Dearest Brother,

The other night we pulled out the old slides and sat down to a picture show. And ran across this. We guffawed for quite awhile, and I just couldn’t resist showing the world. You really were the cutest thing many birthdays ago, even in those cutoff jeans.

Good thing you turned into such a handsome scudder…

But I’m still glad you can get your goof on.

Love you more than words, and happy quarter century!!

Took a peek at yesterday’s celebration pictures…had to get them posted! We had a lovely time yesterday-grilled hotdogs and had fun with Ms. Marietta (elderly neighbor) and Grammy and Uncle Josh. Then traveled to Bangor and watched the fireworks on the river-we were so close that we had to crane our necks to see the really big ones! The boys loved it! (Jack: “Boom Boom!” Ryan: “Fireworks are my favorite color!”)

Side note on the house today-I stayed home with the boys, but mom prepped more walls and dad and Erick got the plumbing ready for our pedestal sink in the bathroom, yay! Layed a bit of hardibacker for the tile, too. We are gettin’ there!

No Rhinestones for us…and we are definitely the drugstore type of cowboy; not the real thing like Great Grandpa!

But momma insists we have a little of the old west for her sake, so these hats have to do; plus they keep the sun off real good for strawberry pickin’.

And pick we did!

Makes for alot of work, but oh.so.worth.it.

And whaddya think momma should do with the strawberry containers? She thinks they are just too cute to throw away! She says ideas are welcome!

After strawberry preparation and nice long naps, we made pizza.

But not your typical pizza…especially for cowboys. It kind of grossed us boys out at first, until we were talked into having a bite, and then we loved it. Informal recipe? Pesto, grilled chicken, mozzarella, and roasted red peppers. And oil the durn pizza pan-no spray can for this one. The oil made the crust super light and yummmmmy. Yeah. We were pretty surprised we liked it. But ya know what we liked better? Strawberry shortcake with real whipped cream for dessert! But since momma and daddy were wolfing it down in order to saunter to the community movie theater to see Prince Caspian, there wasn’t any time to take pictures of that delightful meal. So you’ll just have to imagine it.

Go pick ya some strawberries and make yerself a pizza. You won’t regret it, pardner.

but I just can’t help myself. I can’t stop shovelin’ in my favorite chips…Cape Cod Jalapeño and Aged Cheddar. It’s akin to sweet torture-sometimes I get a bag that is so hot I break out in a sweat; I’m currently in one of those situations and it’s going to take me a year to finish this post for all of the breaks I take to chomp on another one. Crazy? I know! I don’t understand it myself!

(3 bowls of chips later…)

Ok. Must stop snacking.

Yesterday Erick and I drove the boys to their Grandma’s, and seeing as though they railed and hollered all the way there, we decided we’d definitely be taking today off again, and I’ll be staying home with the kids on Monday and Tuesday. They just can’t take this back and forth while we work on the house, poor dears.

We didn’t accomplish much in the way of renovation, but mainly cleaned up yesterday. And I finally figured out why I’ve been in the doldrums a little bit when it comes to all-things-house…it’s that for years I have wanted a place to make my nest, to decorate…and we just aren’t at that point yet. We are at the prep point, wherein everything looks like a disaster. It makes me a bit mad (as in crazy, not furious). And speaking of a bit mad-looking at my popcorn ceilings makes me want to scratch my eyeballs out! Arg! I am oh so tempted, everytime I am there, to take my spackling knife and scrape, scrape, scrape away. And then I tell myself “No, Jennifer, No. Imagine the mess. Imagine the aching back. Imagine the time it would take.” That brings me back down to earth a bit, but someday friends, I WILL conquer those ceilings, and I WILL reward myself with spectacular, tasteful crown moulding all through the house. Of course it will require the boys stay with grandparents for a full week, and that we spend money galore on drop cloths to cover everything, and we will also have to visit our chiropractor for regular visits after that. But it would be SO worth it. (My mom scraped her living room ceiling, and it looks awesome).

One of my hopefully sooner rather than later dreams has nothing to do with the house, but with myself. I’m ready to feel like a girl again! I wear the same pair of work jeans everyday…jeans that have holes in the knees and are wearing dangerously thin elsewhere. A cruddy shirt, and my Croc knock-offs. My sorely neglected hair has been in a pony tail day in and day out for months, because I have not had a cut in way too long. Therefore, I truly need a new hair style, a new outfit, painted nails, and a night on the town. In a really desperate way. *sigh*

Well, for weeks my camera battery charger was misplaced. Now it is found, and I have pictures ready to post, and I can’t find the picture downloader thingy. Such is life. As soon as I find it I have more posts to posts! Concerning a rascally young boy who has been in the thick of mischievous-ness again, and has been caught on tape. It never ends, friends, it never ends.

3 years old. THREE YEARS OLD. And he says “My name is not Ry-Ry anymore; that’s a baby name. My name is Ryan.” *Boo-hoo!!!*

Although this did delight me:

Upon jabbering away for 20 minutes straight to seemingly no one, he comes down the stairs and says “I was talking to God. About everything. He listens to me.” (The faith of a child! How cool is that?!)

Has anyone looked at the 10 day forecast for Maine? Rain, Rain, GO BLASTED AWAY!!!!

Off to the house! Thanks for all of your encouragement…I can’t wait to sit down and actually have the time to respond to everyone!

It’s never a good sign when you pull up to the house and your husband peeks his head out the door, sayin’ “Honey, you and I need to take a little trip” as he holds up his bandaged hand…

Yesterday, in a fluke accident Erick put a utility knife through his palm.  Yeah.  Ouch. He got away with the glue instead of stitches, but it’s a pretty wicked slice.  He can’t use his hand much, and dad’s back is shot to pieces, so we are officially taking the day off today.  Mom and I aren’t in great shape either-just kinks and stiffness here and there.  We still aren’t sure what day the appraiser is going to come next week, but we are going to call Monday to beg and plead and see if he can at least hold off until the 30th.  That would give us this week and one more weekend to try and get everything accomplished.  

*SIGH*  But you know what?  We are gonna kick bootie and show ‘em what’s up.  My incredibly optimistic nature has turned a wee bit sour here and there through this process, but it doesn’t last too long.  It’s not house stuff, it’s just lender obligations that have gotten me down from time to time.  Won’t last for long, baby.  Pretty soon we are gonna be kickin’ back and relaxing in our beautiful home with no more looming deadlines imposed upon us!

Oh, I have so many blogs stored up to share.  In the middle of the night when my body is too exhausted to move but when my mind is whirling, I’ve thought up quite a few posts to post.

Well, just had to take a little break because Jack bit into a tube of paint and his mouth was filled with yellow ocher acrylic.  I take it that’s my cue to quit.    Have a great day!

Well, here I was all excited to share pictures of some projects I have been working on, but dead camera batteries blew that idea out of the water. They are juicing up now and I’ll post soon, but in the meantime, I want to share with you one of my dear grandmother’s stories…she had taken a blogging hiatus but has been back for a bit! I adore her childhood stories (hint hint…write more grandma!) and here is a short one, rather appropriate for today…

Enjoy!

Well, our day-before-Father’s-Day celebration went beautifully. Erick had a Master’s Program admittance test to take Saturday morning, so we met him at Target around 11:00am and struck out for the coast. The boys slept most of the way there which was a wonderful thing…(and Erick was pretty pleased with the way the test went, hurrah!)

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. It was a day full of that air you can hardly feel, although every once in a while it would warm up but a slight ocean breeze would come right behind it and send you back into bliss. And the beach roses were in full bloom. Oh my. They are faves of this family, and always make us think of Bar Harbor because they line the shore walk:

The kids were in their prime. They are SO happy near water…especially ocean water!

Nonnie and Jack in the water-we all had to dip our toes in. Cold at first-not too bad after that. Jack ended up soaked, but none the worse for wear because of it.

The guys spent a large majority of the day finding rocks to throw in the water…

while I spent that same time finding rocks to keep. I also made out well with some tiny seaglass…I have more than are in this particular photo. I really lucked out with some lavender (pretty hard to find) and blue (my fave, of course). And don’t you adore stripey rocks? I do!

We also went shopping a bit and of course ate some ice cream. You can’t walk a block without running into an ice cream shop in BH!

We took one family picture that turned out semi-alright ( most were pretty hilarious due to unhappy children that did NOT want to leave)…

We lingered until 6:00pm or so, then made our way home. Unfortunately the camera was with my parents…on the way home between the island and the mainland, a bagpipe player in full dress was standing on a rocky outcropping over the water and playing like there was no tomorrow. It was fantastic, and so photogenic! Arg! Just picture it, if you will. I assure you it was amazing.

Happy Father’s Day, all you Father’s out there! Since we had our fun yesterday, dad and Erick are at our house tending to housing issues while mom and I are with the boys who are taking a much needed nap. And I think I’ll do the same the minute I post! Have a great week ahead.

…amongst a wonderful many other enjoyable things. The last two nights, however, they have been for listening to raindrops on a tin roof! And making stove-top popcorn with a bit of melted butter and a sprinkle of salt and a handful of dark chocolate peanut m&ms intermingled in the bowl! (Oh my, I’m afraid I give you way too many sweets to think about.  You couldn’t tell I love dessert, could you? I’ve gotta cut it out!)

When I was around 10 or 11, I read through the Anne of Green Gables series. I adore how Anne always looks for those places or things that give her “scope for imagination”…a girl after my own heart! I picked up the first book in the series a few days ago and started to gobble it up again. The big difference between now and then? We are practically living in that scope for imagination. Sitting in my bedroom in New Mexico, I could only dream about living the life that my kids are now living, and that they are living right in their own backyard!

Yesterday my mom unearthed the very last bag of strawberries we picked last year in the back of the freezer (wonderful surprise!) so we invited friends over to feast on these for lunch…(thank you imagination)

After lunch was wrapped up, the big girls browsed magazines and fabric remnants (yay!) while the little kids used their scope for imagination to utter capacity in the wilds of the backyard…

Quite a good day for scope, I’d say.