Rain

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A Dino Encounter

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It’s raining, it’s pouring, the dinosaurs were roaring?

Close enough.

We had a Saturday morning where all our plans were unexpectedly cancelled, but there was a dinosaur event in town… so obviously we checked it out. We walked into a room with some animatronic dinosaurs bouncing up and down and making noises. The kids spent a while trying to pet them and pretended to feed them, but much like trips to zoos with actual animals, they eventually got bored. Tom’s favorite exhibit was a little toddler that walked around roaring at everyone, but even that got old after a while.

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Santa's Village

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I go back and forth about how I want to spend our summers. Relaxing and lazy summers spent outside by the water? Or action packed and seeing all the things? Maybe I’ll alternate - rent a house one year for a slow paced vacation and the next year spend the summer going all over and seeing everything I want to see. Or maybe it’s a result of feeling so locked down the past few years due to the pandemic and getting used to being a family of five.

But as I’ve stated before, I’ve been itching to do more lately. So this summer I planned a few things that’ve I’ve been dreaming about. Number one? Santa’s Village!

I actually wasn’t sure if we’d do Storyland or Santa’s Village - I didn’t really feel strongly one way or another, but eventually I leaned towards Santa’s Village. I felt like our family likes Christmas more than fairy tales, and I heard the park had more shade for hot and sunny days.

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A Weekend Away

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Well that feels weird to write. After a year+ of mostly staying home, we went on an actual vacation recently. Considering G has been to Maine once when he was not even crawling, and Vermont over a year ago, it was a big accomplishment. Both kids were equal parts excited and confused.

But we had a four day weekend and so we figured that going somewhere for a few days and dealing with whatever crazy that would bring would be better than being trapped at home and dealing with the crazy we knew would come. So we packed up and drove into the city. It seemed like such a funny vacation to take normally, but we all know these aren’t normal times.

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Blame it on the Rain

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It feels funny to complain about quarantine sometimes. Because most days we’re fine. Thriving even. Last weekend was amazing, and I felt really close as a family. We went for family drives to point out the empty parking lots, and we played in the yard. We even crossed a bunch of things off our home to do list, which made us feel like real functioning adults. Got the septic pumped! Gutters are clean! Even bought a shed for the backyard! (Something I’ll post about on it’s own once it’s actually here and functioning).

It really was a good weekend. They feel longer, now, than they used to. I think that’s a function of having no where to go, no plans, nothing to do to “kill time,” so it’s just two full days of togetherness. And that’s not a bad thing.

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Remember the Giggles

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Did you know that on January 15th, 1986 it was -25 degrees in Newport Center? I do, because it’s in my baby book. You may think that’s an odd thing to record in a baby book, but as a new mom I soon realized that sometimes there’s not much going on to write in the baby book! And weather becomes a big deal. Too hot, too cold, too rainy, too anything.. all become great reasons to not go anywhere and spend the day on the couch with the baby.

So if you look in E or G’s baby books, you’ll find random comments on the weather. Especially last week (because you run out of ways to say, we stayed home and did nothing). G’s baby book entries look like this: