Christmas Week, and Boston Fun

Christmas morning walk, Spohr Gardens dock

Well, folks -- it is now officially over. The grand lead-up, the magical day itself, and even the let-down that inevitably follows.  Solstice and Christmas are both done for another year, and I have to say that I feel relieved.  I also feel grateful, and a wee little bit superhuman - everything kind of went exactly how it was supposed to.  Sure, we all had colds, but nothing insurmountable. No one was up 3 hours earlier than they were supposed to be on Christmas Day. I managed to make the kids their yearly set of pjs, although I was going right up to bedtime on Christmas Eve.  Everyone was relatively calm, and excited with their gifts. So - success!  Here are some photos:

Snuggling and "reading" their Christmas Eve book: The Nutcracker

The stockings, before they were ripped into

Our little Charlie Brown tree, with all the presents underneath (ps: these reusable cloth wrapping bags I made last year are genius)

Posing with their pjs.  I ran out of both fabric and time before I could get to Juniper's top.

The serious and exciting business of exploring a stocking

It was a very truck-heavy Christmas for Linden

Like, VERY truck-heavy

Exploring the world through new binoculars (from Liz and Pat) on a Christmas morning walk

Sharing a secret

"Sweeping the pond" (I let Clark know that he would be going in after them if they went over)

I had to include this family shot, because it was a grand feat to have balanced the camera on a tree branch in order to make it work

Antics in the tree

Antics on the Anchor

Some bit of hilarity when Ben and Liz came for a visit the next morning

The obligatory yearly Christmas tree family shot...

... and once more with a bit of silliness

On the morning of the 28th, we got a call from my brother Michael, who said "Steve and I are en route to Boston, and we've booked you a hotel room - come visit!"  So of course, we did.  We had a grand, relatively impromptu Boston adventure, filled with lots of walking, good food, and enough "train rides" to satiate even the most enthusiastic train riders of the bunch. Mike and Steve even brought presents for the kids that Santa had mysteriously and inexplicably left at their house by mistake.  Good thing we saw them!

Outside of "The Met", where we met Mike and Steve for dinner

Playing with Linden's new letter blocks at the restaurant

Hanging in the hotel lobby. Juniper is in her very carefully chosen "fancy outfit".

Our plans got relatively thwarted the next day -- we had decided, for instance, that we would visit the aquarium. When we got there, there was a line-up almost to the street, with dozens and dozens of school groups (or, I should say, holiday week pseudo-school groups), waiting to get in.  We quickly tried to convince the kids that instead of the aquarium, we'd go ride the carousel instead.  Success! When we got to the carousel, however, it was closed. And so on. Also, all the people in our little family of four were indescribably tired from a very bad sleep the evening before.  There was therefore much grumpiness and bad behaviour (especially from a little Linden fellow, who can be completely intolerable when he is exhausted.  This is especially unfair, as it was his fault that none of the rest of us slept).  Nonetheless, we persevered, and got to take in the Quincy Market, have yummy lunch at Wagamamma's, and just generally hang out.

Mike, Clark and the kids in front of the gargantuan Christmas tree.

Stopping for a bit of New England Clam Chowdah

Hanging out on Uncle Mike's shoulders

Pensive train riders

One last group shot before we left

We are now back home, well-rested, and trying to figure out how to put in these last days of limbo before all the newness of next week.  Likely there will be some playing with new stuff (mostly art/craft supplies for Juniper, and cars/trucks/trains for Linden), a bunch of outdoor play, and reading.  That's my guess, anyway. Oh, and also for me: some sugar detoxing.   Evil, evil sugar. See you next week!

One day late

Hi all! We are currently on a relatively impromptu trip to Boston to visit my brother Michael and his s.o., Steve. All this by way of saying that I am not currently capable of doing a real blog post. I will, however, endeavour to have one up. See you tomorrow!

Faye, The Lead Up to the Big Day(s)

Hanging with Faye!

The big news this week was a visit from my sister Faye.  This was a stop for her en route to an extended Christmas visit to Fredericton.  After Fredericton, she was then planning to take off for a 4-6 week contract she had accepted in Mali,  helping to determine strategic funding priorities for the ebola relief efforts in western Africa.  She had slotted out a nice long time to be here -- just over a week, in fact, -- and we had lots of plans. Games, baking, shopping, maybe a nice date night in there somewhere... a whole slew of fun and relaxing things to balance out the intensity of her upcoming trip.  Things started to go awry shortly after she got here, however, when she got an email from one of her two employers, stating that they needed her much sooner than they had originally indicated. Like, right now. 

As you can imagine, chaos (and a whole lot of stress) ensued.  For Faye to really and truly get to Mali as soon as possible, she needed to do about a million different things -- organize and  get a whole bunch of vaccines, apply for and then get a visa, change all of her plans and rebook tickets, figure out what she needed to take with her ( mosquito net, malaria meds etc etc), bone up on her French, and get safety training.  She also needed to sort out details of her contract, and figure out what exactly would be going on when she landed. And of course, she needed to get back to Toronto. This was confused by the fact that she was being contracted and sub-contracted by two different agencies, one of whom had a rep in Portland, Oregon and the other in Dubai. Therefore communication was (due to time zones, etc), very difficult and frustrating.

So, needless to say, this wasn't exactly the visit we had all envisioned.  Also, we all (except for Faye, that is), ended up getting pretty sick with colds. But we persevered! I think everyone still had a pretty good time in and amongst the chaos and stress and sickness, and the shortened visit.  Here were some of the highlights:

1. We procured and decorated our tree!  I love this a little more each year, as the kids get ore and more excited, and I become more and more nostalgic about our great ornaments (and about our yearly new ones)

Linden was actually really serious about the tree decorating this year

Juniper created this 2 minutes after the event took place. She likes to stay current.

2: Linden showed Faye the meaning of the word "ham".  Here is a series of shots Faye took at dinner one evening:

3: A whole bunch of things I didn't manage to get pictures of: Faye, for instance, joined me as parent helper at the Child Centre the day after she got here.  Juniper also skipped school and came along, so it was QUITE the event. (Faye said afterwards: "my god.  I don't know how the teachers do this every day.  I wouldn't survive").  We also had a games night with a game that Faye had gotten the kids for Christmas, poked around Falmouth a bit, went out for dinner, read a lot of books, and just generally hung out.  Oh, and Faye also did a bunch of laundry, cleaned up dishes, and -here's the kicker - got up with the kids every single morning, and let me and Clark sleep in. Thank you Faye!

Finally, though Faye had already left by this point, we also made and decorated the gingerbread house this week. Here are the pics:

Juniper had to stand on the chair to get leverage

The happy decorators

The finished product (along with the two scary gingerbread people guarding the place)

Merry Christmas!! I'll post lots of pictures (and maybe videos) from the big day next week.

Parties and Pots

left-right: Linden, Juniper, Clark, Tara, and (big-necked) Faye

 My sister Faye is now here, having arrived in just enough time to see the kids before they went to bed on Sunday night (she found the above portrait waiting for her when she arrived, of course). That event was the exciting finishing touch to one whirlwind of a weekend - exactly the kind of weekend one would expect to experience during mid-December madness.  Some events were sadly not documented with photos, such as the Nutcracker ballet which Clark bravely took the kids to on Sunday while I was driving to the airport. It was a shortened version (perfect for the attention spans of a 5 and 3-year old), and - more to the point - it  included our friend Ben as the adult Nutcracker! Apparently the kids were both pretty enthralled - they sat through the first act with no problems, and other than feeling the need to dance in the aisles during part of the second act, Linden was surprisingly well-behaved.  

Anyway, I do have a few photos from other events:

1: Saying good-bye to Oliver and Owen: Clark's co-post-doc, Peter, has accepted a job out west, and so we had to say good-bye to one of our favourite Cape Cod families this weekend.  Luckily we got nice hang-out time amongst the madness of packing.

Juniper, Linden and Oliver play "train" en route to the park

Nestled in front of the fire after our good-bye breakfast. After this photo, Owen (far right) gave me the BEST snuggle.

2. Candle-making at the library: Juniper and I headed off on Saturday afternoon to a great activity at the Woods Hole Library: rolling and decorating beeswax candles. 

Proudly displaying her finished candle

I also snapped this photo of Juniper fastidiously checking her weather station after the workshop.  Is she a Richards, I wonder?

3. Hanging the wreath: For the last week, we've been stymied as to how to hang our beautiful Renaissance Fair wreath.  I decided I wanted it up on the garage, but this was exceptionally difficult with no ladder.  On Saturday afternoon, however, Clark's resourcefulness won out, and backed the car up.  The wreath is not *quite* high enough, but it is up!

The car-ladder technique

Up close

 4. The Barn Pottery Open House:  Kim, Hollis, and some other vendors came together on the weekend to have a lovely holiday fair/open house.  It was, somehow, the first time that I made it out to the studio, and I will absolutely be coming back.  We admired all the beautiful pots, chose out our yearly Christmas Tree ornaments (two beauties made by Kim), and somehow also came home with a wonderful faceted Hollis tea bowl.

Mighty Hollis manages to pick up both kids for a photo, in the brand new gallery shed.

Kim and Juniper by the cozy fire (Juniper once whispered to me "I LOVE Kim")

Linden tries out one of the outdoor kick wheels.

And finally, I would be remiss not to mention the SHOP PARTY (it deserves to be in all caps).  So, every year, WHOI puts on this grand holiday event in the Village.  It is, in some ways, what you would expect of a large-scale do: loads of great food, never-ending drinks, and, at some point in the evening, a live band.  There is, however, one important factor that makes this unlike any event I've ever been to: it is held at the massive, maze-like WHOI machine shop.  Just try and picture this space - a HUGE open area with crazy pulleys and vices and specialty equipment; drawers full of nuts and bolts; huge spools of cable, and other devices that I can't even begin to imagine their use. There are winding corridors with gigantic floats and machines, some of which are so narrow that you have to squeeze through single file. One room had this large water table with a tall fountain-like structure, manned by a guy who was  in charge of throwing chunks of dry ice into it for effect.  If you ventured outside, you would stumble across a bonfire with a GIGANTIC round pan-like thing where they were making paella and roasted meat throughout the evening. The whole place is dark, loud, and frenetic. It is amazing, and somehow, it was the first time I had been.

The kids, of course, had a blast - Linden was mostly intent on throwing himself on the floor, and getting as ridiculously filthy as he could (his hands, for instance, were black within minutes).  Juniper, however, wanted to dance.  We were there before the band showed up, so all we had was whatever they were playing over the speakers (I'm guessing Pandora set to some sort of "world music" station). I've never seen Juniper so in her element.  She was shy at first, but once she got going, she was unstoppable. At one point, she came up to me, and giddily whispered "I feel GREAT dancing with everyone watching me!"

At one point in the evening,  when we had ventured into the food room, this guy I had never met before in my life came up to me and asked,

 "where did she learn to dance like that?" 

"That's all her",  I replied" - "she just does her own thing".  

"That's going to be trouble in a few years" he answered. 

I had no idea what he was talking about, until I managed to get this one little clip. This was more subdued than most of the rest of the evening, but incorporated many of the same themes. Where DID she learn those moves? (this same man appeared later, when I was also dancing, and quipped "I think she's being coached" Ummm... not like that!) I had to add music to this clip after the fact - for whatever reason, my phone didn't capture the sound. See you next week!

December just got real.

Having a snack and catching up on the New Yorker

Holy moly.  It seems that I forget from year to year how intense the month of December can be.  Or maybe it is just that as the kids get older, the intensity level ramps up a few more notches.  But here we are, barely on the other side of week #1, and it feels as though we have packed enough in to be calling it January.  Now don't get me wrong - I'm actually not complaining. Tired, yes.  Overwhelmed?  Maybe just a tiny little bit.  But honestly, this is a very fun time of the year.  And this was a hugely fun week, and I think that as the excitement and activities build, the comings weeks will just get progressively more enjoyable. 

Juniper teaches Linden to play checkers.  It didn't end well.

So, as you may recall from last year, the Solstice Fairies show up every single night (every night!) from Dec. 1st until the 24th  to bring a little note for the kids (yes, to those keeping track, that does mean that there is at least one day that the Solstice Fairies call it quits, and Clark and I step in. Clearly, none of this was actually fully worked out when the tradition began). Anyway, sometimes the fairies bring a  little treat or present, but much more often, it is a suggestion for a fun activity.  I was looking back at last year's selection (which I documented with extreme fastidiousness), and I realised that last year was very, very different for us.  Linden was home with me full time, and Juniper only went to preschool a few mornings a week.  This year, Linden is at preschool, and Juniper goes to Kindergarten all day, 5 days a week.  So - all that time we had for fun and imaginative adventures is suddenly drastically reduced.  This puts those hard-working fairies in a bit of a creative quandary.  So far, however, they have managed to only bring treats twice, and have filled in the gaps with a family dinner out, some ornament making (at our awesome next-door neighbour's house! Bonus!), some holiday house-decorating, and some holiday card-making.  Oh yeah, and also a random gift from the emergency gift stash. Whew!

Ornaments made and hung

On top of all the fairy shenanigans, there was, of course, the weekend.  Weekends in December are, generally speaking, completely ridiculous, with all of us making difficult choices about how much we can cram in, and what we're going to have to skip. This past weekend, we opted for the ever-fun Renaissance Fair (where we picked up our beautiful yearly wreath - pictures to follow as soon as we have it up on the house), and the Christmas Parade.   Oh, parades. To be fully honest,  I'm not the hugest fan of parades.  Especially the (sometimes) tacky, freeze-your-butt-off, never-ending Christmas parades. (This MIGHT have something to do with the years that I spent as a member of the Fredericton City Concert and Marching Band).  And the Falmouth Christmas Parade, I learned, boasts the distinction of being the "biggest small town Christmas parade" in Massachusetts. It also has a huge number of really scary clowns.

Liz and a super cute penguin watch the parade

I forget how, exactly, but last year, I managed to avoid the Christmas Parade entirely. Clark, brave soul that he is, gallantly trudged off with both kids in tow. This year, however, was a different story.  This year, Clark and Juniper were IN the parade, riding bikes with the bike lab that Clark volunteers for.  There was a manger theme going on, and therefore Clark was to go dressed as a shepherd, and Juniper as a lamb.  Juniper, of course, was stoked, knowing the kind of celebrity status that comes with being one of the parade members.  She wondered aloud the night before whether being in the parade would therefore mean that she would also "be in a movie" (?).  Clark was also totally game for the whole thing.  Linden was keen to see some big trucks, and I... put on a cheerful face and some warm clothes, resolved to silently cheer on those brave marching bands with their happy tunes and cold fingers. 

Decorating the bikes

After the flurry of piecing together costumes and decorating the bikes in the morning, we all set off in just enough time to carry out our plan. It was a bit convoluted, but manageable: Linden and I would drop off Clark and Juniper (and their bikes) as close as we could get them to the starting point. We would then circle back, to park and Ben and Liz's place (a 15-or-so minute walk from the end of parade). Liz and Linden and I would then proceed to find a spot to watch Ben and Clark and Juniper make their Falmouth Christmas Parade debuts in the manger biking group (and all the other fabulous parade stuff), and then we'd all find each other at the end and somehow make it home. Easy peasy, right?  

Finishing touches

Things started to unravel a bit when we got to the drop-off point. 

"Oh, no!" Clark exclaimed.  "I forgot the bike paniers!"  

"Well, we can't go back now", I pointed out. "The parade is about to start, and you still have to get your costumes on and your bikes together, and find your group".

"But - Juniper's mittens! And all the snacks!" he replied, sounding a little bit panicked.

"OK, here, take half of Linden's snacks, and my gloves.  Gotta go!" 

Linden and I were off. One minute later, my phone rang.

"Tara, I forgot my costume"

"What? Well then, Clark, I guess you'll just have to be the 'normal guy' in amongst the manger people"

"No, no - it's not just my costume, but also my helmet. I can't go biking without my helmet, for goodness sakes".

After quick phone consultation with Liz, we moved on to plan B.  Plan B involved the following: 

a) I drop Linden off at Liz's, so that they can try and still make it for the beginning of the parade.

b) I then go all the way home and get the missing mittens, costume, and helmet (seriously?)

c) I drop all this stuff back off to Clark and Juniper, who, knowing that they will not make it to the beginning of the parade, have positioned themselves at a location where they hope they will be able to join up in time to still participate.

d) I weave my way back to Ben and Liz's house, and then walk as fast as I possibly can to try and find Liz and Linden, and to catch a glimpse of Clark and Juniper before they reach the end of the parade (assuming that they even made it in the parade in the first place).

The result? Seconds (literally, seconds) after I dropped the stuff off, along came the bike group.  So Clark and Juniper joined them as though they had planned it that way. As for me? After run/walking the whole way from Liz's, and pushing my way through all the throngs of people on the sidewalk, I see the bikers come down the street!  (incidentally, 1-2 minutes later, I would have missed them completely). I whip out my camera, take a couple of shots (and a video), and then keep on walking until I meet up with Liz and Linden.  Success! Shortly thereafter, Clark and Juniper (now off duty), double back and find us, and we watch the rest of it together. So, in the end, the whole thing was not nearly as disastrous as it could have been. Not in the category of "super duper fun", or "decidedly stress-free", but it was a story with a mostly happy ending. 

The shepherd and his lamb in action!

And finally, the little bit of video I was able to shoot.  Juniper did make it into a movie afterall!:

With that, I will leave you to begin "December, Week two".  See you next week!