Giving Thanks for Birthdays and Deer!

Elijah's birthday started early with some cards and gifts from Grammie, the Rothmans and the Alexander/Graves. He quickly got to work with his Thomas stickers: The finished masterpiece!
Looking at a fake spider through his new spotting scope- this was a big hit!A "Go Diego Go!" book:As per our pre-nuptial agreement (haha), Ed and I parted ways for Thanksgiving. He headed to Wheelock and Elijah and I pointed the Subaru south and struck off for R.I.

Ed sent this beautiful arrangement to brighten up our Thanksgiving. It arrived at my Mom's house on Wednesday and made for a stunning centerpiece. Of course, he had planned this flower surprise before he heard the bad news-- that I left my suitcase at home and spent Tuesday night at the mall buying Elijah and myself a 4-day wardrobe to get us through the week. Some might wonder if that was planned. I'll never tell! Elijah was thrilled to spend some quality time with Nana:

The great thing about this trip is that we got to see EVERYONE. We really packed a lot in. Get comfortable- there are a lot of pictures to follow!

Here's my brother-in-law Jim and niece Isabella:My Auntie Nancy, sisters Paula and Carole, and Isabella: Grampy and his newest grandchild Matthew (3 months old):

The sisters:

Posing with Dad:Isabella- no trouble getting this little cutie to smile for the camera:Always fun to hang out in Cousin Kyle's playroom:

Saturday morning, we got to witness my nephew Kyle's karate test. He was testing for his orange belt.

There's pretty much nothing cuter than 6-year-olds practicing karate! There's Kyle with the yellow belt:The proud recipient of his orange belt! Way to go, Kyle!Nana and Matthew:

My brother-in-law Mike appears to have eluded my camera...THIS time. I'll get him at Christmas!

Hanging with Big Cousin Brandon before the birthday party at Nana's house:

Birthday presents!

Sunday morning, back at home, Daddy arrives with his first deer since 1998! Everyone (except for me) was interested in posing with the carcass:

One more present- very cute Christmas jammies from Aunt Joanie- with a personalized gift bag, in true Joanie-style. Thanks to everyone who made Elijah's birthday so wonderful- he especially enjoyed the phone calls from Tyler and Matt, and he loves saying that he is "3 years old!"

I, on the other hand, cannot believe that it's been 3 years since this amazing little guy made his grand appearance into our world.

There's just no getting around it- November 28, 2007 was the best day of MY life!!!

Letter to Santa Claus

Elijah dictated his very first letter to Santa last night, while I diligently acted the part of scribe. I had to prompt him with a lot of questions, such as examples of HOW he has been a good boy, etc. I tried to stay as true to his words as possible.

Too cute! If you can read the letter, you can see it's all about trains and trucks! I asked him why he didn't have me write down any books (MY favorite gift for him) and he said, "I already have a lot of books up in my room. "

Okay, then!

I Feel Like I've Been Here Before...

Where were you at sunset this afternoon? This is what we were doing...

No, we're not on strike (yet).

This was just an informational picketing event to plead the school board into returning to the bargaining table.

Halloween Trick or Treats!

Elijah did a GREAT job trick-or-treating for the very first time. He hammed it up with his little Fairfax posse beforehand and really got the hang of the whole "ring the doorbell and someone will give you candy" bit! All I can say is, "cute, cute cute!"

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!