Apple Picking Trip in New England

Bella and I went on her nursery school's annual apple picking field trip yesterday. Kind of a misty, cool day - a real switch from last year, when it was blazing hot.

Drew is prepared... (Bella thinks he's wicked funny.)



Yum! Though, while we were picking apples, the mosquitoes were out in force - we need a good frost to kill those little suckers off.

Some fall color for niece Timothea, who is missing it while living in the U.K. It's just getting started here...
Classic New England stone wall.

They had a little farm area for the kids to run around in, too, after we picked apples.


Comparing pumpkins with her friend Regan...

Neat. If we ever have a farm, she can handle the tractor-driving duties. :)

A really fun trip, and it certainly makes it feel like fall!

Hippity Hoppity

Just had to post a quick picture...




LOL! Carlos picked Bella up from preschool today (Conall hasn't been feeling well - and teething to boot, poor thing - so I've been staying home with him on me all morning). Now I wish I had picked her up, just to see all the kids coming out with their bunny ears on...

She had her yearly checkup yesterday! Insanely healthy, as always, and still holding steady at 90%ile height (she's tall, like both of us; Conall, too, so far) and 80%ile weight. Passed her vision and hearing tests with flying colors, too. And she got two immunizations, bummer. She was very brave about them (and the nurse was wicked fast, it was nice), but her thighs are a little sore today, poor thing.

Skiing! Hooray!

So, we've been skiing on Sundays a bit this winter, just popping up to little Pat's Peak to give Ms. B a bit of an introduction to the sport. It's a friendly little mountain, very nice for kids, and has some nice little steep runs for Carlos and I, too.

But this past weekend, we got up to Stowe, for the first time in FIVE YEARS. I can't believe it's been that long... We used to have season passes there, and rent a house with friends (hi to Doug and Sarah!!), but that was before Ms. B and Mr. C. They've put a bit of a damper on the skiing thing, especially since Stowe is a bit over three hours away.

The Quad, on Saturday morning - the "nose" of Mt. Mansfield is in a bit of clouds.



This is partway down from the quad. It's always hard to get a good perspective of the steepness of a trail with a camera... This is a relatively mild blue (intermediate) run at Stowe. I think I'd forgotten what skiing a real mountain is like. The double black (expert only) race trail at Pats that I was having fun on would rate pretty much with the more difficult blue runs at Stowe. Pats is cute, but its a toy mountain! And one run at Stowe (they're loooong runs) is about equal to four at Pats. My thighs were burning!

Man was it good to be back on difficult terrain - yes, I do ski the black runs at Stowe. And I have skied all the Front Four (including Goat, which is nuts), but not on this trip, I'm still too out of shape. Depressing, but true.


Bella on her first chair lift! That's the new Inspiration Quad over at Spruce Peak (also part of Stowe - nice that beginners have a completely separate place to learn, basically). Spruce is in the midst of a HUGE construction project. New lodge, new housing, shops, an ice rink, new lifts, it's all going to be gorgeous from the looks of it. Main Street (run down the middle of Spruce, used to be completely 'wild' snow - no grooming and no snowmaking) looks completely different. There is a HUGE half pipe, all sorts of big jumps, and a new, much faster, lift.

The changes are interesting. I'm used to Stowe being kind of funky classy, almost eccentric. I'm hoping it won't lose all of that vibe with the improvements... Definitely really like the Over Easy Gondola that connects the two mountains. I actually had time to scoot over to Mansfield and get some snowboarding in while Bella was in her lesson on Sunday morning.



Bella, after her first-ever ski lesson with a real live instructor. Tired, but really happy. And she's learning so much! (I'm all proud, the instructor raved about how coordinated she is - she's still just three, after all, for a couple more weeks...)



Conall says - hey, I have ski pants, why am I stuck in the lodge while you guys get to have all the fun?? Got to learn how to walk on your own, first, little man... (My kids are late walkers.)

Carlos, after tele skiing on Saturday afternoon while Conall, Bella and I hung out at our hotel: "If I could have one day a year of skiing like that, I'd be a happy man..." I think that means he had a good time.

I was a bit worried about his back (he had pretty major back surgery in the summer of '06 - while I was pregnant and about three weeks before we flew to France, insane!), but it held up really well. His days of hucking off jumps and such on his snowboard are probably over (really kind of sad, wah, poor guy, he's so coordinated and graceful on his board and skis) (I hit a couple of little natural kickers for him on Sunday in the powder, just for fun, lol), but he can still telemark like a demon!

We're heading back up this coming weekend, for four days this time! Whhhheeeee!

Stay tuned - I need to post about meeting a fellow EtsyFAST team member!

Snow Day!

So, after a week or so of grey, rainy, yucky winter weather, we got a little snow this morning. Hooray! It looks all nice and pretty and white out again (though it's that really heavy, wet snow - great for snowballs, not so great to shovel).

Bella's preschool was cancelled today, so she's been outside playing:

Snow sculpture! How fun....

On a Posting Role...

I seem to be on a role with the posting thing lately, so I thought I'd keep it up.

Here's a picture to keep you a little interested, lol:

Somebody thinks his big sister is the best thing EVER.

Goofball.

On weaving fronts - Carlos was at work today (sigh) so I got zip accomplished. Managed to sew up another pillow during the goofball's (very short) naptime, though, using interfacing this time and it is much much better. It will be in my shop as soon as I can manage photos of it...

Raining Leaves!

The Weavers' Guild of Boston sale went really well (I sold more than I expected to!), and I will post photos, but, for now, I had to post about the crazy leaf rain out back today...


The leaves are a bit later this year than normal, and we have a Norway maple in our back yard (they have been classified as a weed species, eeks - a normal looking maple, shorter and more full than sugar maples, terrible root system - can't plant anything anywhere near them - and the leaves do change, but not as brilliantly as sugar maples).

ANYWAY. The Norway maple out back has been really slow to change this year, but it finally has, and this morning, after a couple cold nights, as soon as the sun hit the leaves they started just *pouring* off the tree! It was hilarious! About 1/3 of the leaves fell in the space of about a half hour!

So, I plopped Conall into them - we have a set of photos of Bella from right around the same age, also sitting in the leaves, but, here's a couple of Mr. Conall (ten months old today!):



OK, let's see if I can find one from Bella... This is from October, 2004, and she is eight months old, just about on the nose:



That was fun. :) The light was better in the pictures of her. And I probably should have cropped a couple of the ones of him (lazy)... But I do think they look alike, though she had more hair than him! :) (And it was red then, too, obviously, his is light brown, but I think it will wind up darker, more like mine.)

Mobile Baby

Hey, guess who has really started to crawl?

Yup, Carlos. (Just kidding - Conall, of course.) It's great to see, of course, but at the same time... Yikes! This kid already manages to get into *everything* it's going to be insane keeping up with him once he really gets going. I have no idea if this is early/late/average to be crawling (he's about 8 1/2 months and quite the pudge)... Bella didn't crawl until she was almost ready to walk (she walked late - talked insanely early, but walked very late) - she scooted around on her bum instead! Very funny, if you've never seen a kid do it, it's hilarious. It also has the side benefit of being quite a bit slower than crawling (i.e. easier to run block...) Conall has also started saying "Ta-Da!" once in a while when he picks up something like a Cheerio, while holding it up victoriously. Probably doesn't count as a first word, but it's very cute. Funny little man.

Big Girl

Oh my goodness. Ms. B had her first day of preschool today (just a twenty minute orientation, but still...):

(Please kindly ignore the really messy kitchen in the background, just remembered to snap this photo on our way out the door!)

Random Stuff and Kumihimo

So, Sox fans, how about that Jon Lester?? Whoo-hoo! So proud of him! (For those of you who aren't part of Red Sox Nation, lol - Jon Lester is a very talented, *very* young pitcher (21? 22?) for the Red Sox who was diagnosed with cancer - lymphoma - last fall. He underwent treatment over the off-season, made a complete recovery, has been working his way through our minor league system and made his first start last night against the Cleveland Indians - and he did great!)

OK, onto other topics. This little guy visited us again yesterday:



That's a woodpecker, attacking our garage! LOL - I was wondering where those holes in the trim came from... How weird. Wonder if there's something living in there for him to eat?? Yikes, there's a scary thought. Another thing to add to the list of repairs we need to do in our copious spare time. HA.

Lastly, something fiber-related! So, I've always thought Kumihimo (Japanese braiding/cord-making technique) is really neat. Finally got around to making some cord from some of my bamboo yarn:

Hmm. Well. Ms. B decided she wanted to be in the picture, so it's kind of hard to see the braid, lol. That's ok, it's just kind of ok. Trying to think of what to do with it. So far, it's made an excellent cat toy, Madeline loves pouncing it. I am thinking of making a bracelet and earrings out of it - exactly the sort of thing I'd wear...