If You Can't Stand the Heat...

One of the things I really worried about when deciding to move to Vermont was the summers.  I truly thought that the only way summer would be fun was if it was at least 90 degrees so that you could lay out in the sun & go swimming, and do all those fun summery things.  Mathew laughed at me, saying that Vermont would still have summer - it wasn't Antarctica for cryin' out loud - and it would still have the occasional hot day, but it would be more mild all of the other days.  And we could still go swimming and do all of those things, but be able to actually breathe outside while doing it! 

I hate it when he's right.  :/

So now we're out of the proverbial "kitchen."  (Yeah, yeah, I know that expression means something else entirely, but for this purpose I'm using it for actual heat.  :P lol)  This summer has been so nice!  We've had the occasional day in the 60's, and a day or two of 90, but for the most part it's been upper 70's to 80ish and very comfortable.  I can see why they don't find a need for air conditioning in homes here.  It's just fine with an open window, and it get's down to the 50's at night, so no big deal.  And frankly, for the most part, you're outside playing anyway, so who cares! :)

The kids are doing their fair share of playing so far.  We've never been big "over-schedulers" in our house packing the kids' days with a ton of activities (so far anyway), but they're keeping busy.  They started golf lessons - super cute in their little polo's & plaid shorts ;) - and they'll all start swim lessons next week.  Maybe starting guitar lessons here too soon if we can get it coordinated.  Besides that they've just been hanging around Matt at the house trying to get some work done. 

You know you want to live here...

I'm really really ready for this all to be done & get on with our lives.  Our self-imposed deadline for moving in will be here in about a month & a half and we've barely begun the process of putting it back together.  It's SO not gunna happen.  Poor Matt keeps getting hurt, the injections in his back aren't helping anymore, and it's seriously too damn hard to do it all with your own two hands.  I can only be there so much to help and when I'm there I'll be the first to admit I haven't the slightest clue what I'm doing! lol  But slowly but surely we're getting there, and I keep telling myself it'll all be worth it in the end.  In the above picture you can see that we got all of the god-awful siding off finally.  Yippee!  I'm sure that'll make a huge difference.  Plus all of the trees are cut down & out of the way, so that's great too.  It would be great though, if we could get some free help.  Maybe Phineas & Ferb could come by... they'd have it done by lunch! 

Good thing we live just a few miles from Danville! ;)

Field Trip!

This place is so flippin' awesome. (Or wicked awesome as the locals would say! lol). How cool is it that with just an hour or two's drive, we can have so many options for such incredible experiences! I hope we never take for granted what a blessing that is.

So nearly every kid in elementary school goes to the zoo for a field trip at least once in their lifetime. Nothing new there. But for a Vermonter? Well that means just a quick jog up to CANADA! Seriously people! (Or am I the only one who thinks that's super cool? lol). Yesterday, Gavin's third grade class took their field trip to the Zoo de Granby in Quebec; just a short hour and a half drive from our home town. His teacher and principal were kind enough to let Mark out of class to allow our whole family to come along, (and a sweet co-worker was kind enough to switch shifts with me too so that I could attend. Thanks again Sarah! :)).

Gavin's Third Grade Class with Mrs.C (best teacher ever)

So here's what you need to know about the providence of Quebec.  They speak French.  Almost exclusively.  Much more so than any other area of Canada.  And from what my friends tell me, they kinda look down on us American folks who expect them to know English.  (I guess choosing Spanish for my language elective in high school was an epic fail. :/)  But although the staff at the zoo spoke French first, they were all very nice & tried to take care of us English speaking Vermonters as best they could.

This sweet lady told us all about this owl.  We did not, however, understand a word she said.

I'll always be partial to the St. Louis Zoo.  It's where I grew up, it has a ton of great exhibits (and let's be honest, it's free.)  But I've gotta say that this zoo was pretty great.  The kids had so much fun!  (Except they didn't have Red Pandas. :(  Sorry Aunt Caroline! ;))   Aaaannddd... it was not only a zoo, but an amusement park & water park as well!  Though we didn't have enough time to do the amusement park stuff this time, we did enjoy the zoo and got to play at the water park for a bit. :)  Of course, I can't resist sharing a few pictures.

Gavin & his buddies Lucas & Carter (and Mark too! :))

Petting Sting Rays

Feeding birds in the bird sanctuary

Birds climbing ALL over Gavin!  Funniest thing ever!  (Except poor Lucas behind him.  He was fortunate enough that one of the birds left a "present" in his hair! lol!)

All the kids playing in the wave pool at the waterpark

Natalie & I getting some waterpark fun too :)

SUCH a fun day!  We will definitely be back!  Though we might brush up on a little French first lol ;). 

Okay, I think that's it for all of our travels for a little while.  Maine, Florida, Mexico, and Canada all in the span of about a month!  Phew!  I guess we better focus on actually fixing up our house now huh?  Darn it.  Guess it won't fix itself. ;)  Back to the grindstone!

The Wedding Cruise

As many of you know, we spent last week celebrating the marriage of my youngest brother-in-law John and his new wife Caroline on a 4 day cruise to Key West & Cozumel, Mexico.  I started to type out the summary of our trip while waiting in the airport (as my kids flung their flip-flops at each other out of sheer boredom), then didn't get to finish.  Then I got home & had to unpack & never got to it.  Then I've been dealing with this crazy constant dizziness thing & never really felt like sitting in front of a computer (which I totally still have by the way.  Ugh, it's awful feeling like you have a constant
hangover! :S)  So anyway, blogging about our trip has been looming over my head and I really wanted to do it justice, but at the same time not bore you to tears with the mundane play-by-play.  (Who knew blogging could be so stressful? lol ;))

So I will direct your attention to facebook for a bit more comprehensive collection of pictures.  (I took over 500 and pared it down to 66.  You're welcome! lol)  And like I said, I won't bore you
too much with the day to day details.  But I've gotta say how incredible it was to see so much of our family!!  We've gone from living essentially up the street from everyone in St. Louis, to just a day trip away from everyone in KC with some fairly frequent visits, to living 1500 miles away.  Plane tickets are expensive for a family of five, and frankly I don't think Matt or I could survive another 30+
hour drive one way! lol  So needless to say we haven't seen everyone in nearly a year & that was worth every penny in and of itself.  There are still a few members of our family that weren't able to come & that really sucks.  We hope to see them soon too!



John & Caroline's wedding was simple, personal, and absolutely beautiful.  Their love for each other exudes from them and it was such a priviledge to be part of their day.  Caroline is perfect for John,
and I'm so excited for her to be a part of our crazy family!  John was just a kid when Matt & I got married (twelve I think), so now I feel super old that he's a married man ;), but we are so very happy for them!

The happy couple

The cruise was great.  We visited Key West & went on a trolley ride of the island, and then we stopped in Cozumel where our family chose to visit some Mayan ruins & hang out on the beach for a bit.  On the boat we ate (and ate and ate...) some great food, swam & played on water slides, played minigolf, and had lots of fun-in-the-sun family time.  Plus it's great that the ship has a kids club.  Kids have fun getting away from us, we have a built-in babysitter for some grown-up time:
win win! :)  (See there?  Four day trip scaled down to one easy paragraph.  I can be concise when I want to! lol)
Here are just a few highlight pictures in case you're not a facebook friend.  (Or in case you didn't feel like flipping through all 66 of my pics! lol)



Sunset on the ship



Sloppy Joe's in Key West





Checking out the ruins of San Gervasio

Beach Fun! :)





Mayan god Henna Tattoo's for the boys



John & Caroline playing the Newlywed Game with the captain.  So hilarious!



Mathew's other brother Martin celebrating his 30th Birthday!



So, as you can see, we had a great time!  Of course we had some drama trying to get home.  But that's just par for the course with our family! lol  It's always something.  I think Florida hates us, frankly, because something always seems to go wrong there (car accidents, etc).  But after Delta Airlines bent over backwards to get us home safely, it was no big deal.  Now it's back to work & back to reality.  Thankfully, we now live in a place that we're happy to come home to! :)