Rutland State Park

Jenny almost had the day off today. She was called in, and that is rare. So, she is making a pocket-full of money. But she missed a completly gorgeous day. Henry, Nora and I went to the state park for the sole purpose of Henry being able to throw rocks into the water. He did do that, but the completely abundant kiver population caught his eye. I brought a banana for him to eat and he dropped it on the ground. So, we discovered that kivers actually like to eat banana. Its no big surprise... they eat everything. I remember when I was young. I was camping and we ran out of bait. We just threw our hooks in and the kivers would bite onto the bare metal. They aren't too bright. Anyway, Henry enjoyed getting muddy and throwing everything he could find into the water... including bananas.

Trip to the mall...

Sounds easy right........ wrong. Jenny was at work.... Nora is getting two new teeth..... Henry was grumpy..... it was raining... All of these were reasons that I would have used not to do anything in the past. Still... I went out and bought two new pairs of jeans and a whole bunch of close for Henry. I walked the mall with Henry begging me to push the stroller and really tried to enjoy it. Well, we will call it a half success. I did get out :) Tomorrow is another day... and its not supposed to rain.....

Boston Children's Museum

Yesterday, we took a trip into Boston. We went on the subway, which Henry loved. We had lunch at Quincy Market... which proved to be a real challenge with all of the people and such, and then took the T to the children's Museum. This is from the place that I got a marvelous plate of fried clams. (Check out the guys in the back :) )

Henry absolutely loved it!! And, for the first time, being a teacher actually financially paid off a bit..... I got in free.... So, $18 gets a whole day of fun. I am definately taking Henry back. He had something of a breakthrough. Henry is naturally cautious, and is kind of afraid of a lot of things. But, I think the amount of kids climbing through things and just laughing etc. made him forget all of that and just have fun. He climbed up to the second story of this incredible netting thing that went up like three stories. He loved it. IT was kind of crazy because if he freaked out, there was really no way for me to get in there and get him out....

He also really gained som confidence on this little climby thing. There was a wall of pegs to climb and the first time he tried he was really slow, but he went up and through this little tunnel with a balance beam. Then, he went down a steep ramp with tiny steps.... He was really proud of himself and wanted to go again and again and again... His favorite though was this little canal toy that let kids direct the flow of water with these little faucets. He really liked it. He said it was his favorite.

All in all, this was a great trip. We are definately going back.

Party at Pauline's.....

First official day... This morning I went shopping for rugs. This is really not a great thing. Rug's are hard. To get a really nice one we would have to pay a ton of money, and the cheap ones all look pretty...well...cheap. The expensive ones are way over our head. So, frustration. On top of that, we have differing opinions of what we want....etc.... just a recipee for disaster.

Right, on to the party.

I have twin aunts, Pauline and Paulet. Niether of them are in this picture. Every year we have a summer party and more time than not its at my aunt Pauline's. Here is a run down of who is in this picture.

Here is my cousin Jen. She is pretty great. I am always glad to see her. Life, and a couple bad decisions have handed her a pretty tough deal right now. Still, she is reallly nice and has great kids. They are party people. I remember a couple of years ago during Christmas, Casey and Emily (her son and daughter) came walking in to my grandmothers house chanting "Lets get this party started (while marching [they were 8 and 10 years old]). I have always loved Jen. She needs a great guy to marry her.

Here is Aunt Martha. She is not my Aunt. I think I call her that because my Cousin Shonda calls her that. She is her Aunt. She's nice enough. I thought about living in her house once with one of my friends. That lasted less than a week.... I don't remeber why that was.

This is Skip. He lives with Martha. He's nice enough. I think he owns a Auto Salvage place.

Here is my dad, and behind him, Nora and my Mom. Happily, My dad stopped with the comb over a while back.

Gramma. She is looing better and better. She stopped smoking less than a year ago and her eyes have cleared. It was really nice to see her looking so good.

Here is the first person at the party that I don't know. I think it my Uncle Alby's sister. She was pretty nice.

Here is Henry!! He just finished off the bowl of Cheese puffs. He had apretty good time. I think he would have liked to run around a bit more but the raind and the dogs (I'll get to those later) kinda prevented that.

Shonda hates having her picture taken and here she is posted on the internet..... She is also the most likely one to find this blog. This could lead to my ruin.... SHONDA IS THE BEST PERSON I HAVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE. (hope that saves me)

Jenny. She had a good time at the party. I think she wanted to go to this. Sometimes its nice to go somewhere mildly fun and just let it happen around you.

Here's Tammy. She brought her relish. It's funny, I always thought I was the canning type and Tammy started doing it before me. I thik I am a little jealous but mostly happy to see her having fun doing it. Her relish is really good!!!

Here are the dreaded unknown people. It is ok at summer parties, so this wasn't really that bad. It's at its worst when its at a holiday party or something like that. I don't know why I dread it that much. It always just feels awkward. Surrounded by my family, people that I have known my whole life, and then to see a completely unknown face feels like an invasion. Anybody else feel like this?? My Aunt MArie is sticking out in the back of them. Her husband, my uncle Bruce died a while back, that was one of the saddest things I have been through.... still sad about it... still don't really understand... Aunt Marie is great though.

So, that's about it. The party was typical and fun. Other people were there two, big characters like Uncle Tommy, Aunt Paulette, My cousins Brian and Kelly, My niece Katie, and a few other older people that I didn't know, hmm..... that's about it. The food was good: dips, hamburgers, hotdogs, some tropical drink that was blue, good good good.....

Setting out....

Here I am....

with 3/4 of my family. My wife is at work. It's 5:41. After I am done with this entry, I am going to cook a steak and some sort of vegetable and some sort of starch. Then, I am going to eat a bit of it and give the rest to Henry (in my left arm). He's three, and Nora, she's six months. We just built the house I am in less than a year ago. We just bought the chair I am sitting in because Henry had lead poisoning from an old aprtment (he's perfectly fine now) and we had to buy all new furniture when we moved in. The past five years have been packed with stress, and craziness. Today I took a drive in the car to give both kids a nap. While I was driving down old, dirt back roads, by Mount Wachusett, past farms and forests, a little bit of life came back to me. And, I made a decision: I am going to do something everyday, not just something mondane, but something. And, I am going to write about it here.

We will see what tomorrow might bring..........