maineland

after a nice harbor cruise and dinner on saturday with some fun folks from church. we had a good sunday at church and then we headed out to maine.
we went to see melanie and greg. who i had not seen since seminary, 1999.
that is a long time. but we had a great visit. they have two girls, 4 & 2.
it was such a fun time.
here are a few pics.

we strolled over to the coast and took a beautiful walk






zaven and coco, both 4, were fast friends

we got home late last night and today was nice.
nell's sleeping really well, which is great news for all of us.
i am getting a haircut tomorrow.
nell has a 9 month check up on thursday.
friday chris and i head to nyc for the us open, so excited.

and zaven's school starts back, we found the "fat pencils" needed to complete the list of supplies for the butterfly class.

too much of a good thing

yesterday was a good day. low key. playground, what not. then i made a new salmon recipe, it was delicious! served it with fresh garden tomatoes and squash. yum.

today, was really nice too. i had my tennis match, and that is always fun. after playing elise and i went over and jumped in the ocean and wetstone. it was amazing. i had never been swimming over there before. it is fun to get into the ocean without having to walk in or deal with sand when you get out. the water was cold, but invigorating cold not freezing cold.
then i came home and we did around here for a while and then zaven, nell and i went up to 3rd beach and met up with grace and her mom and sister. nell and i stayed for about an hour just chatting, and then we came home for nell's nap and zaven stayed to play with grace.
nell had a great nap. i think the noise from the fan in her room helped. i have it on now to see if she will sleep better tonight.
then chris got home from the gym and we all went to dinner with grace's family. it was fun, but the kids were wired. and then to top it all off we decided to go to get ice cream after...that is where we ran into the too much of a good thing situation.

in zaven's defense it was an hour and a half after his bedtime and he had been at the beach for several hours. anyway we had a good time.

tomorrow we are scheduled for a harbor cruise with some folks and then sunday we are headed up to maine to visit some friends. should be great.

sorry no pictures.

picnic

i love a picnic.
so yesterday i planned one with some friends of zaven's and we had a great time.
we met at sachuest at 12:30 and walked maybe .5 miles to the water. it was three moms and5 kids including nell. the kids had a great time walking on the rocks, their "kingdoms". and the moms sat and ate and chatted. the weather was nice and it is a beautiful spot.



we took the long way back, which made it maybe a little too far, there was a lot of whining on the walk back.
but then grace came home with us for a little while. zaven has been missing his friends. so it was fun for them to play some more.

dinner was going to be salmon, but i decided not to go to the fish market with three kids, and thought i would just make some chicken that i have, then i ultimatley decided i would order a pizza.

nell is doing great. she has a new trick, if you put her down in the den she crawls over to the stereo and turns it up really loud and then sits there and flaps her arms. pretty funny. she is so fast. she is still most interested in standing.

not sure what today holds for us.
i am feeling the need for some cleaning and organization in the kitchen den area, the mountain of mail from the time away has left us covered up with paper. time to purge.

fall already?

i know this will be hard for some of you to hear, but it is cool and lovely here. zaven keeps asking me if it is fall. the high today is 69.

we had a good day yesterday. played here in the morning, zaven and i made cupcakes while nell napped. then we headed out for some errands. chris' bars that he eats were on sale at bjs, i finally took the camera to capture how cute zaven and nell are sitting next to each other in the cart.


we also had the excitement of getting school supplies for zaven.
his pre-k starts on sept 5th and he got a letter from his teacher, ms kirsten, telling him he needed a box, washable markers, crayons, glue stick, glue bottle, fat pencil, some tissues and a snack to share. he was so excited about getting the mail and then getting to go shopping for his supplies. we found everything, with the exception of the fat pencil. zaven also decided that he wanted to write his teacher a letter to tell her he was excited for school, so we put that in the mail.

we had hoped to get a playdate together with bennett, but that never happened.

later in the day, when daddy got home, zaven and nell plagued him while he was trying to practice his guitar, nell thought it was a drum.

note zaven's wardrobe change, he loves his shortalls that grammy gave him, and at some point changed into them, sans shirt, and then wound up freezing during dinner, only to go upstairs during dinner to get something warm, changed into pj top, cozy pants and a scarf! then on his way back down, tripped and fell down the stairs. he was not hurt. when i ran to see if he was okay, it cracked me up to find him with his scarf on. sorry i dont have a picture of the whole outfit, plaid pants, penguin shirt, striped scarf....

we had indian spiced chicken last night, i had made it one other time, but had forgotten how good it was, so yummy, and easy.

today we are headed to sachuest for a pic nic. sydney and her mom erin are coming and hopefully grace and her mom. i am making egg salad and have some fresh tomatoes thata parishioner brought us, yum. we will also take cupcakes to share.

have a great day.
le

on her own two feet

nell is all about crawling over to a chair, table, couch, leg, whatever, to pull up and cruise. looks like she will be walking in no time.
she is very busy.

we had a good day yesterday. church was nice. there were 5 baptisms. a great coffee hour. nice to see all the parishioners.
we were thrilled to learn that we got tickets to the us open on august 31st. so we are headed to the city and to see some amazing tennis. so excited. we are not sure if we are staying over, taking nell etc. but we are looking forward to it.

here is a cute picture of the kids from the beach.

welcome back, where have you been?

well, we are finally back home.
we had a great time being away.
we went to TN first and had a great visit there.
brice picked us up at the airport in atlanta, got to have dinner at taqueria with friends, so fun!
goofed around in chattanooga. poppy took zaven to fred's barber shop for a haircut. it was fun and zaven's new "big boy" haircut looks great.

lexie and kendall came up to visit for the weekend and that was so fun. zaven and kevin and alexander all played. we went swimming,


got ice cream, went on the carousel,

and played in the water park.
one classic story was pam and lexie had taken zaven to go pick up alexander from camp and then we were all meeting for ice cream. on the way frm camp alexander,8, was explaining to zaven what a spedometer was and zaven finally jumped in and said "i have NO idea what you are talking about" and alexander replied "i know, that is why i am trying to tell you in simple terms". they had a good time, in spite of the the age/knowledge gap.
we had a great time at the party milla threw for everyone that was in town and around. a group of about 20.

then on wednesday ginny came with the three kids and we had a blast. the kids had a successful lemonade stand.

they made $9 in a very short amount of time. we had to close up shop after running out mid-order. but it was a fun activity.

after a fun time in chattanooga, and chris' arrival after a 17hr, drive staight from ri, we headed down to FL and had a great two weeks there.
lots of swimming. lots of reading. lots of sun. grammy and papa came down on friday and the kids were thrilled. as were chris and i. we were able to go out to dinner and lunch, just the two of us, which was nice.
after two weeks there, it was time to drive home...
it was really not that bad. we drove from FL to TN, then TN to the very top of VA and then VA to home.

we are now home and getting back into the swing of things.
i will try to get back on the blog. and keep you up to date on our goings on here.

we are headed up to sachuest for a family walk in a few minutes and are having gazpacho and cheese toast for dinner.

p.s. i have not given you a thoughtful recap of our whole trip. we saw so many people and had a great time. i have not mentioned everything or everyone. i only had a minute and just wanted to get something up.
le

and now we pack

after the dinner party on friday we had a ton of leftovers, and the house was still clean, so we decided to have some more people over for dinner. we had a great time.

then sunday we had church and i went to the finals of the tennis tournament at the tennis hall of fame. my big start sighting was



bud collins.
it was my first professional match. while i have met arthur ashe, rod laver annd stan smith i had never seen them play in person. it was exciting.

on friday nell and zaven helped in the kitchen. at one point i thought nell was about to crawl, she was on all fours, i grabbed the camera, but by the time i made it back she had dropped to her tummy.



she has two bottom teeth now, and bites!

now we are starting to get ready for our trip.
le