are glad that everything went well and that Julie and Lena are feeling good. I bet Thomas and Estelle will be thrilled when Mommy and Baby come home!

Cole Missed Us

Wayne, Heather and I packed our bags and headed to Maine to spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at Gramma and Grampa's house.

They always have a lot of treats. The kids get spoiled. Here is Heather enjoying a powdered sugar donut for breakfast. Wayne and I spent Friday afternoon outside working in their yard. A harsh Maine winter had left a terrible mess of broken limbs and branches everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE. It was an overwhelming task and I did not think we would be able to make much of a dent in it, just my 7-year-old child and myself. But luckily Wayne is quite a worker. He worked, worked, WORKED. I'm not just trying to make it sound cute, like he's such a good kid or something. I'm telling you, Wayne hauled off load after load of branches in the wheelbarrow. The ones that were too big and heavy to fit in the wheelbarrow, we dragged off by hand. I wish I had gotten some pictures of him working, but we were too busy. Luckily, it was a beautiful day and it felt good to be outside. We worked all afternoon and I finally looked around and felt like the the front, back, and both side yards looked good. We also cleaned out the flower garden around the front of the house. I wouldn't have been able to get all of that done without Wayne. I was very proud of him.

Gramma and Grampa were very happy to have their yard looking so nice. My brother, David, mows their lawn all summer, so now it's all clear for him when the time comes. In the morning, prior to all that work, we went into Belfast to check out the boats in the bay. There's a lot more going on here in the summer.
Heather refused to wear her jacket even though it was cool. She was both good and bad for our trip. Mostly good. Thankfully she slept great which is about all I can ask for from a 2 year old. It was clear though, that she would rather be home.

Wayne took these pictures of boats. He thought Cole would enjoy them.

During the drive back to Vermont we stopped at a new playground in Paris, Maine.
By the time we got here, we had already been driving for a couple of hours and Heather was sick of it. It was challenging, to say the least, to get her back in the car after having fun on this playground.

When we got home Cole said, "That's funny. Right before you got here, I wished that you would be home." Nice that I can be somebody's wish come true! The whole afternoon and evening he kept hugging me and sitting in my lap and saying, "You're the best person in this family." and "You look so pretty today." I think he missed me. He must have missed Wayne and Heather too, because they all played and played before bedtime.

Vacation is over. Back to school tomorrow.

11 Years

It's hard to believe we were ever this young.

It's hard to believe we ever had a life before kids. I had a job. Wes was in a band. We've come a long way since then. It's all worth it. It's a great life.

Happy Anniversary to us!

A Momentary Distraction

Wes and Joan have taken the day off to go to Burlington to see their Aunt Ellie. Our love, thoughts, prayers are with her and her family as they go through this very tough time.


I hope that those of you who are thinking of Ellie throughout the day will be able to enjoy these pictures as a momentary distraction.

Hello again, Pond.


During the winter, skating on the pond became too much of a challenge. It snows everyday here in the NEK, so we soon abandoned our shovels in favor of the Lyndonville rink and waited for the snow and ice to melt before we could once again visit The Pond. We pulled on our mud boots and made our way over through the muck and mud. It was worth it. When we got there, two mallard ducks were waiting for us.

I wonder if these ducks are wild or tame? They were not bothered by our visit. In fact they came quite close to us as if looking for food.

I wonder if there will be ducklings soon?

Wayne looks about 6 feet tall in this picture.

Cole is also losing his "little kid" look. What is happening to my babies?

Heather finds last winter's hockey stick in the grass and works on her skills.
Cole and Wayne fly a kite. And you thought Superman was the only one who could fly!

A two person puppeteer team called "No Strings" came to Wayne's school earlier this week to put on a marrionette performance of The Hobbit during school hours. It was amazing.

This one is half costume, half puppet.

The dragon was very popular. I was there with Cole and Heather and I was a little worried that some parts of the show would be too scary for them, but they didn't bat an eye. One of the best parts of the show, I thought, was afterward when the two people came out to the audience with the life size marrionettes and had a question and answer period. They make everything themselves - the puppets, the costumes, the stage and backdrops, the script and the soundtrack. Just two people. They come from Randolph.

And Cole had some excitement in preschool this week, too. They've had an incubator full of eggs in their classroom and they have been very impatiently waiting for the chicks to hatch. Yesterday was the big day.
One chick, out of about 18, hatched. That was one popular little chick and the kids were very happy to have even that one little guy. They named him Fluffy Duffy.

That's all the news from Elijah's Place.

Now, vacation!

A Batman Comic Strip by Wayne

Wayne brought this comic strip assignment home from school. I thought it was cute, crazy pictures, misspellings, and all.

The weirdest creature jumps on to the top of the T-Rex skeleton and causes it to come alive.

The T-Rex attacks Batman.

But Batman uses one of his ingenious tools against the weird creature and the T-Rex.

Batman separated the weird creature from the dinosaur, but he has to finish the creature off and put the dinosaur skeleton back the way it belongs.

Gotham City is safe once more.

This House is Full of Chocolate

Our Easter festivities started yesterday. There was an Easter egg hunt at the Glover school. Heather was absolutely enthralled with the giant Bunny that was there.
Candy was scattered throughout the playground. Kids age 0 to 4 were in the first round...

Then more candy was scattered around and Cole and Wayne's 5 to 8 age group was let loose. Wayne was moving too fast for me to get a good picture of him. Cole ened up with A LOT of candy. Meanwhile, inside there were sack races, egg races, and egg dying and decorating.
Afterwards, we came home and decorated our own eggs.

Wayne got really creative with his eggs.

This was Wayne's Easter basket - a bag that straps onto the handle bars of a bike. Wayne is always trying to transport things on his bike, so I guess the Easter Bunny thought this would be a good idea to use for a basket. Tucked inside amongst the candy was a bike computer so he can also keep track of his mileage and speed.

Cole's Easter basket was a Titanic beach set. Tucked away in the candy was a pocket watch like the one his character uses in the Titanic computer game.

Heather's basket was also a pink camouflage hat.

Here she is with her basket from the previous day's egg hunt looking like an Easter version of Little Cindy Lou Who.

Cole discovers his pocket watch. Between the pocket watch and the giant lollipop, Cole felt that this was the "Best Easter Ever!"

Wayne explores his basket.

Heather tries on her hat.

Peter, Jeanne, Katie, Lizzy, and Joanie came for dinner. This is the kids table, although I'm not sure Katie and Lizzy count as kids anymore.

The "adult's" table. Jeanne brought ham, corn, and two chocolate cream pies. Yum! Joanie made a pear and blue cheese salad, and a fruit salad. I made au gratin potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

Some fresh air and exercise after a big dinner.

Wayne was determined to get inside this giant old maple tree.

And he did. I was afraid he would get stuck.

Heather climbed on some rocks.

Group photo of the kids.
Happy Easter everyone! Hope you had as much fun today as we did.