Dangerously Close to a Month without updates!

My mom bought the coolest box of dress up clothes.  Elliot had a great time trying on all the pretty dresses.  My dad took the awesome photo above of our little dancing madrigal.  Sooo, yes, dangerously close to a month without a post.  But hey, we have been busy.  Ben went to Belgium and Brussels, then I went to Panama & Brazil, then we all went to Milwaukee and Wonder Lake for Labor Day.  Its been great fun...but really, where did summer go?  Some of the trees are turning already.  Hopefully, now that we have ourselves a Kassi, I will post again before the first snowfall. 

Sammy has taking a liking to somebody's pirate hat.   Arrrghn't she pretty?

Spoils of summer dinner - heirloom tomato tart, grilled asparagus, grilled lime chili chicken, and cake!  To hear Samantha say "Cake" is the cutest.  

Elliot is a girly girl.   It happened without us realizing it.  Definitely has her own style and is taking a deep interest in dressing herself.  I realized when trying to find clothes for their school pictures that they have really great coats, but not so much regular clothes.   It was nearly impossible for me to find clothes on picture day that fit my minimum criteria, that were 1) clean 2) not made out of sweats or t-shirt material, 3) did not have words or character photos on them, and 4) were uniquely their own, or at least not obviously previously Charlie's or Alice's or Elliot's for Samantha.  Once again, good thing we have a Kassi now...but I digress.  I just love these 2 outfits Elliot picked out for herself.  Keep in mind it is August and not really all that cold out when these were taken. 

The boat!  We got to go out on cousin Emily's boat on the Fox River and lakes.  It was awesome.  The girls LOVED it and were really into the wind in their hair.  And into the goldfish too.  The ones in the Pepperidge Farm bag that is.  

Elliot is mugging it up with Auntie Kassi & Auntie Jessie at the ski show.   
Ben took my dad's scull out on the lake before sunset.  I switched to video when it became obvious he was a bit tall for the boat and maybe was not going to make it to shore.  But, no $10K prize for us.  He stayed in the boat. 
Oooooh, spooky picture to remind you that Halloween is coming.  That is a dewy spiderweb.

And yes, we went back to the 50th Anniversary and reunion for the current and my former Wonder Lake Water Ski Show Team.  The first ski show for my new nuclear family...and we all loved it, even if I lost Elliot during intermission and we all had to search for her for 3 scary minutes before finding her and she slept through the second act.  Oh, and she wasn't missing for 3 minutes, it was probably more like 10, but we didn't notice for the first 7...thanks for calling me "Mother of the Year" Kassi...noted.

Elliot's First Haircut

That is right.  FIRST haircut.  37 months of hair.   Hair that started off almost black, never fell out, and turned into this.  It was time.  She was getting dreadlocky if we let it go too long between shampoos.  Who? Us?  So we packed it up and went to the local mall in search of Snip Its.  Well, its not at the mall, its at the strip mall near the mall, but not actually at the mall.  Snip-its was all the things I heard it was, and more.  And I did not hear many good things, other than, it seems to be the necessary evil.  Ben and I must have driven our "stylist" - I use that generously - a bit batty with our micro-managing.  "You might want to use a different comb.  You might want to spray that part.  You'll never get that knot out.  Are you really planning to cut her hair dry, without washing it?!  Umm, no you can't cut off 3 inches."  Finally we laid back and let her do her thing.  Which included combing Elliot's hair straight back and then cutting it straight across.  Well, any of us could have done that.  Which, is again, what I had heard about Snipits, which is why I should not have been surprised, but I was.  The most surprising part was after this feat, she pulled Elliot's wet hair back into a lumpy ponytail and sent her on her way.  We wear the lumpy ponytail on the days we want to hide our hair - what was this woman trying to hide?  Fortunately for us, nothing.  It looks great.  If not 3 inches shorter.  You'll note this post is missing the expected "After" shot.  Well, it really was just a ponytail.  And Samantha dropped her sucker on the hairy floor mat so we had to wrangle it from her on our way out and forgot to take the picture.  

 

 

 

 

Stylish 70s jumper, no?  Where are the roller skates?

The Beach 2009

Why, why do we drive there and back again?

Samantha in her Brazilian Rhinestone bikini.

Crab night! They don't seem to care that we chase crabs on the beach and then whack them with hammers for dinner.

The famous 3-High Heywood Pyramid. Next year, if Ellie can swim, we are going 4 high.

If any of you see this guy on Newbury Street, give him a buck or two from us. He let's the kids play violin and has a tip cup that says 10 cents. We meant to give him a much more generous donation, but between the 2 of us, we had 44 cents - so that's what we gave him.  

Below Elliot practices her photo skills on Sam at the Make Way for Ducklings on our Boston vacation day after the beach.

We were slow to post The Beach pictures this year - though we took a hundred of them they all look roughly the same as the ones last year and the year before that...same swimsuits even. Not that we didn't have a great time, we did, we just were not inspired photographers.

The Farm 2009

We all loved the farm. A lot. But Samantha, now, she embraced it like no other. She has the gardening and farming and landscaping from both sides of the family and clearly we have been holding her back as a city slicker. Sure, Elliot has the same genes, but she was not sitting in the vegetable patch eating dirt and leaves and roots and anything else she could stuff in her mouth. She was not stamping her boots and pointing and grunting until someone got her a kitten to hold. She was not climbing fences and saying "moo moo" over and over. She was not tantrumming unconsolably until someone put her back aboard Molly the pony for hours on end. Samantha, she is a farmer at heart.

Elliot checks out Trevor's cabbage. We should all be so lucky if we had access to this farmer's market of veggies.

Elliot with Marmalade the kitten.

David and Naomi Gilkerson, the reason we were all there, celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. 60th! Thanks to all the Gilkersons for such great hospitality and allowing us to run free through every nook and cranny!

On the bench getting ready to light some more fireworks.

Elliot takes a turn with a kitten.

More firework watching.

Samantha and Molly the horse, reunited the morning after she became obsessed with him.

More kittens. But really, babies and kittens. So hard to resist.

Alex gets ready to go out on the horse trails.

We were not going out for the ride, everyone else was, but while they saddled up, Phoebe held the reigns and let Samantha sit on Molly for about 25 minutes - Elliot hopped on for the photo only.

The Jerseydale Farm truck. Awesome mobile.

At the McCory Gardens, we were amazed and awed by the beautiful garden that resulted from Jean Pederson's efforts to bring the original plantings of her (and Ben's) great great grandfather, Neils Hansen, to the garden, and touched by the plaque for David & Naomi in the garden. Neils Hansen introduced several species of plants to the US for the first time from his expeditions to Russia and beyond. Crab Apple trees and many variety of roses...and I am not at all doing justice to the research Jean made so accessible to us (see the program Elliot is holding, and the story board below.)

These are Ben's mom's siblings, who grew up on the farm we were visiting. Carol, Jane, Naomi (married David 60 years ago!), Peggy, Laura, and David

Samantha at ease.

Picking, planting and eating. We handed her some pea shoots and maybe that's what set her off. They were tasty and she wanted to find more. But who can tell the difference between pea shoot and grass clipping at 16 months?

Just back from checking on and feeding the piggies.

A little broccoli cone out in the fields.

Samantha and Molly.

Tractoring off into the sunset.

I can't believe I did not post any pictures of the Bag Swing or of the jillions of relatives...but if you are hungry for more, you can find our entire 400+ weekend on the links below.

Jul 4, 2009

Click on these little pictures (July 4, 2009 and The Farm 2009) for links to the entire album.

The Farm 2009