A day in the life...

Nothing exciting, and no pictures since Blogger is periodically death on loading those, but I thought I'd let you all know that we are still ticking along here. I know that the sleight ride has not jingled into the blog yet, but I did get the pictures out of Erin's e-mail last night, so that's a step in the right direction.

Erin is in Chile for two weeks so Elena and I are, for the moment, flying solo. Nana, responding to an urgent summons on the bat phone, arrives Tuesday to bail me out so the situation will soon be well in hand, thank goodness. It was quite a weekend. Yesterday we shopped, and shopped, and drove (lots of driving) but we still didn't get it all done. This morning, crafty as ever, we hustled right out at the bright and early hour of 10:00 AM while the undergrads were still abed and got the last of our things done. Good thing, by the time we got home our rising bread was ready for the oven, with the undergraduate friction factor slowing us down we would have been in big trouble.

Bread into oven. Next project, compost pile. With Elena's help I bent a piece of concrete reinforcing wire into a cylinder (not one you find in the parenting magazines, but really quite popular with the kids) and then lined it with some old chicken wire we found in the woods (living next to an old garbage dump has some cost saving advantages). Along the way we discovered that a wad of old chicken wire, stamped into a rectangle about the size of a door mat, makes a killer boot cleaner. And when it gums up, just chuck it, it cost peanuts (or free in our case). While I made a lid out of part of an old pallet and a big aluminum tray (yes, another gem from the dump) Elena tried her hand at hammering and had her inaugural finger whacking. Ice and cuddles later we took our completed composting cylinder outside and shoveled our moldering leaf pile, part of it anyway, into the cylinder.

Now we had completed all the prerequisites for the real chore of the morning, scraping out the pigeon loft. Also not found in many parenting magazines, but really, really a huge hit with the kids (or at least ours) and it has the added bonus of reducing the chance she'll grow up with allergies (that's right, an hour a week moving poop around with your hands and a taping knife keeps your immune system plenty busy without it having to invent things to freak out about). Loft clean, poop in compost, time to get the birds clean. Back up to the house for the bath pan and two gallons of water. I poured one, Elena poured one -- the birds got 1.5 gallons to bathe in. No bath last week so they were all champing at the bit. By the time we made it up to the house to make lunch and watch through the window all 27 were trying to cram into the 21" diameter tub. Pretty funny.

Lunch followed by rest, but not sleeping. Elena burnt out on resting just as the dishes got finished. Trouble. My nap plan was cleaning the bathrooms. With mom coming I need to make it look like a house where an adult resides, not the indoor squirrel farm of a bachelor and toddler who live like wolves (OK, we don't actually farm squirrels in our house, but see page 2B of the Montgomerey County Examiner). Unfortunately cleaning bathrooms with pre-school age help is some place where I draw the line. Organic nasties are fine, but toxic cleaning chemicals are only for those of us who have finished our educations and can afford to sacrifice a few brain cells. So Elena played by herself while I did one bathroom. Then we went out to test drive my bike which is, finally (and another blogworthy event, just later) road worthy. Bike passed check ride with flying colors so we added saddle bags and will ride to school tomorrow. Then a couple of laps up and down the hill on Elena's trike and it was time to whip up a little dinner.

Elena went in for painting while I cooked and proceeded to hit the wall about the time we figured out that you really could do a passable job painting with beet juice and Nana and Big Opa called. Fortunately, talking on the phone managed to back her off the wall long enough for me to get dinner on the table. Dinner, bath, stories, bed, dishes. Second bathroom clean, basement presentable for Nana. Upstairs awaiting tomorrow or arrival of cleaning fairy. Stay at home parents and single parents deserve all the accolades they [don't] get. Managing a household is a full time job. Clearly whoever outlawed polygamy had hired household help, there are definitely days when 3 or 4 adults seems about the right number to manage a household with _a_ child in it.

That's it. Folding laundry on ergonomic software breaks and really, really angling for sleep.

Oh, by the way, as far as I know no one has actually been found, at least in our county, farming squirrels in their home. Now you all can sleep easier, as can I.

Snow!

Way behind on news and photgraphic updates. It seems that too many noteworthy things happen on vacation. The most noteworthy of this trip north was SNOW. Not flurries, not a dusting, not a few inches. But snow, **real** snow. The kind like "from when I was a kid" (yes, I now keep my teeth in a glass when I sleep). It has been a long, long time since Wilton, Maine saw the kind of white Christmas we had the luck to enjoy last month.

Snowy event #1 was the finding of the Sewall family Christmas tree and snow angel making.





Snowy event #2 was a trip to the ski hill of my youth, Titcomb Mountain. Erin and I spent a lovely afternoon skiing full coverage, 100% natural snow.

Here is Erin ripping up the new, improved, uniform grade Otter Slide on legs that were discovering the joys of T-bars for the first time. I was in training for skiing with kids as T-bars work much better with people who have similar hip heights. Since I don't have exceptionally short legs with a freakishly long torso, Erin and I don't fit that bill. Oh my aching back.




A day of rain, and then Christmas, got in the way of any more serious snow play. But the day after Christmas, we were back at it sledding with Colby and Brayden. Neither Brayden nor Elena was thrilled with the downhill prospect, but Colby and I tested the theory that older, better padded posteriers are more comfortable for sledding down hard, bumpy runs. Test suggest that that either that theory is total bunk or Colby and I didn't do a good enough job padding over the holidays.





Erin, on the other hand, gave Dick Austin's snowmobile a try and looks to have had quite a good time!



Next stop, with a few fresh inches on the ground, a visit to Aunt Sue and a climb up Beech Hill in the afternoon sun. The setting and sun were beautiful, but yours truly got his exercise making sure the photographer was always in the right place at the right time.





And then the snow really started falling, and falling, and falling. Which means that what you get to do is....



Shovel!

Fortunately Elena was pretty into it, at least until enough of a path was cleared that she could "pack it down" with her four wheeler. Then she shovel went down and the engine revved up!




A trip to Maine isn't complete without a trip to camp:



And a trip to camp isn't complete without time spent playing on the beach:



In situations like this focus and dedication are very, very important. If you concentrate hard enough you can feel the warm sand and hear the waves lapping at the shore.

The next "snow event" was "dashing through the snow" in a two-horse open sleigh and it gets a blog entry all its own. So we'll leap over that to the "big dump" -- a foot of snow the last night we were in Wilton. The afternoon of the storm Erin and I went out snowshoeing in the beautiful, white, quiet of the storm.



The next day it was time to pack out the sled run and get some action going. Big Opa came home on lunch break and sled fest 2008 was on! Nana and Elena started things out hot,



but had to ape knuckle the flat run out:



Big Opa and Elena upped the ante with a tooth baring descent:




And slid all the way to the finish.




And that is where we are as well. 60 odd degrees, snowless in Virginia. But oh what a time we had!

Camden

On Thursday we (Nana, Big Opa, Jake, Elena, Erin, Joanna, and Arlo) all went to Camden to visit Aunt Sue and see the Maine coast. First we had a lovely lunch at Sue's with Sam. Then we headed to Rockport.

From there, Sue took us to a local farm to see a herd of Galloways - we are big fans of Galloway cows thanks to Clancey the Courageous Cow, a beltless Galloway. The farm manager showed up and we got to take a closer look. We think we spotted Clancey and had a nice time learning about the herd.

Then Sue took us up a blueberry hill - Jake was crying in frusteration as our batteries pooped out halfway up the hill. Elena almost pooped out as well (no nap) but emergency cookies and Nana's patience helped her summit the hill and enjoy the wonderful evening light. Then we had dinner in Camden and headed home.

Beach time

Do you think that almost 2 feet of snow would stop our little beach lover from getting her time in? Of course not! Today we hiked out to Red Camp on the lake. Elena was excited to see the beach and brought along her toys to play there, shovel and buckets were loaded into the sled along with a wool blanket. Our little bathing beauty wore tights, pants, snow bibs, turtle neck, wool river driver, parka, and her felt pack boots along with mittens and wool hat. She made ice cream happily parked in a drift next to the small hump that is the fire ring in warmer weather. We enjoyed a nice walk in the snow and had lunch with hot cocoa in the new boat house (with heat!).


Headed to the beach


Time to play in the 'sand'

Christmas "Morning" Madness

What happens when you have a house full of 13 people including a 18 month old up at 6am and a 28 year old up at 10 am (motivated by the brute squad) for Christmas morning? Well, you don't start opening socks until noon! Let's just say that Elena was very, very patient.

Elena and Brayden passed the morning wait by vacuming the house with the ball popper. (also used as morning wake up for those with the gall to sleep past seven). Then we had breakfast, opened stockings, and started in on presents. Eventually we had to take a nap break for the kiddos and then started up again before our Christmas dinner of roast beast.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. We are in Maine to celebrate this year.


Blogger is being quite a brat and not uploading pictures very well so here one and more posts will be on their way soon!

Tree Time

We love Christmas Trees! Last year we had a paper one, remember? This year we made up for it with three trees (one for the house, one for Elena's room and one with Nana & Big Opa).

We cut our family tree the day after thanksgiving. Gram and Opa were along to supervise. First we drove up to the parkway for a picnic I packed.

It was 32 degrees and the wind was blowing about 20 miles an hour. We ate in the car.

Then on the way home picked up this lovely little beauty from a family tree farm. It only cost us $15! For $25 you could get one of the huge church sized ones in the back log. Gram was busy trying to figure out if a tree qualified as checked baggage.


When we arrived in Maine on Thursday, there was snow! So we got to take elena out for her first snowy tree picking. It should be noted that she does not take after Gram and enjoyed the little jaunt!

I even found the tree this year! Very exciting.

And we made snow angels.