Okay, THANK YOU! to everyone who visited from Kal’s blog and left such happy comments about Oliver’s tutorial. Oliver really loved them…and they were pretty great for him last week…which brings me to why I’ve been absent. Where have I been? Hanging over the toilet. Yeehaw! Oliver started throwing up last Sunday. We are not a very sick family — and I cannot remember the last time someone had a stomach kind of virus. Oliver was playing in his room and then – SHOCKER! – ran to the bathroom. Where he ever would have gotten the idea to go hang over the toilet when he was sick is beyond my imagination, but I was pretty darned pleased about that one! So spent much of the beginning of the week hanging over with him, trying to be of some comfort, then, magically, caught it myself later in the week. So that’s where I’ve been. I owe two million people emails. I’ll get to you. Promise!
Now, on to the marathon blog!
It’s been so long and it’s been a crazy busy weekend, so there’ll be lots of pictures. I’ll try to keep the rambling to a minimum.
Saturday was an excellent day! We headed to Jeremy’s graduation honor’s convocation — it was a beautiful day all around — weather, content, and company!
Jeremy did not want to sit through the entire college graduation (which was sort of good from a wiggly five year old’s and his harried mother’s standpoints), so the family met up and just went to the award ceremony for the presentation of the honors cord. Pretty cool — nice that we could actually find him in the crowd and see him smiling on stage when he received it (through the telephoto lens anyway….)
Tough to get good pictures. We were five million miles away and the lighting in the hall made me take at ISO hugely-grainy. But you can tell it’s him AND see him smiling!
Outside my pictures were HORRIBLE weren’t much better. I think there’s something wrong with my camera. I’m having trouble with both exposure and focus. Seems like two really random things to both be wrong at once. I really need to take it in, but the thought just gives me the willies. Asking me to walk around without my camera is a wee bit like asking someone a nun to walk around naked. But every time I go to use it, I’m swearing. And every time I download pictures, I’m swearing. It’s time.
Jeremy with his mum — too many cameras around — everyone’s looking in a different direction in every picture. oh well.
Jeremy with Peter — Jeremy looks like he’s plotting something here. I find this very funny because typically it’s Peter doing something silly in group shots.
My favorite picture from the day below. I find it a little bit of a bummer that Oliver is so far in the foreground because I don’t want him to ALWAYS be “stealing the picture” from his brothers. I think part of that has to do with the age difference though. That and the fact that Oliver CONSTANTLY has a camera shoved in his face and he performs, while the older boys are reluctant subjects. I love that Andrew’s eyes are open. He (like my mum) is an eye-closer in pictures. If you’ve ever been related to one of these, you’ll “AMEN” the open-eyed picture. They are few and far between! A smile would have been nice since he always has one of those, but I’ll take the open eyes! I also like the look on Jeremy’s face. It just seems so fitting for the cap and gown he’s wearing. Oliver’s being himself. And proud Papa in the background. Hooray!
Went to lunch afterwards. Mine was pretty yummy — if you’re ever in the Amherst, MA area, check out Butternuts. I thank everyone at lunch for playing musical chairs so that King Oliver could have his choice of seating arrangements. He was very happy that he was able to sit next to both brothers.
I hope the other people with cameras got better pictures than I did. I know Auntie Ruby had a camera because she’s not in any of the pictures. Not sure who else did…. In any case, we are so proud and looking forward to hear what comes of Med School starting in the fall.
Jump tracks with me here…I’m feeling like spring is coming to an end. Especially after today. It was 80 something while we were hiking around. Isn’t that pretty much summer? Good thing I picked some flowers last week to press/dry. Never really done it before, so hopefully they come out. Smooshed them in a book between lots of other books. Does anyone know if this is how you do it?!?! Anyway, I found all these flowers/leaves in our very own yard. I was kind of shocked that we had so many different varieties. Sure glad the people who lived here before us landscaped. They’d cry if they saw what our yard looks like now. sigh. there are just only so many hours in a day.
Springtime brings flower, bees, and, much to my chagrin, BIRDS. Some birds have moved in under our porch/over our garage. I have a bird phobia. Yes, I know it’s ridiculous — that’s why it’s a PHOBIA. Doesn’t make me any less unhappy about birds. And for some reason they do tend to fly at me. Oliver said to me the other day “Maybe they just think your head looks comfy.”
Right. Just call me nest head. Fabulous. I have a wise-ass for a five year old. Only he doesn’t know it so it’s pretty funny. And, of course, laughing just encourages him. Anyway, had Peter check out the nests. I was hoping they were JUST being built and he could take them down. Evict those crazy flying machines. Nope. Gave him the camera to peer into the nests to make sure there were no eggs or anything. sure enough.
So, instead of the flying beasts, it is *I* that have been evicted. No more garage for the summer. Not sure why the birds would want to stay there though. It’s right below our porch gardens. The birds/nests get rained on every time I water. Though I’m not excited at all about the birds, I’m pretty excited about our gardens. We planted late (mostly the last couple weekends) and I noticed when I went to plant the rest this weekend that we already have a couple strawberries and some asparagus. I have not done either of them before, so this is an experiment. I thought it was to be two years for both of them before you had anything to eat, but I’m not sure since I received roots. Are the roots from an established plant? Any expert gardeners feel free to chime in. I need all the help I can get!
We also received our “worm chalet”, so the temporary housing we prepared for the wormery last week has been dismantled. It was pretty exciting to move them over to the “chalet” — we weren’t sure how the worms were doing in there since much of the celery was still hanging around. Yeah, um, you think celery takes awhile to break down? Dumb first thing for us to throw in there. Live and learn. Anyway, our worms have been producing like bunnies! Oliver was *SO* excited to see all the baby worms — I wish I had pictures. Alas, my hands were full of worm muck.
That pretty much catches everyone up through today.
Today: I want to thank and remember all those who fought and died for our country. I have been fortunate that the people I have known in service have all made it home. My heart goes out to those families that have given more.
Despite the sadness that Memorial day can tend to bring, today was pretty great. Peter started the morning off with squeals when he prepared a surprise, fabulously Cargo and Woot-packed, breakfast (they actually looked way better in person — ahh the difficulties of photographing pancake-art):
Woot looks a little like he’s been drinking here — his eyes got a little off….maybe he ate too many beets.
I spent the morning cleaning my house. It’s out of control. Still so much to do, but it was good to spend a couple hours on it. Afterwards, we went for a hike at the Andres Institute of Art. Really nice trails. We are looking forward to going back and checking out all that we missed. Which was a lot. We spent about 3 hours there and only really did two trails. We did a lot of sidetracking, though — like this pile of rocks was too good to pass by.
And this thing just NEEDED to be blown.
I know some of you will think this an awful thing to say of my child, but it’s not meant awfully at all. In fact, I find it quite endearing. Oliver has ALWAYS reminded me of a little monkey (I’m sure most of it is personality…) If he doesn’t look like one in the picture above… I love that you can see the helicopter leaving the puff.
We had a fabulous picnic on the side of one of the trails, and Oliver LOVED the sculptures. I will not do them justice in these pictures and will only include a few. I’m really looking forward to doing some more exploring up there. A treasure in Brookline, NH.
Alright, I hope someone at least made it through to the end. That was a lot of blahg. Sweet dreams.
OH! A couple people emailed me that they were interested in the photo transfer class (here and here) but could not make it that night. Please email me good dates for you because it will be offered in JUNE.
