Trip to Newport

Last week the kids had a couple of days off school, so we went on a quick road trip to Newport, Rhode Island. For Michael and the older kids, it was their first trip back since we moved almost six years ago.

It was not a good picture weekend, but I thought I'd post a few anyway.

Hand over the Worst Mom in the World Award

I'll be holding onto it for a while.

Now that we have wall space (hallelujah!), we decided it was about time to unpack the framed pictures that have been in storage since we moved to Vermont six years ago next month.

We had two boxes of framed prints and one box that held a large piece of original art given us by Michael's parents. As I opened the box, I was surprised to find, cushioning the artwork, a pillow and . . . IM's star blankie.

You know, the one that was a match of NB's star blankie? The one we thought we had left in a hotel? The one we scolded her for leaving behind?

Yeah, that one.

I have weird kids

Maybe I should make this a running series of posts.

Today's entry is courtesy of LW.

Last night he insisted we play "ghost firefighter spiders" before dinner. Yes, you read that right. Ghost is because it's almost Halloween. Firefighter comes from the fire safety assembly at school last week. I don't know why he decided on spiders.

At the moment, he is pretending his Duplo tractor is a baby ant. We must pet the truck and say how cute the baby ant is.

Communication Failure

As an innkeeper, I say the same phrases over and over, year after year. Check in is anytime after 3. Check out is at 11. We do take pets in most rooms. Do you have an email address we can use to send a confirmation?

And then there are times when the usual phrase fails to communicate.

Me: And would you like to hold the room with an American Express, MasterCard, or Visa?
Guest: You only take American Express?
Me, more slowly: We take American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.
Guest: Well, I have a MasterCard, but it's from Citibank.

I assured her that would be fine.

Labor Day Hike

Labor Day morning, the kids and I hiked up to a popular lookout. We had planned to hike up around lunchtime and have a picnic, but the noxious odors of the spray-on insulation drove us out of the house earlier in the morning.

My hiking companions were, from left to right:

• An avid naturalist who insisted on pointing out every single fungus we saw. Twice (coming and going).
• An almost-ten-year-old drama queen who forgot to bring her sweatshirt and was therefore chilly.
• A teenager who figured that since Michael wasn't there, the position of male parent was his to fill, thus setting off the drama queen.
• A three-year-old who attempted to stomp on every fungus he saw, thus setting off the naturalist (who nevertheless continued to loudly call attention to every fungus).
  

Our time on the ledge admiring the view and petting all the dogs (quite a few valley residents and visitors also decided to do that hike on Monday), calmed everyone down, and the hike back to the car was quite pleasant. LW did the entire 2.2 miles by himself.

Here are two examples of the fungi we saw:




As you can see, we are still in the beginning of foliage season.

Chip off the Old Block

LW: Mama, guess what I'm planning.
Me: What are you planning?
LW: A trip to Disney!

Constructing the addition--End of Week 8

We have siding!




And insulation! (K and S, does this look familiar?)