17-18/70

Days 17 & 18 of our 2010 summer vacation...

What a weekend for Independence Day! Hot, sunny- just soooo summery!!! Yesterday (Saturday) we spend the first part of the day at the Sand Bar State Park.In the evening, we went to a BBQ/Pool Party at Jenn and Casey Gomo's house.

Jenn and Casey have a cornucopia of random animals, which include two 200-pound Bull Mastiff dogs, one 3-legged Border Collie dog, one goat:One cow:And dozens of fowl, including chickens and ducks: This morning, after our walk, Ed and Elijah enjoyed a juice box o the shady tailgate of the truck.Then we headed off to the Richmond parade, which was really fun! It was a beautiful 4th of July, so everyone came out for the parade.

After the parade, we spent some time visiting with all kinds of people. Lots of folks Ed knew from Richmond, parents of some present and past students, and old MMU graduates. It was a great opportunity to catch up so many wonderful people!

The one near-tragedy of the day was the loss of "Mo-Mo" the monkey. "Mo-Mo" is a current coveted favorite, and his disappearance had the potential of being utterly devastating. This was how the conversation went:

Elijah: "Where's Mo-Mo?"

Ed: "Mo-Mo is lost, we can't find him. He fell out of your stroller."

Elijah: "But I love Mo-Mo."

(crackle) this was the sound of my heart breaking a little bit

Ed: "Well, Mommy went out looking for him, we can't find him. But we'll look some more."

Elijah: "But I NEED Mo-Mo."

(snap! crumble!) I am now near tears

I had already backtracked our steps on foot, to no avail. I'd searched our entire walking route, inquired at the store and put a friend or two on the lookout. As we walked up the hill back to our car, I began to feel angry. Why didn't I find him? Who would just pick up a child's toy off the ground and not assume someone would be looking for it? Why would someone just TAKE a baby's stuffed animal?

Once we got to the car, we decided to do another run through town, in search of literally a needle in a haystack.

Truly amazingly, we found "Mo-Mo," propped up on some one's mailbox.

I still can hardly believe it.

With a sigh of relief, we headed off to Chris and Martha's house for a BBQ. In an amazing twist to the "Mo-Mo" story, Martha and Chris had spotted him on the ground on Esplanade Ct, but didn't know he belonged to Elijah. Martha remembers instructing Chris not to run over the child's stuffed animal in the road. That would have been a valuable clue to finding "Mo-Mo" if we hadn't already!

Anyway, it was so hot, we ate and then promptly hit the pool.

Martha had some water wings for Elijah. This was his first time using them and it really didn't take long before he was swimming all over the pool by himself. He was in the pool for nearly 2 hours!

It was a great day!

And, thanks to some one's thoughtful gesture, even a good night!!!

15-16/70

Days 15 and 16 of our 2010 summer vacation...

Yesterday (Thursday) was Elijah's last day at daycare for a couple of weeks- Tammy is on vacation next week and then we'll be in Maine. I took advantage of some free time to get a little shopping done and then spent the day with my old friend Jeanne, who I met in grad school. She is an English teacher at CVU and lives in Burlington with her husband and their truly nuts chocolate lab.

Today was our last solo day before Ed returned home from deer camp. We planned to spend the day at David and Gene Adams' camp on Fairfield Pond, with Kim and little Gabe Adams. Here's the proud Momma and the most adorable little 11-month-old I've ever met!It was a nice day to sit at the water's edge

Gabe was sad to see us leave...Elijah was trying to console him. When we got home, we had to check in on our newest additions, the 3 baby Robins that just hatched above our barn.When Ed got home, he and Elijah worked to put the training wheels on Elijah's new bike- a present from Auntie Heather!
We practiced pedaling around the driveway, getting the hang of bike mechanics.I was definitely more nervous than Elijah...

And he was off!

Amazing how they go from helpless little babies to riding a bike in the flash of an eye! I'll just post this old photograph for posterity's sake- I truly don;t even remember when he will this little butterball!

13-14/70

Days 13 and 14 of our 2010 summer vacation...

Yesterday (Tuesday), Elijah went to daycare and Ed & I went to Stowe for the day. We walked around a bit, had lunch at the Shed and then ice cream at the Malt Shoppe. We are so thankful to have some of these special "couple days" built into our summer, without having to pay a babysitter!

This morning, Ed left for a few days at Deer Camp. Elijah and I brought Zoe to the vet, grocery shopped, hit the playground with Beth and Dianna, and (after all that) refused to nap this afternoon!

Thankfully, he was able to rally for our evening plans- Beth, Jim & Dianna invited Elijah & me, Liz, Todd, Reese & Quinn, Jenn & Casey, and Jen, Matt, Acadia & Emma for dinner. I don't know how they manage to host such affairs without losing their minds. Six kids under the age of 7 just going NUTS in their house...yet they take it all in stride. At one point, I caught Elijah blowing bubbles from the porch into the house, just t0 give you an idea of the chaos... I told you it was a wild night!Walter, the world's most laid-back cat, gets some extra special attention-

Trying to calm the kids down with some shows. The adults were so loud in the kitchen that the kids kept complaining they couldn't hear the TV- even though the volume was up to 73!

We were even graced with this beautiful rainbow.

We didn't leave Beth & Jim's until after 9PM. The whole drive home (5 minutes tops), Elijah kept saying, "It's dark. I need to go to bed."

12/70

Day 12 of our 2010 summer vacation...

Today looked like it was going to be rainy, so Liz and I decided to take the kids to the ECHO Aquarium to see the "Backyard Monsters Giant Robotic Insects" exhibit. Can't beat the price ($2 with the library pass).

We were greeted with this 12-foot-tall praying mantis: We didn't know it was going to be so scary, and the kids were definitely a little unsure at first. I don't blame Elijah for not turning his back on these gigantic carpenter ants! If he looks a little scared here, he probably is! But by the time we got to the scorpion, Elijah was feeling much more at ease:Overhead, a dragon fly:
Onto the rest of the aquarium. Elijah and his little buddy, Quinn.Reese (7), Elijah, Quinn (3):A constant favorite- the water table:Later at home, Elijah begins telling Ed about the insect exhibit. Born into the Alexander story-telling family, first he pauses for effect......then takes a moment to recall all of the details, before.......launching into an animated description of what he saw...What a boy!Winding down with some popcorn and "Wonder Pets."

And finally, some pre-bed puzzle-time with Mom and Dad.

Good night!

11/70

Day 11 of our 2010 summer vacation...

Paul Mailman 10-miler in Montpelier this morning- Liz and I finished in 84:52 and were thrilled, as we had set a reasonable goal of just breaking 90 minutes. Mostly, I was just thrilled to see the finish line :-) Actually, it was a nice day to run, a competitive field and a great course. When we saw some of the other people running, and the shape they were in, we devised a new motto- "Someone has to come in last, it might as well be us!" In fact, we were far from last place, right around middle of the pack. Great fun- I'd do it again next year.
Ed and Elijah hung out at home; I was back by about 1:00PM. Ed got the lawnmower working well enough to finally knock down the grassland that has become our yard...Rain expected for the next few days, so he was glad to get it done.
That's it- no pics, I'm going to bed!

8-10/70

Days 8 through 10 of our 2010 summer vacation...

I haven't had a chance to sit down and update our blog lately. Thursday I had my final curriculum day at school, to work on Honors Biology with my colleague Katy. After picking up Elijah from daycare, I rushed home to shower and hit the town with some of my Fairfax ladies. We went out for dinner and drinks in Burlington to celebrate my friend Liz's birthday. My favorite picture from the evening came out all fuzzy, so I posted this one instead. The birthday girl is on the right wearing pink. Friday we stayed home for the day. There were some families heading to the beach, but we couldn't quite motivate to get there. The weather was nice, Ed worked on wood and Elijah and I went for a nice walk and picked wildflowers along the roadside. We had a babysitter (Molly) coming for the evening, which is always kind of a bad scene as far as Elijah is concerned. He usually starts crying the moment a teenaged girl walks in the house. But last night, he was quite excited- I guess it's another sign of him becoming a big boy. In fact, Molly sat down on the floor to do a puzzle with Elijah and he ran over to me and pushed on my legs, saying, "Go away, Mama!" Then he did the same thing to Ed. We took that as our cue that he was going to be just fine, and headed out! It was such a relief over all the times we've left him crying his eyes out with sitters...

Ed and I were supposed to go to the movies with some friends, but then decided that we'd rather have dinner and meet up with them afterwards. So we went to the Longhorn for dinner, where I ate more than a person twice my size should eat. Then we killed some time at Home Depot,

with the plan of meeting the others at 9:15.

At 9:15, we met Beth, Jim, Liz and Todd at Cody's Irish Pub in Essex for a drink or two. It was a nice way to end the evening, and it sounds like we didn't miss much with the movie (Grown Ups with Adam Sandler), nobody seemed to think it was very good.

Today (Saturday) was overcast int he morning with a deteriorating forecast for the day. Elijah and I hit the playground first thing, to get in some running and climbing before the rain arrived. We made it a little over an hour before the sprinkles turned to showers. The rest of the day was a complete washout, so we played legos- That shiner on his left eye is from diving head-first off the couch. I was in the other room, when I heard, "Yee-haw!" which means he was riding up on the couch back. Then I heard thud! and silence and finally, "Waaaaa!" Sigh.............What a boy. "Potty training" update: For several days, Elijah hasn't even wanted to sit on the potty. In fact, he used it twice that first day and then never again. He obviously isn't really ready for toilet training, so I decided to just back off and be really casual about it. This weekend, I brought home the potty that my friend Beth used for her daughter Dianna, just to have another one around the house. I told Elijah that it was a present from Dianna, whom he adores. He asked a couple of questions and then sat down and made his very first "poopy in the potty!" Big news around here...

The potty reward tonight was a chocolate-covered granola bar and an episode of Dora the Explorer.

Heading to bed early tonight- tomorrow morning is the "Paul Mailman 10-miler" race Liz and I have been training for. We ate a big spaghetti supper tonight, hope it works!