1) Farm visit. so much of our activities revolve around the older kids that it was a nice change of pace to focus on the younger set for once! we joined up with several family friends to visit a local dairy farm. we had toured this same farm about 7 years ago when Greta was 3 and Cece was a baby. Elizabeth was so excited to see real live cows but wanted nothing to do with milking the cows or feeding the baby calves ... maybe next year!
she spotted the calves immediately when we got to the farm and was so excited to finally see them up close!
taking a selfie with a calf...
... suddenly took an unexpected turn!! no clothes or babies were harmed in the taking of this photo.
the tour finished at their farmstand and country restaurant. strawberry ice cream for the win! (and yes, she is soaked in sweat -- it was a hot day!)
so proud to "drive" a real tractor
side-by-side of Greta at 3 1/2 on the same tractor
2) New car. Nick has been scouring Facebook marketplace and various car sales sites for the past few years, looking for a station wagon so he can haul all the kids around. (currently, our van is the only vehicle that can transport all of us.) and when the listing for this wagon popped up, he pounced on it immediately. he sold his sedan and arranged for the wagon to be shipped up from Virginia. the look on his face when it arrived was priceless! not only is it an extremely comfortable ride, but everybody we pass seems to love it. the girls begged him to drive them to school in it the following day.
like a kid on Christmas!
stepping back in time... Cece's face is covered in blue eyeshadow because she was playing Avatar
a very happy man
I had to do the side-by-side with Audrey Griswold from Christmas Vacation sitting in that iconic wagon
3) Memorial Day weekend. the Sunday before Memorial Day, we had a few friends over for a cookout. one of my summer goals is to get a full-size picnic table to better accommodate these feasts (as well as to make it easier for our own family to dine al fresco!).
BFFs
BFFs x 2!
they made telescopes out of parchment paper
mac'n'cheese lover
she ate all of the chocolate off the outside of the Klondike bar first... and this was the result
shenanigans
there was a sudden storm and we all rushed to clean up the yard and come inside, but shortly afterwards we were rewarded with this incredible full rainbow! I've never seen an entire rainbow in our yard like this before.
on Memorial Day itself, the Oratory celebrated the patronal feast of St. Philip Neri, observed. the chapel is undergoing extensive renovations, so mass was held at one of Pittsburgh's most beautiful churches downtown. the church is just up the hill from Duquesne's campus, so I was regaling the girls with tales from Nick and my college days as we parked and walked up to the church. Nick had arranged an orchestral mass with a string quartet and I truly felt like I was in Salzburg several times during the mass. here's a snippet of the recessional, Mozart's Sonata da chiesa.
after mass we were invited to a cookout with the Oratorians, staff and friends. then later that afternoon, I took the girls on our first pool visit of the summer! my aunt gifted us a family pool pass for Christmas and it is so appreciated. they've done a great job updating the pool over the years and have a sweet little kiddie pool area, a zero-entry middle pool that goes to 3 feet, and then the standard regulation pool as well. lots of fun for everybody!
Victoria kept crawling off into the water, which stays at about a 6-inch depth for some time, but eventually gets too deep for crawling so I had to scoop her up and turn her around several times. obviously I didn't take my eyes off her but I'm also impressed with the lifeguard situation; they have lifeguards stationed at each pool and they rotate every 30 minutes so they stay fresh.
no fear
4) Last day of school. school ended on Friday, May 31, which was quite satisfying! hard to believe another year has already flown by. Greta says her favourite part of 4th grade was getting to play up for JV basketball (she can't wait to be an official member of the team in the fall). Cece says her favourite part of 1st grade was reading for mass for the first time, memorizing Scripture, and participating in the Greek Olympics (the 1st and 6th graders paired up on teams representing the Greek city states and competed in various field event; Cece was quick to assure me that, unlike the ancient Greek Olympians, the students would compete in their clothes!).
she's gained a few teeth since the beginning of the school year!
Oh my. I cannot get over how covered in sweat Elizabeth was. Love the outing with the little ones. Their faces (I think I say this all the time) are SO stinking cute. Glad no one was hurt in the taking on the video. Um, the station wagon purchase is blowing my mind. What year is that car from? The photo from vacation is hilarious. I hope you are enjoying your summer.
Ha! The sweat with that one is unreal - her poor little head gets soaked whenever she's hot. Nick is the same way.
The station wagon is a 1990 and it's pristine -- has working AC, power windows, and of course seatbelts. It's a super comfy ride and the kids love it!
Hope your summer is going well too. I've been a bit MIA from the blogosphere recently -- just haven't been able to fit it into the summer rhythm as much as I hoped. I don't know how you balance it all!!
it's about time for a good old airing of the grievances. while we have ever so much for which to give thanks, sometimes we need the catharsis of enumerating our woes, big and small. (you can read the 2023 edition here.) _________________________________________ first up, potty training. I buckled down and trained Greta and Cecilia both around age 2 1/2, and it went fairly well (I'm a big fan of waiting until the kid is practically ready to train themselves). Elizabeth turned 2 1/2 near the end of the school year, and logically it seemed like a great time to buckle down -- we wouldn't be driving around to after school sports and activities and we'd have more time at home. I kept waiting for the day when I'd wake up full of excitement and motivation to strip off the diaper and chase a naked toddler around the house. and ... shockingly ... that day never came. then we were preparing for our trip to Seattle in July and it definitely didn't seem like the right time...
Easter was "late" this year, April 20, which has the added benefit of slightly warmer temperatures. it always seems incongruous to me when Easter falls at the end of March and all the pretty Easter dresses are covered up by coats and we might have to choose snow boots rather than sandals! this was the first year Elizabeth was allowed to be more involved with hands-on egg dyeing and she was so excited. I bought the "deluxe" PAAS kit with extra supplies to make glittery and foil-bedecked eggs and somehow, by the grace of God, did not end up with glitter all over the house. I don't know how this one was so blurry but you get the idea! Greta's pastel eggs Cece's jewel-toned eggs I debated once again about which Easter mass to attend. we have attended the evening vigil once before , but that involves a lot of faith and perhaps a dash of insanity to attempt solo with young kids. so we typically go Easter morning, but I asked the older girls about it and they...
volume 1 volume 2 volume 3 volume 4 volume 5 1) Trader Joe's. prior to this week, I hadn't set foot in a Trader Joe's in years. the closest ones to me are at least a twenty-minute drive (as opposed to Giant Eagle and Aldi which are ten minutes away), and since they don't offer curbside pickup or delivery, I couldn't even peruse their offerings to decide if I wanted to pay a visit. but Greta has been asking me to pick up these PB&J snacks that her friends bring to school, and I keep hearing about amazing products TJ's offers (mostly from the hilarious Girls Next Door podcast -- every show with a TJ's mention is linked here !). for some reason, I was thinking that Trader Joe's price point was even with Whole Foods (or as it is sometimes known, Whole Paycheck), so I wasn't in a big rush to check it out. finally, last week I had a rare pocket of time after dropping Greta off for a school event close to a TJ's location and decided to take a ...
Oh my. I cannot get over how covered in sweat Elizabeth was. Love the outing with the little ones. Their faces (I think I say this all the time) are SO stinking cute. Glad no one was hurt in the taking on the video. Um, the station wagon purchase is blowing my mind. What year is that car from? The photo from vacation is hilarious. I hope you are enjoying your summer.
ReplyDeleteHa! The sweat with that one is unreal - her poor little head gets soaked whenever she's hot. Nick is the same way.
DeleteThe station wagon is a 1990 and it's pristine -- has working AC, power windows, and of course seatbelts. It's a super comfy ride and the kids love it!
Hope your summer is going well too. I've been a bit MIA from the blogosphere recently -- just haven't been able to fit it into the summer rhythm as much as I hoped. I don't know how you balance it all!!