Big Week, Big Day

In less than 24 hours, we have:

• said goodbye to Gommie, who returned to Texas today;
• prepped for Sis's birthday slumber party;
• begun to celebrate Mama's birthday;
• gone to horse camp;
• spent almost 3 hours at hospice;
• prepped for Bud getting his braces tomorrow;
• hosted a slumber party;
• taken Mama for a special dinner (well, Bud did; I chaperoned the slumber party);
• stayed up way too late . . . and they are still going strong downstairs!

That doesn't include everything in the last week since Gommie arrived on Wednesday.  There have been:

• kung fu practice
• horseback riding
• birthday dinner at the sushi place
• Scrabble
• 5-second rule
• Zentangle
• poi-ball lessons
• piano lesson
• Pinterest lesson
• introduction to the K-pop band BTS
• bad "dad" jokes
• Bud's special lasagna dinner with Eton Mess for dessert
• and VERMONT!!

Yep, we lucked out and got a place to stay in VT for the weekend. So we:

• stopped at the VT visitor's center and managed to get a few cupcakes from the concessions people as they were packing up;
• shopped at the Vermont Country Store for snacks for the weekend and other little trinkets (including some great jammies for Gommie and me);
• had dinner at MacLaomanin's pub, with Scotch eggs, crab cakes, mince and tatties with skirlie, cock a leekie soup, auld reekie stew, bangers and mash, and HAGGIS!  Yep, Bud really likes haggis.  Plus sticky toffee pudding;
• spent the evening outside while Bud practiced his LED poi-balls outside while fireflies twinkled in the trees around us.  We also identified constellations.   Later, Mama and I sat out alone and heard a Great Horned Owl and saw a shooting star right through the Big Dipper.
• While Mama and I were sitting outside having some quite alone time, we were startled and actually quite frightened by a close-up, loud snort.  This was not a raccoon or small animal, nor a dog or coyote or wolf.  I swear it sounded big and scary.  I think it was a bear!  I jumped up and headed inside, forgetting to pull Mama in with me.  She followed pretty quickly and we both quickly shut the door, no dillydallying or discussion.  As we looked out into the dark, I heard the loud snorty snuffle again.  AGGGHHH.  But we couldn't see it.  I began to close windows a bit more, especially because the kitchen where all our VT Country Store food was accessible on ground level!  I even started closing some of the windows in the other rooms.  I was that startled.  It was scary.  I'm only sorry we never saw it.  Whoa, bear!  (The next day, the other three had a a good laugh at us.)
• breakfasted at the Country Girl Diner, in an old 1944 chrome diner, where we had corned beef hash, vegetable omelets, and pancakes--definitely worth the (relatively short) wait;
• tootled around southeastern VT both days, focusing on Hildene (Robert Todd Lincoln's estate, with gorgeous historic peonies in a formal French garden surrounded by VT mountains, a huge player pipe organ, a goat farm, and a restored luxurious Pullman palace car, because that Lincoln made his money on the railroads) and covered bridges (we saw 6 in total, I believe:  West Arlington, Silk Road, Paper Mill, Worrall, Bartonsville, and Hall.)  I loved crossing each bridge and taking lots of photos (which I'll share soon.)  As much as the red bridges are iconic, I think I also liked the weathered natural bridges equally as well.  I was glad to see the Bartonsville bridge had been restored after the original was swept down river by Hurricane Irene.  We also visited the Rockingham Meeting House, from the mid-18th-century (which was open and staffed by a lovely docent) and both the old cemetery there and in Arlington.  I liked the headstones, with the severe angels' heads of the earlier days replaced by urns and willows later.  
• lunched at an Italian deli in Manchester with great sandwiches, pastries, gelato, and groceries, plus a nice woman at the register who is also in a two-mom family and has 3 kids!
• got rained on;
• had pizza for dinner while we all kinda did our own thing;
• had breakfast at Country Girl again!
• did some of the sightseeing I listed above;
• relaxed and left late, grabbing great soups, chili, coconut cake with citrus curd, and White Pyne tea from the Steaming Chili Bowl food truck.  
• Whew!

Ah, it's almost 2 a.m. and it's starting to quieten down.  Maybe I'll get some sleep after all.

Milestone

The kiddos are twelve.  12!  As Bud put it, there are only 364 days until they're teenagers.

Mercy.

Our celebrations have been relatively constant but also low key.  We spent last weekend opening presents, eating out, and having fun (with videogames, a new puzzle, movies.)  We also went on Sunday to welcome my brother-in-law Goo to Connecticut.  Yep, he's a new Nutmegger!  He moved into a condo not far from the hospital in which he'll be working.  Very exciting.  And nice to have him so close.  Only downside:  his AC promptly quit and so he spent two nights here as the landlord and the HVAC guys got it fixed.  It was so hot and muggy this week--until a high of 65 on Friday, that is!--that AC was a must (I know, I know, first-world problem.)  So, his studying for his licensure exams fell behind but we enjoyed seeing him.

Sis was with her beloved horses all week, helping out with camp.  Yep, this year she was a helper, not a camper.  And she loved it.  She spent about 4 hours each day, more on her lesson and lease days, with her horses and her riding buddies.  She loves everything about the stable, even the manure.  See, it's a tradition at her farm to throw the birthday girl into the stable's manure pile.  Sis was tickled pink and barely resisted as the bigger girls picked her up.  Thankfully, they threw her into the hay-part of the pile, but she did manage to muck up her hands and boots getting up.  We laughed and laughed all the way home.  "Mom, I just can't stop smiling," she said.  It's fun to be a part of things, even if it's in the manure pile.  And being thrown in meant she belonged.  We laughed about it for a few days.

That night, we went to a summer picnic and told the story, showing the pictures, to everyone we knew.  Happy birthdays all around.  At the party we had a lot of great food to eat--lobster rolls, pulled pork, barbecue chicken, giant turkey leg, sliders, kettle corn, and great Cherry Coke floats.  I also tried a Long Island Iced Tea--I'd never had one--mercy, those taste like tea!  But with vodka, tequila, triple sec, and rum (plus cola and lemon juice), those could also mess you up.  Sis climbed a rock wall, twice, beautifully and I got a hair tattoo (metallic flowers in a row.)  Sis and I also rode on the ferris wheel, which swayed more than I remembered.  I had never been on a small, portable carnival wheel, only ones at amuseument parks.  Sitll it was a few stories high and a bit nerve-wracking.  Sis, who had never been on one, had a good time.

While Sis was at horse camp this week, Bud and I mainly played games together and went for nice lunches.  On Friday, we went to see Spiderman: Homecoming, which I greatly enjoyed.  He and I laughed aloud quite a bit.  I even gasped, apparently loudly, when they dropped the Lego Death Star.  Bud, I think, was embarrassed a bit and later told me people turned to look at me!  Ah, well, I'd gasp if we ever dropped the hard-to-make Lego Death Star!  Anyway, I think it was a nice coming-of-age story.  Highly recommend.

And tonight is Sis's slumber party.  There are three other girls here for macaroni and cheese, cake and ice cream, lots of snacks, and who knows what else tonight.  Mama and Bud have gone out to dinner and then store-hopping.  They'll be back later tonight for a Splattoon videogame marathon.  I'm the mom in charge of the sleepover, so I'm cooking and keeping an ear on things.  It's surprisingly quiet right now.

Perhaps I should go . . . .

(No) Slumber Party

Tonight, Sis is celebrating her 11th birthday with some friends.  It's her first solo birthday party, meaning without Bud.  Bud's taking it a little bit hard to be left out, especially because they share so many friends.  So, he's out to a nice dinner, movie, and hotel with a big pool with Mama; he'll have his own birthday party in a few weeks . . . and he's not inviting her.

Sigh.

There's a lot of fun going on here tonight, though.  It's Sis's first time to host a sleepover like this, with more than one friend, and a party at home to boot (almost all the other parties have been out and about.)  Fried chicken and homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner, with some corn.  Then make-your-own jar cakes with yellow cake, brownies, fudge frosting, white frosting, jam, sprinkles, M&Ms, and whipped cream.  These went in the fridge while they played outside; then they came inside to decorate wooden letters with markers.  Sis also opened some nice gifts--books and arts and crafts and such.  Then they ate cake (after Sis blew out some candles!) and are now singing and dancing and talking downstairs.

Later, they might do henna and then watch a film (they were all at odds over which film.)

A few of the girls had never been here before, so Sis gave them a quick tour (mainly to locate the bathrooms and their lights, which are tricky.)  One of them said our house was so friendly, which is about the nicest compliment I've ever had about our home.  I only had a few rules--stay out of Bud's room, ask before heading outside, watch for the cats so they don't go outside--and said they could stay up as late as they'd like.  I don't imagine they'll get much sleep.  I'm not sure I will, either.  All in the name of great fun and wonderful memories.

As I'm not needed for now (they'll want some help with henna, I imagine) and I want to give them some space, I'm lying down and watching old episodes of "Downton Abbey."  And thinking of some of my own slumber parties (once, in a tent in the backyard--in December!--we ate GORP and cooked our meals on the grill, including blueberry pancakes.)  Such fun.

Happy birthday, Sis!