TCCS (Texas, Cape, Camping and School)

Sorry for the long lapse since my last entry.  This summer has been by far the most traveling summer of my life.  I feel like I went to sleep sometime in early June and woke up and it was September...Only without the wonderful feeling of rest that one would have after having slept for three months.  Either way, here we are in September.  Fall is quickly approaching and I have yet to tell of our final summer adventures in August.  To start Shelby and I went to NYC for the weekend at the beginning of the month and Gaga flew in to stay with the kids  THANKS GAGA!!!! We definitely couldn't have done it without you!  We stayed in an awesome hotel and got upgraded for free to a junior suite and ate at a fabulous Spanish restaurant in the west village, I think.  We then spent the day at a music festival in a beautiful state park overlooking Manhattan.  We even rode a ferry to the park and went past the statue of liberty and ellis island.  It was really cool.  We saw Radiohead and Kings of Leon, two of our favorite bands.  Gaga and the kids had a great time too.  They went to the science museum and church and had some good Gaga bonding time.  Gaga brought Mia some real live Mexican Jumping Beans and we are still enjoying the random "clicking" noises they emit.

A few days after we got home from the concert we were off again, but this time as a family, to Texas to celebrate Pepa's 80th birthday.  The party was awesome!  It was so fun to see everyone and the cake was yummy!!  Pepa makes 80 look like fun!  The visit was way too short though as Granmommy, Grandaddy, Kelsey and Bethany and Shelby all had to go back to their respective homes sunday afternoon.  The kids and I stayed however for about another 10 days.  

We spent some time with Papa and Nana, swimming and throwing the ball with Freckles.  We also spent a few days with Gaga and Jimmy hanging out and watching old family favorites like Santa Claus the Movie and The Electric Grandmother.  Shelby came back for the next weekend and we celebrated his 29th birthday and Jackson's big #1!!!  Jackson's party was so fun and although Hill says he was having a hard day, you would never have known, he seemed to be reveling in the attention.  Tuesday morning the kids and I flew back home to Boston but didn't arrive until around 5PM.  This might have been a good time to relax and unwind, but no.  Technically Mia should have started school that day, tuesday, but instead we were flying home from Texas.  Well then she could have started back to school the next day, wednesday, but no.  Instead we decided that she would have a better experience spending a few days down on the cape with some good friends.  Enjoying the last few days of summer.  So, tuesday night I quickly shuffled around our stuff from this bag to that bag.  Packing and unpacking and repacking all at once.  Wednesday morning we took off with Claire and her two kids to meet Amy and her two kids and her friend Malissa down in West Falmouth on Cape Cod.  The house was great.  A short walk to a beautiful beach and a fenced in backyard for the kids to play endless games of red light green light and unbeknownst to the adults rip up a bunch of the shrubbery to make a "bed" for the characters they were pretending to be.  I hope the owner of the house wasn't a major gardener.  Oh yeah, and we also didn't notice this wine rack in the dining room with 30 year old bottles of wine on it.  Well, we didn't notice it that is, until Lennon smashed one of the bottles to pieces all over the dining room floor.  Luckily no one was hurt, but I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed that it wasn't some collectors bottle or something.  

Wednesday, thursday and friday in West Falmouth and then Shelby and Claire's husband Walderie drove down to meet up with us friday night.  Saturday it was time to say goodbye to the nice cozy, a/c in every room cape house and hello to the four man tent in the woods with the church group.  It was our very first attempt at camping as a family and overall it went very well.  Despite the fact that afterwards we were down one camera  and one cell phone, found a large crack in our windshield and Shelby and I sustained some mildly painful sunburns we had a really great time.  Both kids slept really well and it was super nice to wake up and know that the campers next to us would be up and ready to share a cup of coffee and convo while the kids played in the dirt.  The beach was gorgeous and I had forgotten how fun it was to fall asleep listening to the sounds of the outdoors.  We did discuss that for the next time we will need to get some memory foam or something to sleep on instead of just a sleeping bag.  It wasn't quite so uncomfortable to sleep on the ground as a kid!  

So we get home monday afternoon from camping and Mia starts school the next morning.  

The first day of first grade!!!  She was a little less than totally excited because all of her friends were in the same class except her, but she still got dressed and had a smile on her face and was looking forward to a new year.  I had gone out and gotten her the last Tinkerbell backpack and a Tinkerbell lunchbox the night before we left for the cape and she was lovin both of those for sure.  She seemed very proud of them and it made me feel good to know I had done something so simple for her that was giving her so much obvious pleasure.  Tinkerbell is pretty cool I guess, but I had no idea how cool Mia thought she was.  Anyway, she ended up coming home early from school with a headache that I thought might be more stress related than anything, but she did have a fever.  The doc couldn't find anything specific wrong with her but did note the slight temp.  He said he doubted she was contagious and as long as she felt like going the next day to send her.  She had a hard time sleeping and woke a little late, but when I finally took her in around 10 she seemed to have a great day.  Her teacher seems really cool and she has steadily made more and more friends all week.  Last night after she finished her homework she asked if we could make her some more homework.  When she finished that she complained that she wished she had more homework.  I should record that and play it for her when she's taking 9th grade algebra and see what she says then.  We're happy that she's enjoying it this week and hope it is just a sign of things to come this year.  It couldn't be much worse than last year, so already our hopes are high.  

Mia had her first karate lesson today and starts back to gymnastics in the morning.  After lunch we are heading over to Nashoba Valley for their annual Harvest Festival for some apple picking, face painting, hay rides and more fun stuff.  I love the fall in New England.  It's probably what I'll miss the most when we leave.  Sorry for the long long longest blog update but now I feel like I can move forward with the fall and leave the summer behind.  Talk to you soon!