School's Out!

The time has finally come!  The school year is complete!  Which means we have to take full-time responsibility for all three of our kids again... Man! lol (Just kidding!)

This school year, Mathew & I took on the roll of heading the school's Parent Teacher Group.  Because we're pretty much incapable of saying "no" to things. ;)  No really.  We really were happy to do it.  We enjoy getting involved & helping make a difference with those kinds of things & it's a great way to get to know all of the families & teachers in their school.  Our job was really two fold: one part academic facilitator, one part party planner! We decided to have a big end-of-the-year bash & go nuts.  The kids deserve it!  Well, it took a lot of planning & putting it all together, but the result was totally awesome.  And of course, I took 450 pictures! (No seriously.  I really did!)

First we had a mass yearbook signing for all of the kids.  (Oh yeah, I made those too.  Because I don't have enough to do!  Who am I kidding... I love it!  It's fun for me!)  Then we had a big lunch for all of the kids, teachers & parents.  Hot dogs, chips, veggies, cookies, drinks, popcorn & popsicles... We felt it to be important to fill them up with junk food before sending them on their merry way. lol  After lunch we set them loose to play all of the games & activities until they wore themselves out.  Every time we looked at the forecast for the days beforehand it seemed to change.  We weren't sure if it was all going to work out, but it turned out to be a beautiful day!  We had a bouncy house, a balloon popping game, a water balloon toss, a football toss, basketball & hockey shoot-outs, face painting, chalk drawing & arts & crafts... Oh!  And a DUNK TANK!  We weren't sure who was going to volunteer to be our victims, but we got the ball rolling with some of the eighth graders, & before you knew it we had some teachers & even the principal volunteer to be dunked! 

Now commencing massive photo posting of other people's kids:

The Bouncy House

Balloon Pop!

Natalie getting some help from Gavin.  The tongue out increases the pumping power exponentially.  ;)

The Dunk Tank was definitely the hit of the party!

The Principal is about to get dunked!

The Eight Grade teacher.  Apparently it was a little cold! lol

Face paint!

Football Toss

Basketball shoot out just became a full on game

Hockey did too ;)

Water Balloon Toss!

A couple of weeks before the Field Day, we started a fund raiser to raise money for the event plus to get the ball rolling on another project we want to start for next year: We had a Kiss a Pig contest.  Oh yes we did!  We set out jars for each of the teachers & faculty & let the kids donate box tops & cash into the jar whom they wanted to be the winner.  I had no idea what a success that would be!  Well about half-way through our afternoon we gathered all of the kids around so that out victor could fulfill their promise!  A local family brought in the cutest little 3 week old piglet, & Principal Burke had to kiss him...  

Isn't he cute?!

Kissin' the pig... Such a good sport! ;)

Random Dancing with Mrs. Ely!

Popsicles & face paint.  What more could a kid want!

Rare photo of Mark not covering his face.  Thank God for massive lenses so he didn't even know I took it! Muahahaha!

Happy Kids!

I can't even tell you how fun this day was.  The laughing & cheering coming from all of these kids made all of the hard work worth it.    We found out later from the eight grade teacher that the kids were still buzzing in their classroom afterward & they all said it was the best Field Day they ever had!  Nothing could've made me happier! :)

Meet John Gale

Meet John Gale.  This gentleman in the photo built our house in 1860.  How cool is that!  

I've posted before about the history of our home as you can read here.  Dick Johnson, a now elderly man who is John Gale's great grandson, met Mathew months ago & gave him an overview of the history as he knew it (as you can read in the link above), and promised to come back with some pictures if he could find them.  Well last week, he drove up again from Virginia & brought them to Mathew... and I missed him!!!  AGAIN!!!  Stupid job & needing to make a living.  Grr!  One of these days I will get to meet this man face to face I swear!

Anyway, he drove up from Virginia along with his wife, sister & nephew.  Dick came into the house & the two of them gave each other tours: Mathew of what we're doing, & Dick of what it once was.  From what Matt tells me, his sister refused to come in.  She was so afraid that we were changing too much & would be disappointed that she didn't want to see!  Dick swears that he's going to try to talk her into coming in next time, because he's very pleased with what we've done.  Phew!  You have NO idea how much that means to me to hear.  I know it is our house now & we can do with it what we please, but we've had the pleasure of learning so much about the history of our town, the history of this house, & the history of the family that passed it down from generations, that the last thing we want to do is disappoint them.  We don't want to change it.  Update it sure, but our first goal is to restore it to it's former glory!  We are so happy to have their approval.

So Mathew & Dick had their tour of the house, along with Dick's wife & nephew.  Mathew shared our plans for what will go where & how we plan to utilize the rooms.  Again, he was floored that we were going to use the back room for a fitness room.  Everyone here is!  I guess that's not a New England thing?  Everyone here seems to get their exercise outdoors rain or shine... I guess we're weird for wanting an elliptical & treadmill in the house... lol!  Hilarious.  Dick says that was just a storage area, so no big deal.  Anyway, the kitchen, though a little bigger now, is still the kitchen, the dining room is still the dining room & the living room, though we're adding the much-needed fireplace is still the living room.  He shared that the room we plan to be the office/library was once the sewing room (Sorry Dick, but this chick can't even sew a button.  No sewing room for me! lol).  The one thing that we did change, to expand the space of the kitchen & make room for a laundry area, he says was actually his grandparent's bedroom.  Thankfully he didn't mind that change.  As far as the upstairs goes, he said that what we plan to use as a guest room was a guest room & nursery then too.  The room we plan to use for the boys' room was the room his parents moved into for some time after they were married, & Natalie's room is actually where he slept as a kid.  He said he loved that room & loved the sound of the rain on the metal roof over that space. :)  Past that is the bathroom & then our room... but he said that back then the bedroom area was walled off after the bathroom.  It was just used for storage & the kids all thought it was spooky! lol 

Mathew tells me how nice it was to see him light up with all of the memories he could recall.  How he remembers having every Christmas there & describing the tree in the same place that I've pictured putting it from the day we bought the house.  How the rooms seems so much smaller now that he's grown, but recalling how grand they felt.  He even described the china cabinet that sat at the top of the stairs, built by John Gale himself, accompanied by his picture on the wall above it.  Maybe we can honor him there too.

It is such a privilege to be able to meet this man & his family.  And so amazing to get their blessing on the work that we're doing to make it our home.  Hopefully we can invite them again when it's complete!