Thursday, July 23, 2015

Audrey's Second Birthday Party


Our youngest grand-daughter celebrated her  birthday last week.  Her birthday is really June 11 - but she was sick that weekend!  So the party was postponed and actually held on her Daddy's 35th birthday.

Someone brought a bubble machine 


Which Audrey loved


And so did the other kids....Jamie and Emily



Part of the big excitement of the day was the "Big Reveal" where we found out if Audrey was having a little brother or a little sister.

We all guessed....the voting was 50/50


And it's a Girl!!!




Then it was time for a little cake....or a giant cupcake


A little lift to blow out the candle


A bit cleaner than last year!



Although Dad got a nice messy hug before he 
had a chance to wipe her up!


There was very little gift opening because everyone  had given Audrey her gifts closer to her real birthday.   I saved a couple for the party.

Audrey loved the card we gave her because it had Olaf singing!  She was curious to find out where the voice was coming from!



I surprised Nick by giving Audrey the doll that Nick had as a child....all washed up with home-made clothes.   "Tommy" was  a member of the family!


Doug Kara and Emily relax in the grass.


Kelly's Mom and Emily and I helped Audrey with her "Frozen" memory game.


Audrey can name all the characters!


Auntie Jamie plays a game of chase!


A beautiful girl 2 year old!


Four generation photo of Great Grampy, Daddy, Audrey and Memere.




Monday, July 20, 2015

Dirty Girl 2015

Jamie and I had so much fun the first time we did the Dirty Girl Mud Run, we decided to do it again!   Unfortunately, it wasn't in nearby Amesbury.  We signed up for the event in Killington, VT.   That didn't seem so far away until we drove there!  Over two hours each way......a little too far.

When we got there, despite paying $10 for parking, they had us park on the side of the road and hike uphill about a 1/2 mile to get to the start.  Not an auspicious beginning!


We wore the same t-shirts as last time....they say "Big or Small, Save Them All!"   The Dirty Girl donates some of the proceeds to Breast Cancer Research, so we ran in honor of my Mom.


After the usual check-in shenanigans, we joined the next wave - and we were off!


We stayed clean for a surprising amount of time at the beginning.

Over the Ten Foot (maybe Eight....not sure!) wall!



Jamie's philosophy is to be as goofy as possible to get her picture taken often....and it works!



I believe at the bottom of this slide is where we finally landed in a puddle of mud!


There were many, many hills.  Jamie was very patient with me as I huffed and puffed up each one.  



I took this one a single step at a time....Jamie ran from one end to the other...I thought I was going to get run over!


Here's a spot where we got a bit muddy!




And I got to show a little attitude for the camera!


All in all it was a great time.  Nothing like getting muddy with my favorite daughter!




My Prize








Monday, July 6, 2015

The Berkshires

My super-wonderful Hubby got me tickets to Tanglewood for Christmas.....for James Taylor on the Fourth of July!  As usual, we made a nice little mini-vacation out of it.

We left on Friday morning and stopped at our favorite breakfast place, Parker's, on the way out.  From there we got onto the Mohawk Trail.   This road is really Route 2, and it extends the length of Massachusetts.  My fabulous AAA lady (me!) picked up a Mohawk Trail brochure that showed some of the places to stop along the way.

Our first stop was Greenfield so we could see the Poet's Seat Tower, so named to honor a long tradition of poets being drawn to the spot.




Continuing on, we stopped in Shelburne Falls to see the Bridge of Flowers  - very inspiring!







It's a quaint, cute little town with shops and art galleries.  We also saw the Glacial Potholes 


We ended our day at MoCA - the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA 


We didn't bring the camera in because we figured they wouldn't allow pictures....but they did.  So it was a shame we didn't have it because most of the things we saw were indescribable  - they are so weird!  Hubby loved it!

The highlight of my time there was getting a call from the HR lady saying I had gotten my promotion to Assistant Manager at work - she wanted to give me the good news even though it was my day off because she wanted me to have a nice weekend!

It was getting late and time to head to our Bed and Breakfast.   You can sometimes take your chances with a B and B....you never know what you're going to get.  This one turned out to be a gem!


When we called for directions the owner, Bruce, said to turn at the orange lilies....he wasn't kidding!


He and his wife Joanne were fabulous hosts.  The room was lovely:



They had homemade cookies out at night for a snack, as well as some brandy.    In the morning they served a 3 course breakfast.  Yum!

Saturday was raining, with everyone checking the weather constantly to see if it would clear up before the concert.   Hubby and I wiled away the time by going to downtown Stockbridge.


Hubby got some good deals on some used records. Unfortunately the junk store he loves to go to was having a going-out-of-business sale.   We browsed some of the other shops and it continued to rain so we decided to go to the Norman Rockwell Museum...another favorite place.  Even though we've gone there every time we are in the Berkshires we still love it!

Finally it was time to head out to the main event! Unbelievably,the rain stopped right at 4pm when the gates opened to the public.


The place was completely packed!!


It seemed like just about every spot of lawn was taken. However, we went over to our "usual" spot and managed to squeeze our two lawn chairs and our cooler into a perfect place to see the big screen.



And what a concert!!  James Taylor sounds just as wonderful in person as  he does on his recordings.  He sang old songs and new songs and kept the audience in the palm of his hand!   We had a wonderful time!


And the evening was capped off with fireworks!


But wait...there's more!

On Sunday we left the B and B and went to Great Barrington to a wonderful and very inspiring craft fair.   And, because Hubby has always wanted to go there, we headed back up to the Mohawk Trail and went to the Clark Museum in Williamstown.


Their special exhibit was Van Gogh......they did a whole timeline of all his life's works.   And they had some beautiful Impressionists and lots of other artists too.   And right now they have on loan from Paris...."Whistler's Mother".


We spent a little bit of time outside near their new reflecting pool.


We finally headed home but not before making one more stop.  Somewhere along the way they have a statue of a Native American called "Hail to the Sunrise" so we had to stop and see that.



It was a wonderful weekend and so nice to have a mini-vaca with Hubby!