Tilton Resurrected!

This past weekend was the Vt-NEA Convention, so the schools were closed both Thursday and Friday. I don't know anyone who actually goes to these conventions, and I'm certain their days are limited. But for now, I (along with thousands of other VT teachers) took this 4-day weekend to relax and rejuvenate.

Thursday, Ed went to Wheelock for the day. He wanted to shoot old musket, and also just have a day to himself. He knew that the rest of the weekend he was going to be on solo daddy duty!
Friday, I pointed the old Subaru south and headed off to my sister-in-law Lisa's house in New Boston, NH. 3 + hours of nothing but quiet thoughts, foliage and NPR. Pure bliss. Kind of like a day at the spa, maybe even better.

I got to Lisa and Dan's around 5:00PM. Joanie was just arriving and Mary & Martha had been there for about an hour.
That night, we ate Joanie's delicious spaghetti & meatballs and visited, visited visited. We caught up with Grammie and what was going on with everyone's kids-- Caitrin's having a baby, Lauren got a concussion at the North Country-Harwood game, Cole wrote a story about Halloween, Sara passed the bar exam. On and on and on! Joanie regaled us with funny stories about her new job answering telephones for a catalog company. We finally collapsed in bed after 11:00PM.

The next morning, we had breakfast and made lunch while reading an e-mail from Julie about the strikes in France and their effects on her travels for the weekend. Laura arrived around 9AM and we were off!

It's been 2 or 3 years since we've done the Tilton trip, and we decided to switch up the game plan a little by hitting LL Bean first instead of last (when we're all broke, tired and shopped-out). Was I glad we did! I ended up with 3 pairs of LL Bean cords for a total of $27! What a great start :-)

We ate our sandwiches in the car on the trip from LL Bean to Tilton. It was a fun day of shopping and everyone got some nice stuff.

Grammie treated us all to dinner at the Tilt'n Diner, which was delicious as always. We then headed back to Lisa and Dan's for the night, which included, but was not limited to, a show-and-tell, the malfunctioning Frosty the Snowman (later to be fixed by Bear the dog), some exciting teacup note cards, a broken furnace, the bucket brigade bailing water out of the basement, Lisa's midnight run to the Historical Society in her housecoat and smoke alarms at 4:00AM.

A HUGE breakfast of pancakes, bacon and sausage, and I was back heading north for a rainy drive that went by quickly thanks to Garrison Keillor and All the Traditions.

Ed and Elijah survived the weekend, and even had some fun!

70 degrees today Weird, warm weather. I had to go to PetSmart to get an aquatic plant for Biology lab and, on a whim, bought Elijah a Betta Fish. He's a beautiful little red and blue crown tail. Elijah promptly named him Zoe the Fish. I tried to talk him into a more original name, but he resisted. So now we have Zoe the Dog and Zoe the Fish. Sigh...

First Snow!

It's been cold and very rainy today...they say a Nor'Easter, even. About an hour ago, it turned to wet snowchunks falling from the sky. We're looking forward to another low-key weekend, and cheering Tyler on as he runs his first marathon on Sunday!
I've been making my "mental list" of things to buy during our shopping trip in Tilton next weekend...Can't wait!

Go Diego Go!

Who says Old Dads don't have energy? Of course, this nightly routine involving Elijah's favorite cartoon (Go Diego Go!) just about does Ed in for the night, but still...

(sorry for the blurry video. I have no idea why it loaded this way, but it took so long that I couldn't bear the thought of trying it again)

In other news, last weekend was the Leaf Peeper's race in Waterbury. Saturday night we hosted the pre-race spaghetti dinner. Sunday was a spectacular day. Sunny and cool- perfect for running!

Ed ran the 5K and I ran the Half Marathon with my two running buddies Mary (left) and Liz (center).

A couple of our friends' husbands were running their very first half marathon. Jim (white) is was running under the alias of Aimee Alexander (she sold her bib to him; this race doesn't have any type of formal bib transfer process) and the other guy is Matt, running as himself. To the far left is Meghan, a woman we know from the gym who has lost over 100 pounds!

The weather was perfect! We didn't break any records, and I certainly won't go as far as saying it was "fun," but you bet I'll be right back at it next October :-)

School has been NUTS this year. I have been so busy that finding time to update this blog has been challenging. It's been a great school year so far, but with a new course (Honors Biology) and very large regular Biology classes, I've been barely able to keep ahead of the planning and grading. Luckily, my student teacher Gabe is working out extremely well. I'm really, REALLY looking forward to getting a little break once he starts his soloing next month. Not sure what I'll do with myself!

Taste of Fall

We were blessed with a beautiful early Fall weekend....

Elijah poses with the 2 perfect pumpkins we harvested from our garden:

On Saturday, we headed off to South Hero to go apple picking. Elijah fell asleep in the car, so we decided to kill some time and drive around a bit. We landed here:

Yup...A fish hatchery. Neither Ed nor I had even been to one, so we decided to check it out. We were pleasantly surprised, to say the least! There was the small aquarium:

Some pretend fishing:

And bins and bins of fish fry-- just waiting to be released into the wild. Feeding them pellets out of the 25-cent machine was fun! They went wild, jumping up out of the water to try to get some food!

We took some time to enjoy the beautiful viewing pond before heading off for the orchard.

Ed and Elijah on our tractor ride out to the orchard:

We picked 32 pounds (!) of Macs, Cortlands and Vermont Golds.

I guess we went a little overboard...but it was a perfect day for picking apples!

Yesterday, Elijah and Ed harvested our winter squash- we were so thrilled with our squash bounty this year. We baked up some buttercup squash for dinner last night, and it was absolutely delicious!!!

Maine: A Trip I Never Regret!

In an effort to extend our summer, Elijah and I decided to take one final trip to Maine during Labor Day weekend. Keeping an eye on Hurricane Earl and hoping that it's track was incorrectly predicted (it was), we finally just decided to "go for it," and headed off on Friday afternoon.

Before even arriving at the cottage, we already had baked stuffed lobster on board from our new favorite restaurant, Bay Haven Lobster Pound. Once we got to the cottage and opened up all the windows (it was nearly 90 degrees that afternoon), we headed straight down to the beach to eat our lobster and swim until dusk. It was a strange evening, as I have never stayed at the cottage without another adult! But thankfully, being Labor day weekend, there was tons of activity on the peninsula. We never felt alone!

The next morning, my Mom, Paula (sister), Aunt Nancy and niece Isabella all arrived between 10 and noon. We had such a great time, hanging by the beach, eating lobster, visiting, and (of course) playing choo-choo trains.

Sunday was a bit more blustery. That morning, my Mom, Elijah and I went apple picking and blueberry picking (the beginning of one season and the end of the other at Libby's U-Pick). What a funny combination, but the blueberries (and blueberry donuts) made for a nice late-summer snack and the crisp, early apples were delicious in the pies I made the next week. What I wouldn't do for a slice of one of those pies right now!

Back on the home front, my two favorite boys:And the world's most accident-prone dog...relegated to wearing a t-shirt so she won't rip out the stitches she needed after tangling with something (barbed wire fencing?) in our woods. Doesn't she look a little embarrassed?

Drowning in School....

More blog posts to come...I promise.
School (and all of its responsibilities) wacked me HARD upside the head. After such an amazing summer, I was completely blindsided. I forgot how much work school is. Oh yeah, now I remember.....................................
Elijah and I DID go to Maine labor Day weekend and had the most amazing time. Pictures to follow, if I ever come up for air, haha.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

And so it begins....another school year. My 10th, Ed's (gulp!) 34th.

They have taken to easing us in gently. We've had lots of time the past two days to work in our classrooms. Some different than the 2-day Differentiated Instruction workshop last year, in which we sat in the library watching some supposed guru's PowerPoint presentation!!!

My student teacher Gabe begins on Monday. I wonder how that will go, having had 2 student teachers in the past, neither which worked out particularly well. But I'm willing to give it another try, just as my mentor did 11 years ago...One of these times, I'm bound to get someone good, maybe it will be this year!

Today Ed, Tyler, Martha and I ran Joanie's Echo Lake race. Ed and Martha ran the 5-mile loop, while Tyler conquered and I barely survived the 10-mile loop. Gorgeous weather, great family, and Aimee (& Fred) graciously keeping an eye on Elijah made for a wonderful morning! Aside from the fact that I was initially announced as the top female finisher, which was kind of embarrassing, since I was more like 5th or 6th!

One more day of In-Service tomorrow, 9th grade Orientation on Tuesday, and the MMU school year officially begins!

In other, much more monumental news, the newest Borrelli Baby has arrived! Matthew Michael Levasseur was born yesterday afternoon. He is the 3rd child of my sister Leslee and brother-in-law Mike. Can't wait to meet this little precious bundle!