Beach Baby

Lobster, our cat, came from Hilton Head Island, SC. She was delivered to us by my Aunt Sherry and Uncle George in July. Last fall, John and I went down there during the VTNEA teacher convention and had a great time. So, when my cousin Gregg, who lives with his family in London, proposed to the extended family that we get together there this October, we promptly signed on.

Ten adults and five children stayed on North Forest Beach, in a house that Uncle George started going to in the 1950's. For the decade that my grandparents lived in Hilton Head, my extended family convened at this particular house for many holidays. It's a "no frills" house in a very "big frills" neighborhood. It's an absolutely perfect place and we had an absolutely perfect vacation........

Some of the highlights:


Being sung to by Grandma-- she's got a lovely voice and knows a lot more songs than Cally's lame tone deaf parents can remember.

Seeing an armadillo, a young spike horn buck, butterfly gardens, and an alligator at Pinckney Island.



Hanging out with Bumpa.....


Doing tons of cruising up and down the beach.


Having a first frozen yogurt cone.


Being forced to be a "tourist".


Meeting second cousin's Zoe (2) and Campbell (4) who live in London.

and their little brother Damon (6 months)-- he's one happy guy!


And seeing Cousin Will, a whole lot more robust than when we last saw him (he's now about 3 1/2 months old).


And mostly, just hanging out at the beach........


The weather was 80 degrees F every day.


The water was 70 degrees F.



And at low tide there were shallow pools to swim in, without the exciting, but rough waves.


Oh, and meeting Lobster's Mom, BD.

and brother, Bubba!




This was an attempt at getting all the youngest generation in a picture together..... From left to right, Campbell, Zoe, Damon, Cally, and Will. It turns out, it's rather difficult to get five kids under the age of 4 to cooperate for a picture without any parents......

Thank you Sherry and George for making sure everything was set up for this rowdy crew. Even though you still had to work and carry on with your obligations, you made sure that we were all well equiped with pack-n-plays, food, garbage disposal, and plumbers.

The Abbott family had an amazing vacation...... it was exactly what we needed.

Leaf Peeping with Nana & Grandpa

Last weekend, John's parents came up for their "Cally Fix". It had been a few months and they needed to see how their youngest grandchild was changing.

So, she strutted her stuff..........

And showed them her good buddy, Lobster.


She loves her grandparents and we love having them to visit.


They motivate us to do fun things with Cally, like go apple picking-- a classic Vermont activity that we thought Cally should do.

First we had to visit with the chickens and sheep. Cally still shows no fear with farm critters.....





Cally had her first apple.


She loved it.




She actually wouldn't put the apple down for the rest of our visit:




Even when we got in the car, she had to have the apple.......



And when I tried to reposition it in her mouth, she got pretty upset (yes, even this little smiling one can't always hold it together).


So, what does one do with all the apples?


Tonight we had a Forced Family Pie Making event....... John and I made three different pies: apple custard, crunchy top, and traditional. John is quite proud of his pie fluting abilities

Comps & Folliage

Fall is in the air. Apparently, this weekend is "peak foliage" up here in Vermont. Cally got to play in her first pile of leaves.

Unfortunately, her dad has been hiding out in his office all weekend. He's taking his Comps this weekend-- another hoop to jump through for his Doctoral degree in Education Policy and leadership. At noon on Friday, he was given the his assignment-- something about writing an original paper that identifies a problem within his organization that he'd like to address and solve. He's supposed to draw on all he knows about research strategies, leadership, diversity, organizational theory, and policy analysis. The good news is that the response shoudl be no longer than 15 pages.

As he says, "piece of cake". John's a great writer, so he's been cruising right along. He has until Monday at noon to turn it in. Yesterday, Cally and I visited him. His previous three years of notebooks were spread throughout his office and he was typing away with coffee on hand.

In other news, Cally is taking her first steps with the aid of a Radio Flyer wagon. It won't be long before she's ready for skis.

Passing of Traits

After John and I found out that I was pregnant, we did a lot of wondering about what the little critter in my belly would be like when he/she grew up. We would often refer to our strengths and weaknesses and hoped that the child would get the best of each of us (John's literary mind combined with my math/science prowess), but feared she might get the worst of both of us (poor ability to pick up a foreign language and lack of musical ability for both of us, my poor spelling, and John's disinterest in math).

Now that Cally is here and her personality is just forming, the jury is still out as to her academic and athletic abilities. However, I can only hope that she gets a lot of her dad's enthusiasm and attitude that he showed this past weekend at the Vermont 50 Miler-- a mountain bike race that he partook in on Sunday.

John signed up for this event last May, on a lark. We'd both talked about doing it a few years ago, but always missed the registration (it fills up in about 15 minutes). I have never been a fan of sitting on a bike seat for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time and knew it would be difficult for both of us to get much time on the bike this summer, so I resisted the temptation. Needless to say, the weather, for much of the summer, didn't cooperate with John's "training" for this race. And then, when the weather finally did cooperate, he was so busy with his job, that he couldn't get out much.

And so, with the weather forecast looking grim for yesterday's ride, I tried to convince John not to do the ride. Why would anyone want to spin through, ingest, hike-a-bike- and wallow in mud all day? But John is not one to quit. He's also not one to get caught up with the competitiveness of anything. He knew he could finish. He'd spent long days in the mountains. Another day with adverse conditions was nothing new to him.

Cally and I headed down to Ascutney yesterday, to watch the finish. It started to rain at 2am in the morning and never let up. As more and more bikers came through the finish, the description of the trail conditions went from bad to much, much worse. Our friend, Tyler, had been among the top five riders and then had a tire blow out. Once he changed his tire and got back on his bike, he was in about 20th position (he ended up finishing up in the top ten). He said that the difference in trail conditions, with an additional 15 people having ridden in front of him, was tremendous.......... much slicker, much thicker, much more difficult to ride. So, with 500 bikers and hundreds of runners on the trail, it got to the point where the uphills weren't rideable and the downhills were more akin to skiing or fishtailing in your car.


When John came through the finish line, nearly 10 hours after starting the race, he was filthy, smiling, and ever the optimist. He had probably hiked his bike 20 of the 50 miles (because the trail simply wasn't rideable). He wasn't beaten and hungry like the rest of the riders. He told us he felt like he could ride another 20 miles. And he said it was "fun" and beautiful.

While we can't be certain about Cally's personality and demeanor at this point, I can only hope that she has her father's optimism, sense of fun, noncompetitiveness, and ability to see the glass "half full". I sense she already does have at least a few of these traits.

9 Month Update

Little Miss Sunshine had a visit with her pediatrician yesterday. After nine months on this planet:

• she's just about 29 inches tall (putting her between the 75th and 90th percentile)
• weighing in at an ounce under 17 pounds (putting her between the 15th and 25th percentile)
• and measuring almost 18 inches around her noggin' (putting her between the 75th and 90th percentile in that department).
  

Fall, Friends, and a Fantastic Fair

This weekend, Cally's buddy Boden and his parents, Carlota and Matt, came up to play from the Boston area. We love when the Dormer's come up for a visit. They are super easy going and always up for adventures. This time around, I preceded their visit with a list of possible fun for the weekend...... a 10km trail run (with an 800 ft verticle gain), a birthday party at our friend's Jeff and Jules House, a bike ride with the kids, a visit to the Tunbridge World's Fair, and some good meals. They, of course, said yes to it all. Matt joined me for the run at the Trapp Family Lodge on Saturday morning, then joined John for an hour and a half Mountain bike ride (in a pair of kahkis on my size small womens mountain bike with no bike shorts), then both families went for a ride on the bike path, the we came home, whipped up a tasty dinner, and left the kids with Arielle, a super babysitter, so we could go to the birthday party. Today, John treated us to one of his enormous breakfasts and we capped it all off with a visit to the Tunbridge World's Fair. And did I mention that the weather was absolutely amazing!

As you can see, Cally and Boden couldn't look more opposite in appearance (our fair-skinned, blue eyed red-head juxtaposed against his dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin), but they get along really well and it's so fun to let them romp around together.

And the fair..... the pictures say it all. Cally continues to be facinated by animals..... big (note her sitting on the rear end of a 3000 lb ox) and small (baby chickens, pigmy goats, and piglets).