We got the party started with Moo, Freak Show, Hippy Chick
& Cheese Please on our 1,0000000000000 annual pumpkin carve. Freak Show
made us the BEST sausage in the world cuz he uses a cast iron skillet.
Spotty Chop had a lot of fun playing with the puppy.
We carved our hearts out
(even if hippy chick abandoned us to take photos on OUR OWN
).
This was Spotty Chop's first all by himself with no help (well, maybe Boy Toy helped cut the top off, that's always the hardest.) - Frankenstein!
This was my favorite - Cheese Please did it
So hippy chick abandoned us, but luckily CIS was there to save the day!
Spotty Chop and his team played during the first
intermission at the Providence Bruins last weekend. We had such a blast and
Spotty seemed to have fun too. They didn't win, but that wasn't the point. Spotty told us "When I got onto the ice I just stood there and thought WOW."
Hey I'm only a month late. Spotty Chop is back to school! He loves his new teacher. He loves having his best friends in class with him. What more can you ask for?
My parents rented a house again on the water and invited us
down. It wasn’t the whirlwind of activity it was when my godson & sis were
here, but that’s ok. We like to just hang out sometimes. But that of course
doesn’t mean we didn’t have any adventures…
First there was an Eco tour. We learned all about the
horseshoe crab, the Ospreys, the marshes. I actually never knew that there were
marshes down the Cape. I also didn’t know there was forest. Spotty Chop had a
great time with all of the information they wanted to share.
My God but Spotty has a great time with his Papa.
There was a lot of kite flying, dragon flying, car racing
and just having fun to be had
We also frolicked in the water
Papa taught Spotty how to make the perfect omelet
We went kayaking in one of the marshes and yes those are
seals. No great whites thank god!
Spotty was of course invited into the neighbor’s hot tub
Had fun in my parents Jacuzzi
And made friends. I saw less of Spotty than I wanted, but he
found kids to play with and he had a blast.
We missed my godson & his sister so we had Spotty take a
few photos
We went camping down the Cape this past weekend with Moo,
Freak Show, Cheese Please and Cheez-It Hippy Chick (CIHC). On the ride down there was…traffic, and I
realized that the only time we have been to Sweetwater was during Columbus Day,
when most people have stopped camping. I was hoping I didn’t make a grave error
in judgment as I had no idea what the campground would be like with lots of
people in it. Luckily the camping gods were with us and we had a great time. It wasn’t Fransted
great, but being closer means we may get to go camping with certain people more
often. Moo & family recently got a new dog and it was Puppy’s first time camping. We think she may have had
a bit of fun.
Spotty Chop is still very skittish as he is afraid that when
she jumps her claws and teeth are going to
hurt, but the more he is around her the more comfortable he is getting. Boy
toy and I love her claw and teeth marks and
see them as a badge of honor. Puppy has been going to training classes and we
got to watch some of the training up close. Puppy is a wicked SMAHT dog, and it
was a lot of fun seeing what goes into training one.
We rented canoes and splashed our way around the pond
(Moo loves having her picture taken )
Spotty decided to sleep in the car BY HIMSELF this weekend.
I can’t Frelling believe that I did not snap A SINGLE PHOTO OF HIM IN HIS COZY
NEST. He is thinking that he should have his own tent for Labor Day camping….
The first night he woke up after 1am, wandered around the campsites realized we
were all asleep and got back into the car and went back to sleep.
ME: “You could have come into the tent with us”
Spotty: laughing “I
didn’t want to”
Who the hell is this child and what has he done with Spotty?!
Cheese Please was on a mission to enjoy camping with her
Cheez-It sister. I didn’t get a lot of shots with the two of them, but she made
sure that CIS was very active during the camping trip.
Hippy Chick tried to bring Potato Chip Cheese Please (PCCP)
to the beach with her, but the level of effort on her part was disappointing.
We also had a terror alert. Spotty asked if he could run up
to the camp store and buy something, we said sure and off he went.
Boy toy comments “it’s not like him to be this long – do you
want me to check?”
Does a bear shit?
Boy toy went off and a little later he comes back saying “he
wasn’t at the store, he wasn’t at the video arcade”. I start to panic. Is he
lost and crying (the campground is huge, there are some sections we have never
been in, it always takes me till the day we leave before I know where I am
going.) Moo tells me to breathe. Boy Toy
and I head out again to see if we can find him. Long story short he was fine.
He didn’t get lost. On his way to the store he had to go to the bathroom and
then he went to the store. Freak Show found him. As I was wandering around
trying to find/hear him and slowly going crazy with the thoughts that some
serial rapist/killer had dragged him into one of the unknown sections of the
campground I saw Freak Show walking quickly in the distance. Seeing him
reminded me that we weren’t alone, Moo/Freak Show/Cheese Please/Puppy were with
us, and would help us until we got Spotty Chop back. I am
usually a great person to be around in a crisis. I am able to hold it together
until the crisis passes (and then I meltdown), but I have a feeling I will not
be so good when it involves Spotty. I have never been so scared. And as a
parent you are going to have several of these “never been so scared” moments,
but Christ on a Cracker. I NEVER want to be in that position again.
Spotty Chop was pretty sad that we had to go home so soon.
Cheese Please distracted him by letting him assist her in making a
pancake breakfast for all of us. Tasty cakecakes (again with no photos, I am
not sure what was up with my brain this weekend)!
We had a glorious long weekend up in the White Mountains.
Did it rain? Of course! But luckily we can handle a little rain. We played a
lot of ping pong, and Foosball.
We sat around the fire and snacked likemad men. Our new ride (Hyundai Santa Fe) was
excellent for the trip. We actually have a bit more room than the Jeep Liberty
so Spotty Chop wasn’t crushed into a tiny warren.Since it was the first trip of the season we
of course forgot a few things (nothing that a quick “grab a new poppy at
Walmart” couldn’t fix) a tarp for the wood (did I mention it rained? ). This
one crawled up our ass a bit as we purchased….4-6 new tarps in the fall to
cover the two cords of wood we used. No walkie talkies, no glow sticks. Could
have been worse, once Boy Toys clothes never made it up.
We also went to Six Gun City (oh they renamed it since Mem Day - Fort Jefferson Fun Park). I will admit I was a bit disappointed
in how…old the place looked, but I know they have been struggling. You can buy
all day passes, or tickets (I think the go carts were 5 tickets). I figured out
that if Boy Toy and Spotty Chop did either the laser tag or go carts 4 times
the all day tickets would pay for themselves. I grabbed a few tickets so I
could do something with them. Boy Toy would have stayed on the go carts all day
(hell he would probably still be there
if I hadn’t dragged him away. Spotty Chop LOVED laser tag, in fact he met a
friend there and they ran around for the rest of the day.
So a good time was had by all.
Maybe it won’t take a month +
to write about camping 4th of July...who am I kidding? I will be lucky to have something up by Christmas.
You seem to be enjoying summer explorer camp this year. So
far you have gone to:
Nantasket Beach
Hopkinton State Park
Scussett Beach
Dinosaur Exhibit
Goddard State Park
Papa has taken you to:
Lego Land – you had fun
Heritage Museum & Gardens – you LOVED this – they had 2
exhibits you couldn’t stop talking about. The first was “Wicked Plants”,
detailing all sorts of plants that can kill you Papa said you read EVERY
description – hahaha – welcome to our world. There was also a “Big Bug”
exhibit, you had to search the grounds for all of the man made, wooden bugs.
You and J-Man have swam and made
sugar cookies at our place (there is a water balloon fight, tie dying and rice
crispy treats in your futures too!)
You have been camping twice with
another trip this weekend AND we had the extra crunchie bonus of having my
favorite godson, his sister and their parents (my uncle & aunt) here for
the week. We got to see them once, you were SOO disappointed that you didn’t
get to spend a week with GO, but you guys made the most of the time you had.
Movies you have watched:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone – it was insane watching you watch this – you at times were dancing you
were so excited, well sometimes with glee, but often you did the dance of
annoyance- any time we had to pause the
movie)
The Spy Next Door (you were extremely
nervous that you wouldn’t like this, but we explained that Jackie Chan has done
a lot of funny movies) – you loved it
Free Birds - you were happy
And something else that for the
life of me I can’t remember
You have added several things to
your mealtime adventures:
Hamburger (both burgers and just
hamburger in stuff – TACOS!!!! YOU LOVE TOACOSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssss)
Sausage (you have been eating
breakfast sausage for awhile, but now you do sweet Italian – in fact the other
night Boy Toy was grilling sausage for our supper and I had him grill two
packages 1 for dinner and 1 that I would throw into a spaghetti sauce the next
day. You ate 7 sausages, you would have eaten more, but I refused. I had 2…
Piquant pork chops - this is a recipe that your great-grandmother
(Nannie’s mom) used to make. To be honest with you I was expecting you to
dislike it and I had BIG plans on having the leftovers for lunch today, but
guess who loved it….well, you didn’t care for the red peppers and I didn’t
understand when you kept saying “it has too much ketchup” what you really meant was peppers – once I explained
and we moved the peppers away you went to town. Yet another recipe that will
soon need to be doubled (hold the peppers)
Summer Reading:
I took you and J-man to the
library’s summer reading kick off – they had a magician Peter Boiethat was really
cool, “Peter started learning magic at age 11 from a magic book he checked out
of his local library. That interest
turned into a career as a professional magician which takes him around the
country performing for people in all walks of life.”
The neat thing about the program
this summer is that not only do you fill out periodic table for every 30 mins
they read (we can’t help loving the elements
-
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/theymightbegiants/meettheelements.html), but
they are also given an optional science experiment to do (for more changes of prizes). This will
be great for kids like J-man who find reading challenging/boring. You are super excited about it (last year’s
theme was pirates and doubloons). I get
kind of bummed when we go to events at the library when there are very few kids
your age or older. Why aren’t more people at the Library?
BOOOOOKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Our town is often an odd town.
We are also doing the Barns &
Noble summer reading program where you read 8 books and then you get a free
book. Who doesn’t love FREE!!!??
Books read: (or in the midst of
reading, which I really don’t get as I don’t have multiple books going at the
same time, I find your reading style an abomination, not that I would say such
a thing, get a book, read book, move to the next. THAT is the order of things):
BIG NATE AND FRIENDS
OPHELIA AND THE MARVELOUS BOY
GAME OVER, PETE WATSON
Dragon Keepers #3: The Dragon in
the Library
At least these are the ones I know
about…I may be missing a few as you sometimes just read and I don’t notice and
then I say “Spotty, why don’t you read “xxx” and you go “I read that awhile ago”.
Or the stuff you read in school. Your
teacher let you all take home a book and a couple of magazines if you wanted
the last day of school. You brought home “Fudgeamania” by Judy Blume. I said “oh
are you going to read that?” And you replied “I already read this. In fact this
was maybe my most favorite book I have read.” Really? It’s one of your most
favorite and I had no idea. YOU are growing up far too fast my boy. We are also listening to the Hobbit on CD and
I am reading you The Familiars #3: Circle of Heroes.
Well two weeks into Summer and you
are really into the swing of things. I couldn’t be happier. You are an amazing
individual. Love ya kiddo
A couple of weekends ago we went to WPI’s Touchtomorrow
event that is cosponsored by NASA. This event is free to the public and
allows everyone to get up close and personal with Robots, astronauts,
professors and students who have built/are building/thinking about building cool
stuff. There was a ton of stuff for kids to do. Spotty’s eyes
were aglow. He was enraptured listening to one of the mechanical engineering
professors. He was talking about how they initially go to home depot when they
are building proto types of items that would help the disabled. I never would
have expected Spotty to be interested, but he didn’t want to leave. Spotty was
also able to drive around a couple of robots and play video games that the
students created. We spent at least 5
hours there, and could have spent more. Spotty got a very cool NASA patch for
completing his “passport” (going around to various shows/talks and getting a
stamp to say he participated). We will definitely
be back next year.
Somewhere between Boston and Providence, MA, United States
I am an Old and decrepit mom of a 7 year old, with a living in sin boy-toy of 25+ years. Working outside the home in corporate rat race. Loves reading; camping and eating. Sometime follower of Bob
