Fur, Food, and Foolishness

Summer Summary

2009-10-26T15:27:00.001-07:00

Lots of people keep asking what I’ve been up to this summer. Here’s a pictorial recap:

Eben and I had our first real deal backpacking trip in the White Mountains with our friend Sarah (who will be marrying us next fall) and her friends Rachel (who played dodge ball with us), Becky, and Katie (clockwise around the circle from me).

The first day was beautiful, but day two was full of mishaps not to mention bad weather. Everyone made it out safely, but some were a bit worse for wear.

but there were lots of really beautiful views!

Like the rest of New England, we had a very rainy summer, so one semi-sunny Saturday, Eben and I went strawberry picking. Yum!

On our way home we stopped at the Lincoln Audubon reserve and joined the Massachusetts Audubon Society. They have a farm as part of the reserve and we made a new friend.

Kisses!!!

He was so sweet!

We attended Old Songs again with Eben's family. The weather this year was much more volatile. We would watch the storms coming, get soaked, then resume listening to the fantastic music. It was a fun adventure!

Eben’s childhood friend Seth’s brother Noah got married in Southwest Harbor, Maine. It was a gorgeous outdoor ceremony on his family’s property overlooking the water.

We made a friend there too!

From the coast we crossed the state and spent a week by the lake in Rangeley as the Crosses have done for about 15 years.

I spent much of the week in this position working on Elias’quilt.

MINNESOTA!!!!

I got to see my big sister the mommy and to meet my adorable, chubby, happy, sweet nephew Elias!

We were also able to make ourselves useful in helping bring thier new house into the 21^st century with a little interior face lift. Eben and I focused mostly on the walls of the kitchen, but Vanessa closet and bathroom got some action too!

Eben and I also honed our bat ‘catching’ skills when I discovered a bat upstairs and closed it in Julian’s room. Thinking that she (Priscilla, as we called her) might recognize the open window if we directed her towards it, I removed the screen. A few minutes earlier though, Eben tried to catch Priscilla in a box with large handle holes. For those of you who have dealt with bats before, you know that this could never work. He was convinced otherwise and when she was temporarily in the box she was scared and called out. So when I removed the window screen, in flew another larger, hairier, angrier male bat! The whole thing was very funny!!! Ultimately, Juan fashioned a net out of a coat hanger and a mesh orange bag. Both bats were released unharmed.

SO CUTE!!!

New mom, new house.

We went to Rockleigh, New Jersey where Eben’s freshman year roommate at Conn, Osten married Daphney. Eben was the best man. Although his speech did not talk about poop being eaten (like my maid of honor speech) he did talk about farting. It went over very well! The wedding was lovely and I have NEVER in my life seen as much food in one place before, not even at a grocery store. I will not be able to promise quite a spread at our wedding, I am sorry.

We attended the Heath Fair again this year and encouraged Mario, Chrystina and Pearl to make the drive to meet us there.

There were lots of baby animals!!!

To finish up the summer, we spent Labor Day weekend back in Woodstock.

We wanted to get a sense of when the sun sets and temperature (not that that can be reliable) at various points during the day so we're prepared for that same weekend next year!

We invited both sets of parents to join us since none of them had seen the wedding location or Woodstock before. Julian even came along, although with all the planning/organizing we did that weekend, he informed us that he’s ‘never going back to Vermont EVER again!’. Tory who owns the inn and her daughter Hannah are also in the photo with us.

And that was my summer in a nutshell! We weren't home very much, but our babies were well taken care of by our friends Kip and Kasia! and now you know why I haven't been around to blog.

More Owls

2009-10-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

I decided when Vanessa told me she was pregnant that I wanted to make something for the baby. Since she does such amazing knitting herself and already had several projects in mind, I didn’t even entertain the idea of knitting something. I have a quilt that my Aunt Alane made me when I was a baby, or maybe I was a young child. I’m not really sure how old I was when I received it because in my own memory I’ve always had it. I brought it everywhere. It is my Quilt and I love it (it is quite tattered these days, but I still have it!). So I didn’t have to think it over for too long when I decided that I would attempt my first quilt. Before we knew Elias was a boy, I had chosen my theme; Owls. This is actually what inspired me back in January to make the owl cupcakes and those went well, so how different could a quilt be, right?

I’m not really into pastel colors and I think babies should be surrounded by bright, bold colors rather than all those fluffy, light baby blues and pinks. My original plan was to rock the red/purple combination, but once I arrived at the fabric store, I saw that most of those options featured lots of flowers. I’m not trying to suggest that a boy can’t appreciate flowers or that I needed masculine fabric options with sports equipment or something equally macho, but I didn’t think the owls would appreciate being constructed from a garden, it just didn’t work. I opted for a combo of turquoise, green, and yellow, and yes, there are some flowers involved in the design too.

I borrowed some quilting books from the library, skimmed them, and returned them. I really don’t like to follow patterns or sewing rules, which may someday prove to be problematic but to date, has not been an issue. I decided on 15 large squares each with a different owl. Let me tell you making 15 distinct owls is REALLY hard!

I spent January through July cutting, sewing, and ultimately hand quilting the little buggers!

I’m not going to pretend, I do hope he loves the quilt I made him as much as I do mine, but if that doesn’t happen it will be ok.

Twenty-eight is Great!

2009-06-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

Eben had his 28th birthday on June 7th and we did as he has done for many and most years. We went to pitch-and-putt golf in Greenfield followed by wiffleball in his parents' backyard.

The pitch-and-putt is a par 3 course which Eben takes VERY seriously. I was only allowed to observe his game from afar since Andy, Adam, and Brandi were deemed serious enough to play with him.

Candy and I opted to play with Henry and Kevin who were much more in tune with our seriousness level with Henry disrobing to distract other groups and Kevin riding the random coyote(?) in the middle of the course.

There were two other groups of golfers in our party as well consisting of Peter, Emily, Genevieve, Erik, Elisha, Eric, Heather, Adam, and Kevin (a few repeat names to make things nice and confusing!).

The wiffleball game this year was a friendly yet highly competitive one! I had two full-speed collisions, one at first base with Adam and the other at second with Henry.

With an unexpected catch from Larry (who was 'just watching' with the rest of the parents) in the outfield in the second to last inning and the just miss of a catch which Henry had hit over the garage, the other team beat Eben's (and my) team 19 to 18.

Dinner was fantastic! Lots of different contributions and lots of great company with which to enjoy it. Here's the whole gang post-dinner but pre-birthday cake and birthday pie. Yet another super fun day in western Mass!