Girlfriends Road Trip to PA

Jill, Laura, and Eva (and Ben), picture taken by Janet

The city of Philadelphia, in Legos.  This was at the Franklin Institute.

Bottled water, named for my daughter.

Janet hosted us for our weekend.  My room had a lovely view of her lacy-looking, whispery Locust Tree.  I want one.

We saw lots of farms like this one.

The roads came after the farms, I think.  While on this road, we almost had to drive through the barn before making the turn.  It reminded me of another road that Fran and Jenn and I used to drive on in the White Mountains of NH, where it went through someone’s back yard.  (“Excuse us!”)

Some very cute ponies near a craft shop we stopped at.  I didn’t feel weird taking pictures of the animals and buildings, but I avoided taking pictures of the people, as if they were local oddities.

Okay, so I did take this man’s photo.  It was from far away though, and I didn’t get out of the car and point.

This place…just…whoa.  It does not fit here pretty much at all.  It would look better in Las Vegas.  It even had a fountain.  No show girls or slots though.  It’s the Millennium Theater of the Sight and Sound production company.  The show was a spectacular musical of the life of Joseph.  I found the whole experience surreal.

Just to the right of the edge of the photo, four Amish children played.  It would have made a nice photo.  I resisted, though, thinking how I would feel if strangers got out of their cars and started photographing my own children. So just picture it in your mind.

Marge Simpson, hiding the Check Engine light.  Jill, driving.  This was just before she began to panic because the gas was approaching the EEK level, without a gas station in sight.

Fun!!

Thanks, Janet and Chuck, for opening your home to us (not that you could say No to Jill anyway).

My Boy is Eight!

Gannon’s wish was to visit the National Guard Armory in our town.  He and Acadia and I biked there after lunch.

My first baby This young man was able to wear some of the soldiers’ body armor.  Gannon asked what it was made of.  The man started to explain in general terms.  Then Gannon asked, “Is it kevlar?”  (It was, in part.)  The man looked surprised that he knew that word.  The look appeared on his face a few more times during the visit.

Gannon got to sit in the cab of the trucks while the man (I wish I could remember his name) told us all about what things did what.  I would tell you here, but of course I don’t remember things like that.  Pretty much everything had initials.  I do remember that this particular truck carried a water purification system that was worth $300,000 and was capable of supplying the entire city of Boston with clean water.  Thirteen gallons per day per person.  See, I do remember some things.

Then we went to the playground, where the kids did all sorts of things and told me to watch.

“Are you really watching, Mom?”

This is why Acadia likes long hair.

“You’re supposed to sit right on the swing!”

“Okay, see, it’s easy.  You reach waaay up and grab on really tight.”

“Then you jump and PULL yourself up onto the seat.”

“And then you’re on the swing.  See?  Now you try it.”

“WWHHHEEEEE!!”   “Cadia!  Not like that!”

Oh well.  It’s all good.

I asked them to sit on the table so I could get a picture of them together.  Of course Acadia immediately throws her arms around her beloved brother.  Gannon pretends not to notice.

At first, anyway.

This is the best one I got of these two goofballs.  It only deteriorated from here.

“Gannon!  That tickles!”

“What? What tickles?”

“Oh, you mean this?  This tickles?  You mean when I do this?”

Gannon got done with the camera.  Acadia, however, could go on for hours.

But I thought we should probably call it quits.  When you start getting the roof-of-the-mouth shots, you’re pretty much out of good material.

Suggested Field Trips

We have a running list of places we think would be worthwhile visiting for school.  Here’s our current list.  Acadia just asked me to add the last one.

1. bank
2. post office
3. King Arthur Flour
4. petting zoo
5. veterinarian
6. fire station
7. pizza shop
8. Disney World

Me: Disney World?

She: Yeah, we could just go there and stay only one week, then come back.

Me: Honey, Disney World is very expensive.  I’m not sure we could do that as a field trip.

She: Well, we could save up.

Acadia only wants to go to Disney because her friend is there right now, on a trip courtesy of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  I’m hoping her desire will wane once her little friend comes back.  Yeah right.

Trip to the Science Museum

First of all, I am not using Photoshop at all on these pictures because if I open up that devilish program I will be here all night.  Not because I find it difficult to use, but because it is so stinking addictive.  So these shots are all SOOC (straight out of the camera) besides cropping the turtle.  That’s not a photography term, “cropping the turtle”, nor is it another way to say “circumcision”.  It is in reference to a picture you will see.  Of a turtle.  See?

We arrived, courtesy of serendipity, just in time for a preschool story and experiment time.  Even though Gan is above preschool, he liked it too.  The kids built boats out of foil and saw how many pennies they could hold.

Here’s Acadia looking at the leafcutter ants.

This is the Air Cannon.  Not to be confused with Air Gannon, which would be something completely different.  Now that I think of it, maybe not so different after all.

Air Acadia?

I left the Montshire’s employ soon after this exhibit was installed.  This noisy, repetitious exhibit.  Installed on the wall directly adjacent to the desk where I sat.  But it had nothing to do with me leaving.  No, really, it didn’t.  That was the fault of that kid there, in the blue shirt.  He wanted to be born, so I let him do it then hung out with him for the rest of his life (so far), leaving behind the monstrously small paycheck I used to get.

This caterpillar was found and picked up (of course!) by Acadia.  Take no notice of the dirty fingernails.

This is an example of wildlife camoflage and bad photography combined.  Can you find the chipmunk?  Of course you can, since it is at the dead center of the frame.  Blurry to boot.  But hey, those babies are fast!

Turtle.  I told you it was coming up.

Fake smiles, which mean to say that these kids want me to quit taking pictures so they can walk the trail, but they know I have to get a smile before I let them budge.  They love me.

I can tell I really need to go to sleep now, because reading over this post made me crack up at my incredibly witty remarks.  Am I a gifted writer or what?  I can even make myself laugh.

Goodnight.

Loving the Waves!

Brian took this series of shots of Cadie in the water at Fort Foster, Maine. He was able to get these great facial expressions because he is daring enough to take our obscenely expensive camera into the water with him while he stands knee-deep in surf. I am not. So all I get is the backs of heads. Or kids running away gleefully, which is also nice, but still, these are fun pictures.

Return from Camp Spofford

*NOTE: If Courtney S. reads this (you know who you are!), please leave a comment so I know you’ve found the blog. Thanks!)

**ANOTHER NOTE: For some reason I never published this post till now, even though I wrote it days ago. Sorry. Thanks for reminding me, Fran!

I’m just going to toss these photos up here and not bother with captioning them, just because I am tired of sitting at this computer. My kids are tired of me sitting at this computer, too!

We also have lots of pictures of the kids with their friends from camp, old and new, but I didn’t feel right about putting pics of other people’s kids on the internet without their permission. Not everyone is as comfortable with having an internet presence as I am. So yeah.

Ouch, I Say.

This post is less than clever because it is pretty awkward to type right now. I’m wearing two wrist splints because I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome. Too much blogging? I am not really sure what it is that I’ve been doing to cause this, but here it is nonetheless. Brian’s been opening jars, straining pasta, and bagging up the trash. Like he needs more work to do.

Ready for the worst?

It hurts to use my camera. *sob* That’s one job I don’t want to delegate.

This had better clear up by next week’s trip to Camp Spofford. I can’t let that go undocumented!

Home At Last

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, the first time without Brian and the kids, the second time without Brian. I’m tired. I missed my family! And I missed sleeping in my own bed (made me think perhaps my bed is a bit of an idol for me…hmm…).

I thought I’d toss up a few pictures of my travels for you.

My Mom Is SO Far Away.

This week I did something I have never done before. I sent my mom to Africa.

Well, I didn’t really send her per se, but I did bring her to the bus station so that she could get to the airport so that she could get to the next airport so that she could get to Nairobi. That’s Nairobi, Kenya. In AFRICA. That’s in a different hemisphere, people.

She’s a nurse and she is spending her vacation (and I do mean spending in more than one sense of the word) helping out at a rural hospital in Kenya. Yes, I raised her to be a compassionate person, didn’t I?

I envy her for this experience. Hopefully she will remember every detail and bring back lots of stories and photos. And exuberance.

To know more about this kind of thing in general, here are some links for you to peruse.

• Global Volunteer Network
• Ngong, Kenya

This is fun. And sad.

You can estimate your fuel costs for a driving trip using this tool. To do a certain trip I have been dying to make, I will have to shell out over $100 just for gasoline. *sigh* I need to do more mystery shops.