Sundays In My City

Just another day on Cape Cod. No complaints here. K went clamming and brought home a bucketful. Her Dad brought in some lobsters.

K, her friend K, B and little R waving from the beach to K and B's Dad.

Yes, he pulled his 45 foot fishing boat up to the beach to say "hey".

Family, friends, sunshine and watermelon on the beach. You cannot beat it!

Happy Sunday!

Happy 5th! (Or Parade Round Up)

Chatham celebrated it's 300th Birthday yesterday in style with a parade that must have been at least 2 hours long. This is my view from being on a float (actually I was walking inbetween our floats). It's totally not the best video, but it sure gives you the vantage point from being part of the parade. Hope you all had a fun, safe day!

Sundays In My City

This week was all about babies.
My babies: 

My brother's new baby:

And my sister's baby:

Such blessings!

The Day My Nephew Was Born

Yesterday was a day similar to a ride at an amusement park. There were times when I was squeeing with delight and then there were parts where I was practically in tears. Actually at some points I was crying at the good parts. It was one of those days to remember if I ever get bored this summer because my days are too quiet.

3:30 AM: My sister updates from the hospital where my brother and sister-in-law are in the midst of having their first baby. Where there had been a lot of action for awhile, things were at a standstill and everyone involved was exhausted.

So, we texted back and forth for a few minutes and then I attempted to go back to sleep.

5:30AM: Probably about when I fell back to sleep.

6AM: Alarm. Time to get 3 kids out the door, 2 for finals and one for 2nd to last day of school.

7:45AM: On my way to Target to get usual stuff and specific going to camp stuff for B who leaves on Sunday. (BTW, Target is an hour away from my house. One disadvantage to Cape Cod.)

10:00AM: How does 3/4 of a cart cost so much money. Damn razor and tampon companies.

10:30AM: On my way back to the Cape, get news my little nephew has been born. A healthy 8lb 9oz specimen of joy. My brother had cancer almost 10 years ago, so you can imagine the excitement surrounding this little boy. He is the 5th in a honored line of men, so his nickname is Fin. Who knew that Fin was a nickname for a 5 dollar bill? See, you can still learn something every day.

11:45AM: Race into house and dump Target bags on kitchen floor.

12:00PM: Pick up K and B who had finals. Drop K at home, pick up P's friend, drop P and friend off downtown and go to Middle School.

12:30PM: Sitting in auditorium where they are having an afternoon of excellence similar to the one the HS had last week. B wins 4 awards: 2 math, 1 High Honors all year and 1 for being a leader in the school (voted on by the teachers). Had no idea that she was winning all these awards. While she is winning these, I am texting/updating my parents who are on their way to see the new baby for 15 minutes (2hrs away). My mom sends me one text that leaves me fighting back tears: "You are a great mother!".

2:00PM: Pick up B and bring her home.

3:00PM: Drop K at work and pick up 'new to me' grill a friend did not need.

4:00PM: Leave with B for Pediatrician's office to discuss asthma for the 3rd month in a row.

4:10PM: Secretly hang up a Good Luck sign at an ex-jumprope friend of Brooke's because he was on his way to Nationals and it's the first time in 3 years that we are not joining them. (Because Brooke is not jumping rope anymore.)

4:30PM: Dr's appt. Discuss B's lungs and decide to send her to an asthma/allergist professional and to get an EKG to make sure it's not something with her heart. Also need to get x-ray because she has my good fortune of having scoliosis. Dr says she is the healthiest "sick" person she has seen all day.

5:15-6:30PM: Go to Home Goods and Pier One with B because we are in the same town she has swimming in, so it was useless to go home. We had each other pealing with laughter over the dumbest things. Seriously, we were hysterical. I would write down some of the things we were saying,  but they all go in the "had to be there" category.

7:00PM: Sitting in a bar with one of my best Swim Mom friends. No need for the treadmill last night, I felt like I had been on one all day.

8:00PM: Watching B swim when I get a tweet from K who had recently gotten home from work. "That moment when your mom forgets to feed you dinner....#thanksmom @ascapecodturns." Before you call child services on me, there was leftover dinner from the night before, but she "doesn't eat leftovers". So I tweeted her back this, "for the twitter record, I did not "forget". Think of it as a test of your survival skills."

9:00PM: On couch with popcorn watching Dance Moms. See cute pictures of Fin and a little too much of my sister in law. Next time, let's wait until after the baby's cleaned up to take the pictures.

10:00PM: Realize that my day, even though busy, was much calmer and pleasant than the life of the Dance Mom moms.

                                                      The 3rd, the 4th and the 5th.

Frag'n Friday

Welcome to the last Friday of the school year. 3 1/2 days and counting!!! Yes, Midwesterners, we are still in school..... Go check out Mrs. 4444's for random thoughts from lots of good people.

*Bear news: The bear was taken off the Cape earlier this week and relocated to Central Mass. I hope he finds lots of girl bears there. The reason they wound up taking him off Cape was not because he was causing any trouble, but too many people were trying to get a glimpse of him! Celebrity Stalkers!

*This is a YOLO (you only live once) face, if you wanted to know. This is what happens after you do a project for school of how to make and eat crepes and you've had just a little too much sugar and there is a swim bag laying around.....

*Just want you to know how classy I am. I needed another table for P's party last weekend, so I used 2 saw horses and an old shower door. Maybe I should just call myself creative? And yes, I put a lovely table cloth on it, voila!

*I was watching the news this morning and listening to how many millions of dollars Obama and Romney made in fundraising dinners just last night. Is it just me, or do you think it is a little silly to raise all this money for a campaign where the money could go to much better use in so many other places?

*Chatham celebrated it's official 300th Birthday on Monday (there are 300 days of things to do, so you haven't technically missed all of them). There was a lovely ceremony at the band stand and later in the afternoon they opened a time capsule that had been "buried" 50 years ago at the 250th celebration. It was funny how unexciting the stuff in it was. There were a lot of names of people in different groups around town, a plate celebrating the 250th birthday, a recording of a meeting, and a picture of a bunch of men in beards. In my eyes, the best things were a 4 cent stamp and a map of Chatham from 1962.

A new time capsule was filled with much more exciting stuff like photographs, menus from restaurants, church bulletins, information about fishing, books, an iphone and a guest book that everyone at the event signed. In 50 years, I can go to the next celebration and say, "I was there!", see there is my name.

This man did a re-creation speaking as if he were the first Chatham settler, William Nickerson. Fantastic!

*In exciting family news..... the high school had a night of excellence the other day( um, night). We knew ahead of time that K and P were getting an award. It was very exciting and a proud moment for me, but the real kicker was when K got the Blue and White award. Basically, the teachers picked a good for the school, good grades, all around good kid in each grade to win this award and they picked K!!!! She received a paper signed by our state representative and a gift card to Amazon! The look on her face was priceless! Total surprise and my faced mirrored hers!

*Phew! That was a lot to get off my mind! Hope you have a great weekend!

Groove Is In The Heart

The cure for the rainy day blues is to have a 21 month old come play for a few hours. R disappeared while I was folding laundry and when I walked into my room, this is how I found her (in my bed). If only she was a snuggler, I would have crawled in too.

However, she has more energy than anyone I know and decided that pretending to fall on my bed was way more fun than pretending to sleep.

I also introduced her to Barney. (Why do I still know all the songs?) She checked out K's sunglasses. And looked out the window every once in awhile to make sure it was still raining. She reminds me of Linus with her blankie.

I also recommend that your little ray of sunshine wear a groovy shirt.

Frag'n Friday

Fridays are perfect for fragments!! Just ask Mrs. 4444s!

*Perhaps you have seen our Cape Cod Bear on National News! Last night with Diane Sawyer and today on Good Morning America! Want a peak, check it out! The twitter feeds are hysterical. If you watch the video, you will notice the absence of the canal that the bear swam across on the map. Who edits these things? Also at about a minute into the feed, you will see a familiar site; my brother in law's boat which is also my header! Cool, right?! Can I stretch it and say that my blog was sort of on GMA today?

*It's graduation weekend around these parts! We are going to a graduation party tomorrow for a friend of ours that is going to UMass in the fall. I figured he would get plenty of cash, so I went with something different. I bought a UMass t-shirt and a throw pillow and sewed the t-shirt over the pillow. Too cute!

*I know I haven't gone on and on about my garden lately, but it is looking quite nice! Remember before:

Here is the latest:

Blooming flowers, planted by me! Seriously, I never thought I would get excited about this. EVER! And yes, I know I need some more mulch.

*1 1/2 weeks until school is out. I know the girls cannot wait and I think it might be double for me!

*Happy Graduation Weekend to my Fantastic Nephew Sam!!!

*What are your weekend plans? Hope they are fun!