July

A quick, very belated summary of July:

We spent the Fourth like we normally do -- taking in some of our rich local history!  This year we watched the Constitution turn around and spent some time at the ship's museum in the Navy Yard. 

We managed to catch her sailing out into the harbor and back in!  Love the 13-star flag and the fireboats.  And the girls are covering their ears in the bottom left shot because the 21 gun/cannon salute was too loud!  :)

Caulking boards for the deck of a ship, getting tattooed, and posing by the model of ol' Ironsides

Some friends with a roofdeck invited us over to watch the fireworks, and so we headed over there are it began to get dark.  We had a great time: beer, cupcakes, a great view, and wonderful company (for us and the girls). 

Best shots I could manage of the fireworks

Kiddos watching the fireworks!

 

Want a project that is relatively cheap and keeps your kids (and cats) entertained for HOURS on end?  Order some butterflies!  We did this last year, and it was such a hit that we tried it again this summer.  They arrive as caterpillars in jars, which our girls can sit and watch for unbelievable lengths of time.  After about a week, they spin themselves into chrysalises, which an adult must then pin into a mesh cage.  After about another week, they emerge as butterflies and are good for about another week of entertainment before they have to be set free.  Really a pretty neat science experiment for kids. 

Butterfly release!

I didn't catch the butterfly in this shot, but you can tell I just missed it from Amelia's body language and Chad's face...

In mid-July, Amelia and Ramona went on vacation with my mom -- but without the rest of us!  They spent about 10 days in Lyons, visiting with my extended family, swimming, crafting, and basically having a great time.  And Chad and I spent a week and a half parenting only one of our girls -- and wondering how on earth we ever thought that life was complicated with one!  The house was entirely too quiet. 

On the second Friday after my mom took the girls, Chad and Louisa picked me up and work and we drove over to Lyons ourselves for a long weekend of catching up with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

No summer weekend in Lyons is complete without some fried dough at the Farmers Market on Saturday morning!

Amish buggy

We spent Saturday at my grandparents' house with my dad's side of the family, swimming and eating and relaxing and basically reliving many a summer afternoon from my childhood.  Two of my cousins have kids of their own -- Mason is two and a half and Coleton is two and a quarter -- and the girls are old enough to remember them now, if not quite old enough to be interested in playing with them... Maybe next time.  :)

Kiddos each doing their own thing at Great Gram and Great Pa's house

Pool time!

We had to take advantage of the opportunity to get a photo of all five of the second cousins by the corn, so reminiscent of photos of my cousins, my brother, and me 25+ years ago... But getting a decent shot of five kids under age five (in the afternoon when no one has really napped)?  Good luck to us!    

Outtakes.

Best photo we could get!  Coleton, Mason, Louisa, Ramona, and Amelia



This was my favorite, even though Louisa chose not to appear.





We spent most of Sunday at my aunt and uncle's house with my mom's side of the family.  Kid activities for the day included bug catching, golf cart rides, sidewalk chalk, playing with toys retrieved from storage, and even a bounce house!  Adult activities included drinking beer, eating, playing basketball, shooting pool, and lounging in the hammock.  

 

Not bad, right?

 

Weekends like that make me glad that we live close enough to Lyons that we can drive over for a long weekend, but also make me wish that we could make the trip more often.

 

Who doesn't love a bounce house?

Just a summer Sunday...

 

Drawing dresses (with long skirts and poufy sleeves) and writing her name

14 months old at the end of July

Fascinated by the katydid

 

On Monday, we took the girls out to lunch with my mom and Grandma Anne, and then to the movies (Despicable Me 2 -- hilarious).  All three girls fell asleep on the way back to Grandma Anne's and since they hadn't taken naps all weekend, we decided to take a drive... Perfect excuse to take some photos of upstate NY barns.  And to detour past the farm where Grandma Anne used to live, where my mom and her siblings grew up, where we spent countless hours catching frogs and running around the yard as kids.  (I still miss it.)

 

Barns, silos, clouds, corn, and Queen Anne's Lace

 

Love it.

The farm

On Tuesday, we headed back to Boston...  So long, Lyons!

 

How Did It Get So Late So Soon? (The Rest of June)

The above poem by the good doctor captures exactly how I feel about this summer so far.  I can't believe that it's already August!  That means birthdays are around the corner, the days are getting shorter, and Amelia and Ramona will be back in school in just over a month...  I really wish time would slow down just a little bit.  I also wish that I could catch this poor blog back up to the present!  In order to do so, I am going to have to include a couple of miscellany posts.

So here's the rest of our June!

A couple of weeks after school let out for the summer, the girls' swim classes ended, as well.  (The Y actually runs a summer session now, which it didn't in previous years, but we find it better not to commit to -- and pay for -- things like that on summer weekends.)  I got quite a few pictures of our little fish during one of the last classes.

Loving swim class at the Y!

Amelia hit a major milestone during this session: She can REALLY swim!  All on her own, without any flotation devices.  SO proud of her. 

Louisa's first session of swim lessons started out a little on the shaky side, but ended in success! 

Another fun thing we did in June was spend a day at Six Flags New England, courtesy of my office.  You'd think that we would have been theme-parked-out after four days at Disney and one at Universal just a week earlier, but we were game for one more day of long lines and kiddie rides.  Turns out, we didn't really have to contend with the former!  Lines were extremely short to non-existent, which was a welcome change.  The girls had a blast.

Amelia and Ramona rode on the skyway, in a "hot air balloon," in cars, in teacups, in a boat... and Louisa rode in the stroller!

In addition to the rides, we also got to meet a few characters.  That part was a little anti-climactic for the girls, especially compared to Disney, since they had NO idea who the Looney Tunes characters were.  But they wanted to see them, anyway!  No fear of people in mascot-type costumes for our kids.

Meeting Tweety, Sylvester, and Bugs (after I explained who they were... )

The middle of the month brought one of my favorite days of the year: Bunker Hill Day.

Not every town gets to celebrate its own personal holiday, but Charlestown does!  To commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill (which, yes, actually took place on Breed's Hill), the town runs a road race in the morning of the Sunday following June 17 (which is actual Bunker Hill Day), and then holds a parade in afternoon. 

We typically watch the parade down on Bunker Hill Street, and then walk a block up and watch the whole thing again as it turns onto Bartlett.  When you live a stone's throw away, why not, right?  My favorites are always the fife and drum corps and the bagpipers.  So very Boston/Charlestown!

Does YOUR hometown have its own holiday and parade?  So grateful that ours does!

June also included a couple of birthday parties for Amelia's buddies: One at a local park with a soccer class and another at Jump On In, a nearby "inflatable playground."  The girls had a great time at both!


Birthday party fun was had by all!

Chad took the girls strawberry-picking at the end of the month.  I was sad to miss it this year, but we just couldn't squeeze it in on the weekend, so it was either have Chad and the girls go without me or skip strawberry season altogether!  I still got to enjoy multiple servings of strawberry shortcake, so I'd say it was the right decision.  

Did they eat more than they brought home?  Maybe...

 Throw in a rainbow and a bathtub photo shoot, and that was our June!

Gorgeous rainbow over the Monument and a cute little belly

Next up: July!

The Pool and "Apricot"

Visiting Disney World was obviously the girls' favorite part about our trip to Florida, but the hotel pool came in as a close second. 

Sweet sisters, walking to the pool (and hunting for lizards on the way)

They love their swim lessons at the Y, but there's just something about an outdoor pool that makes it infinitely more fun than an indoor pool.  Add in grandparents to play with them, a little island complete with plants, and a waterfall, and they thought it was paradise! 

LOVING the pool

 

Needless to say, we spent many hours at the pool.

 

Climbing up the pool chairs

 

Amelia has told me more than once over the last month that she wishes we lived in Florida.  When I asked why?  Because then we could have a pool!

The pool waterfall, from the front and the back!

After two days at Magic Kingdom, we decided to take the morning off from amusement parks.  Turned out to be a good decision, since it decided to rain on Wednesday morning.  A good decision for most of us, anyway...  Chad, his dad, and mine had picked Wednesday morning to golf.  They got rather wet, but had a good time anyway!  As a bonus, the girls each got a solid, much needed nap. 

Relaxing in the hotel with Louisa

After the guys had a chance to clean up after their round of golf, we headed to Epcot - which Amelia initially called Apricot - to see some more princesses and some other characters and to have dinner.
 

Such a cool-looking building!

Before we got to Disney, I had purchased a couple of little notebooks for the girls to collect character autographs if they wanted, but I suspected that they wouldn't really be terribly interested in doing so.  Boy, was I wrong!  Amelia became obsessed with collecting signatures from every character possible, and because Amelia was doing it, Ramona wanted to, too!

Waiting out a brief rainstorm in a store in "Morocco"

One of the characters Amelia most wanted to "meet" was Mulan, and the only place that we could find her (at least while we were there) was Epcot, so that was where we went!  The girls also got to see Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto (who Louisa loved), and Aladdin and Jasmine while we were there.  And let me tell you, Aladdin was a tough one to see!  After having the line closed just in front of us twice (once at Magic Kingdom and once at Epcot), we finally managed to meet with Aladdin and Jasmine in "Morocco".  Worth it, I guess, because the girls had a great time with them, talking about where Abu (the monkey) and Rajah (the tiger) were.  (Abu had eaten all of the funnel cakes at Epcot earlier in the day, and so he wasn't feeling well.  And they had to leave Rajah in Agrabah because they brought their four-tassel carpet instead of their eight-tassel carpet, and he can't ride on the four-tassel rug!)  We learned that meeting the characters was a lot more fun when the girls had a question or two in mind beforehand!


Characters at Epcot

By the time we finished with the characters, it was past the girls' bedtime (even though it was still light outside!), so we got some frozen lemonade to enjoy on the walk back to the parking lot and returned to the hotel.

Next up - Universal!