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| Family shot! Taken on Clark's birthday. |
Well, folks - I don't even know how to begin. I haven't posted in over FIVE MONTHS. Birthdays have come and gone, milestones were reached and surpassed, epic journeys were undertaken, lovely people got married, and a whole lot of everyday life happened in between. I'm going to try really hard to not let a lapse of time that large happen again. In fact, I have decided that I am going to try a new system: in the spirit of
Soulemama, I will attempt to, at the very least, post a picture every Friday, with regular blog posts in between. A little present for anyone who actually checks in on this blog, and has gradually lost faith that anything would ever be posted again.
In the meantime, here are many many months worth of pictures, with as little explanation as possible. It is likely overwhelming, so perhaps you can just come back and visit a bunch of times and pick up where you left off! And like usual, I will promise to diligently work away at some videos. Who knows when that will come to pass. But this Friday there WILL be a new picture. Promise! And without further ado:
RANDOM EARLY SUMMER SHOTS
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| Getting the garden ready. It was a LOT of work. |
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| "Eureka! I've got it!" |
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| Co-creators |
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| Green smoothie face |
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| Juniper liked this outfit so much, she asked me to take a picture of her wearing it :) |
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| Extended family portrait. Juniper is the huge one in the middle, and felt it was important to note that she was holding hands with Linden. |
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| Checking out the model of Alvin at the Exhibit Center in Wood's Hole |
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| May Fair parade |
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| Juniper (stoically) rides a pony at the May Fair. Don't let her expression fool you - she LOVED it, |
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| The Maypole. Juniper is in pink in the back, with the blue cape. Valerie Kindly lead her through it. |
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| Fully clothed in the sprinkler. Is there anything better? (Likely naked in the sprinkler, which also happened quite a bit throughout the summer) |
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| Jane visits! |
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| Summer beach days... quintessential Cape Cod. (l-r: Juniper, Linden, Lucia) |
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| Burying Juniper in the sand (l-r: Linden, Clark, Juniper, Valerie, Lucia and Miguel) |
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| Summer potluck! (l-r: Juniper, Lucia, Helen) |
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| Hanging in the wagon (Helen, Juniper, Miguel) |
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| How cute are these kids? (l-r: Helen, Juniper, Miguel, Lucia, and pants-less Linden) |
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| Mary (my mom) visited during all the end-of-school festivities, to help out while Clark was at various conferences and workshops. |
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| Mom arrived when these were in full bloom all over the Cape! |
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Little guy, big anchor.
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FIRST HAIR CUTS! (and FATHERS DAY)
We spent father's day biting the bullet, and finally getting our kids' hair cut. Mind you, Juniper was almost 4 years old at this point, and had never before had it cut. It was... um... long overdue, to say the least. With Linden, we were just trying to tame his mop. They actually both already need it to happen again, asap. And I am thinking very heavily about chopping a really good chunk of Juniper's off this time. We shall see. Anyway, they were both really good about it (even Linden!?), and looked ridiculously cute afterwards. A successful event, all round.
CHILD CENTER
Here are a bunch of shots I took from the Woods Hole Child Center, the co-op where Juniper spends a few mornings a week. She loves it. These are from the art show and the carnival that happened right before they closed for the summer.
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| Some of the art show. It was amazing! |
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| Juniper, proudly posing by her sculpture |
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| The "dome". Juniper enjoys scaling it and hanging upside down. I fear to put her in gymnastics, lest she take to it too strongly. |
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| The zipline! |
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| Oh, those hip-biking-Child Centre-families! |
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| Slide pile up! |
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| Ms Clarkin reads to the kids (Kunio, in the striped shirt, lives just down the street from us) |
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| On the day when your parent comes in as "parent helper", you get to ring the bell when it is time to come in. Juniper takes this job very seriously. |
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| Typical group playtime inside |
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| playdough table |
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| Juniper got to celebrate her birthday a couple of months early! |
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| Posing by the sign |
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| Carnival! (Juniper is ever the dutiful older sister) |
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| Linden had to be kindly asked to let other people have a turn on the rickshaw. I think he would have accepted rides all morning if left to his own devices. |
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| Juniper-dog! |
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| Puppet show |
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| End-of-year shot with Mrs duRivage (Darryl)... |
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| ... and with Ms Clarkin (Anne) |
BOSTON TRIP
We took a pretty epic day-trip to Boston in early summer to visit Jane before she graduated from Harvard (and therefore left us to return to Canada, *sniff!*), and then to visit with our dear Halifax friends (the Sharps) as they were passing through on their way from vacationing in Florida home to NS. Jane took us on a tour of the Harvard campus, and we spent the rest of the afternoon with the Sharps at the Boston Aquarium.
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| Posing by the law school banner |
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| Winnie the Pooh's house. Did you know that he lives on Harvard campus? Neither did we. Juniper was very sad that he was out. |
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| You have no idea how cute these two were. They hadn't seen each other in 9 months, and it was like they hadn't spent a day apart. They held hands the WHOLE TIME. |
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| Patrick and Juniper. They were born less than two weeks apart. |
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| The whole gang: l-r: Ewan, Linden, Juniper, Patrick (Ewan and Linden were also born a couple of weeks apart) |
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| It was so nice to spend the afternoon together! (l-r:Kerry and Ewan, Kenny and Patrick, Juniper me and Linden) |
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| Seriously. Juniper and Patrick broke my heart, they were so cute. |
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| Clearly these two aren't big-city-folk. The subways were just FAR too loud. |
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| Waiting for the subway before we parted ways. It was actually completely heart-wrenching when we had to pull Juniper off of Patrick to get her off the jam-packed subway before the doors closed. She was devastated to leave him. |
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| Celebrating Canada day in the USA. My mom thoughtfully sent some celebratory shirts for the occasion. |
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| Do you get any cooler than this? Seriously. |
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| He seemed so old when I took this picture, and so young now! |
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| All dressed up and gallant amidst the hydrangea. They are stunning on the Cape. |
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| Juniper poses beside her sunflowers (and shares the limelight with Linden!). I have a whole series of these shots from the day she planted them. She was VERY proud of them. |
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| Our garden this year... |
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| ...we put a whole lot of work into it, but then left for NB during peak harvesting season. Oh, and something ended up eating pretty much everything from it. Sigh. |
EPIC NEW BRUNSWICK JOURNEY
This was a big summer. There were some very exciting things happening, namely: my sister Andrea was to be married, Clark was going on a fieldwork trip to a remote fjord in Greenland, and then our dear friend Jane was getting married. Of course, Clark's fieldwork happened to coincide exactly with Andrea's wedding. And then Jane's wedding was almost exactly a month after Andrea's. Result? We cooked up a crazy plan to make it all happen. In short, I ended up driving to Fredericton with the kids (with the help of my sister Faye, who flew to Boston to drive up with us, thank goodness), while Clark simultaneously flew to Greenland. He met us in Fredericton after all the festivities, and then we moved to the Richards farmstead for a good couple of weeks, stayed until Jane's wedding and then came home. In the end, we were gone from the Cape for SIX WEEKS. This was epic, and wonderful, and ridiculously hard at times, and required a whole lot of help from some amazing people.
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| Linden and Theresa clean up after breakfast |
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| Juniper, Linden, and their doting (Richards-side) Aunts and Uncles |
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| Pat and Liz do bedtime. Juniper had so much fun with all the different bedtimes, and was able to manipulate many an extra story in the process. |
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| Andrea and Dinesh's Groom's dinner. (l-r: Ethan, Sawyer, Michael, Kelli, Steve, Ali) |
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| Yoho, 2nd generation. (l-r: Linden, Juniper, Bea and Zack) |
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| On one of Yoho's many amazing couches! (l-r: Linden, Erin, Tara, Juniper, Zack, Bea, Christie, Mish) |
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| Ogilvie (second? third?) cousins at Suz's bday party (l-r: Callie, Juniper, Linden, Evan, Xander) |
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| All gussied up, right before the big walk down the aisle! My dad joked that he wanted someone to bring him a box to stand on before the shot was taken :) |
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| Linden in a tux. Enough said. |
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| Juniper (the flower girl), and Ali (junior bridesmaid), looking gorgeous! |
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| Juniper, feeling VERY big with her cousins |
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| Theresa and Juniper doing yoga. Both kids have become very interested in yoga as of late. |
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| Juniper gets her great aunt Janie to paint her nails... |
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| ... and then somehow convinces Dinesh to touch them up! |
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| On a fairy walk through O'Dell woods, on the morning of Juniper's 4th Birthday. |
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| Juniper gets a happy birthday call from Clark, using a satellite phone from a remote fjord in Greenland |
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| Just take a look at this amazing train cake. Props to Faye and the Eddy kids for this masterpiece! |
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| All the birthday party kids (yes, this was the best pic I got of all of them). (l-r: Zack, Linden, Juniper, Isa and Bea) |
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| First trip to the farm! Juniper and grandpa, at a pre-bedtime bonfire |
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| Grandma and Linden |
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| Intrepid explorers |
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| Linden, a wonderful relic tricycle, and some (still growing!) sunflowers |
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| I LOVE this picture. Everything about it. |
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| Dad and Linden, after a dip in the river |
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| Birthday party #2! |
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| Check out this crazy amazing cake that Liz made! We really and truly did not even put a dent in it. |
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| Button jacket at the beach |
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| Dad earns his keep |
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| The Koller Martins come to visit us at the farm! Juniper shows Eva and Sylvie around the minute they get there |
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| Kids and a tractor. They had just picked potatoes. |
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| Juniper shows Eva the fine art of drawing scary bears |
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| Ahhh.... early evening at the beach. Bliss. |
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| Everyone learned to keep their distance from Linden, lest they get beaned in the head with a rock. It happened more than once... not because he meant to, but because his exuberance at throwing rocks in the river and his relatively poor aim often led to trouble. |
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| Smores. |
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| OMG SMORES! (nom, nom, nom...) |
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| Zsofi does bedtime. |
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| All ready for a canoe adventure! |
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| Mini fedora and a barn door. How could I NOT take a picture? |
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| Oh my, that was a nice visit! |
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| I think I was doing some pretty awesome dance moves in the background to get this pic, but holy moly there is a lot of cuteness there! (l-r: Juniper, Sylvie, Linden, Eva) |
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| At Jane and Mike's pre-wedding yoho extravaganza (me and Martha) |
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| I love this picture - these are my oldest friends! (l-r: Jane, Zsofi, Me, Martha, Christie, Meghan, Erin) |
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| Tux AND fedora. Linden was easily the most stylish guy at Jane and Mike's wedding |
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| Juniper and Noni. |
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| Just playing some croquet post-ceremony. No biggie. |
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| Linden and Freyja catch up and whisper sweet nothings |
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| I likely have a similar picture from 20 years ago! |
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| Dance party! |
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| tired but happy - what a fun wedding! |
BACK ON THE CAPE
We got back to the Cape just as September hit, and it welcomed us back with open arms. Autumn has always been my favourtie time of year, but Cape Cod certainly knows how to do autumn spectacularly!
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| This was actually from when Juniper was sick. Linden came up to snuggle and make her feel better. |
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| Another shot of the feel-better snuggle. We actually struggled for over a month with some mysterious illness that Juniper contracted in NB, and lasted a distressingly long time. It involved recurring and intermittent vomiting, diarrhea, and debilitating stomach cramps. It was awful. But this was so incredibly cute that it almost broke my heart. |
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| Linden in the main prop from Helen's "yellow submarine"-themed birthday party |
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| Juniper's first day back at the child centre! |
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| Seeing double! Lucia and Juniper sporting matching dresses. |
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| At the "touch a truck" event. Linden found his bliss. |
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| Juniper up really, really high on a huge crane truck. |
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| Digger. Just imagine how filthy they were immediately after this picture was taken! |
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| Clark turns 34! Juniper might have helped a little bit with this cake. |
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| A magical day trip to Heritage Gardens (l-r: Juniper, Kellie, Helen, Miguel, Linden, Valerie |
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| Linden could have played the various awesome percussion instruments all day long |
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| Juniper undoubtedly tries to lead the kids in some game or another (l-r: Juniper, Linden, Miguel, Helen) |
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| Carousel! |
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| Look! Linden LOVED it! He didn't want to leave! Every other time we tried him on a carousel up until this pint, he sobbed. He must be getting older (*sniff*) |
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| Juniper drew the two wooly bear caterpillars that we hosted for awhile (Fuzzy and Furry). This was the first time she actually sat and drew something that she was looking at - and I think she did a pretty great job! Just fyi: They have since been set free to enjoy the wild and find a good place to cocoon. We though about keeping them to see them all the way to their moth-hood, but they were clearly getting listless. |
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| Grandpa, Grandma and Liz come to visit! We took a day trip to Province Town on the outer cape. |
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| Linden liked to choose quiet places and sunbathe... |
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| ... or play with sticks, as the mood hit him. |
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| Look who turned TWO! I made that vest for him when he was a newborn, and somehow he is still wearing it two years later. |
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| The traditional caterpillar 2-year birthday cake. This one was modelled after fuzzy and furry. |
OK, that's it for now. 5 months. Holy crap. If you lasted this long, I'll remind you to check back on Friday! xo
