Childhood dreams!

The other day Zaven said,
"Mom, I think I know what I want to be when I grow up"
I said,
"Oh great- what's that bud?"
Zaven said,
"I want to be a Zoo Keeper"

Without missing a beat Nell said,
"And I want to ride pigs"

I have NO idea where she came up with that. But it really cracked me up.

The kids had dentist appointments today. They both got good reports.
I guess Nell refused to get into the reclining chair so they cleaned her teeth while she sat in another small chair.

Zaven heads back to swim lessons tomorrow. They seem to be going well - he is getting more confident.

We are finally having a good stretch of nice weather. It is a nice change.

Kite Festival

We had a great time at the Newport Kite Festival today.
It was a beautiful day and the festival is held at a park on Ocean Drive.
There were a LOT of kites and we had a great time watching. There was one guy who flew three kites at once and did some amazing tricks.

Then this afternoon Chris had a wedding at Castle Hill and the kids and I went to Sweet Berry Farm and got dinner and went to 3rd beach for a dinner picnic. We had a great time.





Close up of Nell

Happy 4th of July

Hope everyone has a great 4th. Love and miss you.

more cute pics from yesterday

Great day

Well, the sun finally came out after what seemed like an eternity of rain and overcast days.
We made good use of it.
We started with a hike at the Bird Sanctuary- to Hanging Rock.
We had a great time, we were there for over 2 hours.
Then we came home and made some lunch, Nell went down for her nap and Zaven and I went to the grocery store. After Nell woke up, Chris had to go visit someone in the hospital in Providence and the kids and I went to the playground for about 2 hours.
We played basketball, road bikes, scooters, played on the swings, playground, ran races, did time trials, you name it!

Then we came home, the kids had dinner. Chris and I went out to dinner at some friends, We had a great time and the sitter said the kids did well.

No plans for tomorrow, Though I will say that I would love to play some tennis!

Here are some pics from today.
Our little tree huggers


the view from Hanging Rock


silly Nell


we had a lot of fun- but there were moments that were not perfect :)


but those not so perfect moments passed....

SVF Open House today!

Today is the one day of the year that the SVF Foundation opens it's grounds to the public.
We were lucky enough to go last year and it was one of our favorite things, and this year a friend let us know it was going to be open today. so we made plans to attend and had another great time.
The place is called SVF Foundation their mission is to preserve germplasm (embryos, semen, and genetic material) of rare and endandgered breeds of livestock. But that is only part of the story. It is housed in this neat hilly section and the buildings are modeled on an old Swiss Villiage. Causing many people to assume that SVF- stands for Swiss Village Farm. Really it stands for Surprise Valley Farm.

It was a great day, beautiful weather and a lot of fun.

Nell and Zaven waiting to watch the sheep be shorn




Nell doing the funny thing she does when she is a little frightened. There was a golf cart coming on a gravel path and made a lot of noise- she is funny.

The Village, the staff of the foundation lives on sight in these great buildings



Nell looking at some of the chickens, there were some babies. Several very cool varieties.

There was a small garden

Zaven on the trolley- also one of the kids favorite parts of the day riding on the trolley up to the farm

New pics

We had a great time playing mini-golf for Zaven's party




Zaven continues to love t-ball. He had a game tonight



And a couple of cute pics of Nell from Easter that were on Chris' camera