Daddy weekends

With a trip to Utah and a girls weekend in D.C. Jennette has missed out on some beautiful fall weekends with the kids. Unfortunately the good camera went on her trips so the photos were sporadic and don't really do the halcyon moments the justice they deserve.

A few weekends back the kids and I went to one of the local orchards. The weather was perfect and we took part in all the activities. Corn mazes, hay mazes, hay rides, spooky barns, apple picking, apple donuts, we did it all. The only thing we lacked were cider spigots. Growing up we used to stop by a farm in northern New Jersey which while it lacked all the amenities of the orchard we went to it did have an all you can drink cider spigot. Yup for 10¢ we could get a plastic cup which allowed you to have all the cider you could physically handle. Eventually this price increased to 25¢, but even then I think it was a losing proposition.

Last weekend we decided to make the trip downstate (yes Delaware is large enough that we can actually drive an hour and still be in the state) to the Bombay Hook National wildlife refuge. This is a salt marsh that is on the flyway for the migratory birds. As we were getting close I was worried that we wouldn't see any birds. The sky was clear and not a bird was seen. We were definitely too early for the snow geese which should be coming next month, but there were still plenty of birds to be seen and the salt marsh was surprisingly beautiful. The kids enjoyed the board walk trails, climbing the deer stands and observation towers, and looking for birds with their binoculars (oh and blowing bubbles from their birthday party souvenirs from the previous night). We topped the day off with dinner at one of the kids favorite restaurants and a movie party in Mom's bed where the kids went to sleep to wait for Mom to return later that night.

Seriously hydrated

I thought it would be a good idea to clean up the house this morning so Jennette wouldn't come home to (too messy) of a house (she's down in D.C. for a girls weekend out) and this is how many kids water bottles/sippies I found lying around the house.

This is not including the three water bottles I found in Max's room:

or the one I later found in the car. This is not even all the kids water bottles we own, just the ones that were not put away in the water bottle bin or the sippy shelf. I have no idea how growing up I survived in a family of five with two leaky green army surplus canteens.

Catching up: School Starts

I'm a few weeks late on this post.  And a few months late on all the other posts that I kept thinking to/meaning to/wanting to/should have put up.  But, no matter, I've got to get started somewhere.  So, even though I ended summer kicking and screaming inside, here's how the kids started off the school year.

 

Max started 4th grade, which means that now not only has he moved to the second floor of the school, but he's clearly too old to wear the specially-color-coded-first-day-of-school identification-note pinned to his shirt. That, and I got to witness some new level of personal confidence when we went to back-to-school-night and he walked down the hall greeting students with high-fives and fist-bumps.  I kept waiting for him to tell me that I really needed to walk several paces behind him so as to not be identified as his mother.  

Olivia started 1st grade, so we felt that we better graduate her to a flower-bow clearly too mature for a kindergartener.   She also gets up in the morning without hassle, practices the piano without complaint, has been very intent about doing her homework, and, so far, is a crackerjack speller when it comes to those new word-wall words.  I think I love first grade.  Or else her teacher is actually Mary Poppins. 

They have a new bus driver this year. 

Summed up, it means that they went from this:

to this:

At first it was bemusing; now, not so much.  

Anyway, here's the group at the bus stop (plus Isabel).   

Ok, only 9 more months until summer comes again. 

When I grow up . . .

Isabel is obsessed with two things. Cats and growing older. For the past 6 months we have fielded questions as to when exactly her 4th birthday would finally arrive. Now she is on to when will she turn 5 and how long will it be until she's a teenager. So it came as no surprise when her preschool group asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up that she answered the following:

So if she's going to be a cat when she grows up we better start practicing now. She and Olivia designed a routine based on one that they saw at the circus last month. They were the hit of the pool talent show.

stat chew off flip are tee

Every time I think of the Statue of Liberty I think of two things. First, playing mad gab with my Mom and laughing deliriously as she tried to give the hint for "Statue of Liberty". It makes me smile every time I think about it. Second, cute pictures of kids in front of the statue. As I was leafing through my Aunt's old family photo albums for the Fennimore family reunion I found this picture of my Dad and Aunt circa early 1950's.

I felt like this was quite the coincidence since just the week before we had taken the kids up to NYC for some NYC touring with our friends Challey and Spencer (more on their visit later) and taken these photos.

It was hard to believe that the last time we went to the island Max looked like this:

and the twin towers were still standing:

If you look closely you can see some resemblance between the young Max (here he is at Jones beach)

and Saul (imbibing a Gray's Papaya fruit drink). Granted, Saul is 12 months older than the picture of Max above.

Mosquito's and Flytraps

You can imagine my surprise a couple weeks ago when Jennette informed me that she was taking Max and Olivia to audition for a play. I knew I had already underestimated Jennette's love for outdoor theater earlier this summer but I never thought Jennette had much "stage mom" in her. It was hard to believe that with her friend Challey coming to visit for the next two weeks and Cub Scout day camp the following week that Jennette would sign herself up for rehearsals and all that a play would involve. So everything made much more sense when she explained that it was only a one week commitment. They were auditioning on Monday, with rehearsals starting immediately through Thurs, and then two performances on Friday. Maybe it's the cynic in me but then I immediately assumed that there would be some financial catch to this (especially since all this was happening at the Grand Opera house in downtown Wilmington which is a pretty nice venue).

Amazingly enough there was no catch, and they passed the auditions and were suddenly cast members in "The Frog Prince." The production was put on by the Missoula Children's theater and is part of a nation-wide theater program for school children, using minimal and talented staff, parent volunteers, and a clever use of production equipment. Max was a "mosquito" and Olivia a "venus fly trap." The music was catchy, the costumes cute, the kids cuter, everyone had generous stage time and I was amazed how much they could remember from just 4 days of rehearsals. Olivia and Max had a blast and I think this will be part of many summers to come.

Oliva was so excited for the performance that she wore her costume around the house.

Max the mosquito (& his friend, Naomi, as the toad)

Who's ready for a cast party?

Have I mentioned that we have a new video camera so we can upload videos? Here's our first attempts:

Cape Henlopen

If I look at my hobbies (both present and those on hiatus): skiing, cycling, running, hiking, rockclimbing, backpacking, & ultimate frisbee I can see a common thread of a mixture of adrenaline + being outdoors. When I think of Jennette's hobbies: friends, food, traveling, outdoor theater, indoor theater, reading, & just about all things British a common thread that runs through it all is Anna. Anna is Jennette's BFF who was recently mentioned in a previous post by Jennette and who I can thank that Jennette doesn't want to spend every weekend working on the house/yard but insists that we at least get out to see Delaware's Shakespeare festival (and probably is also the reason why our girls go off to bed singing "I love you a bushel and a peck" from Guys and Dolls). Anna and her family have recently moved "back East" and we are thrilled to have them close by.

Last weekend we began the Eastern hazing by taking them on a camping trip to our local state park/beach Cape Henlopen.

Lucky for me since we took so few pictures, Anna had already chronicled the trip on her blog. We have camped there in the summer several times before. While we have had some rainy weather in the past, the heat of last weekend gave new reasons to reconsider camping as a cheap source of family togetherness. It was so hot and humid I was having flashbacks of growing up without AC in an apartment in NYC and officially swore off camping with children in the summer forever (though I may rescind that oath when we start pricing out the other options). But besides the heat we had a wonderful weekend. The kids got along well, the food was good, the water was cool, we managed to squeeze in trips to the outlets and Funland, and we even got to meet up with our friends the Eskelsens (who is really how this whole Adam & Jennette thing got started). So by the time we were driving home I had almost forgotten about the sleepless sweaty night and all the labor involved in taking a family of four young children camping but was instead overcome with how wonderful my life is, how much I love Jennette and the kids, and how much more beautiful lower Delaware has become to me after all these family vacations at the beach. Maybe I'm not ready to swear off camping after all.