October Visitors Park 3-Grad School Friends

The second to last week in October was Missoula week for us. We got to see 3 different sets of friends from our time at graduate school in Missoula. Meg and Sidney were visiting the lower 48 from their home in Alaska, Kathryn and Carl were visiting from Idaho and Katy who lives in Burlington VT! Carl had just gotten back from fly-fishing guiding in Mongolia (for trout like fish that are as big as Cassidy) and they were visiting Kathryn's mom in Cornwall VT. Kathryn and Dave actually went to 5th grade together in Woodstock and realized their shared history when we met up thru the EVST program in Msla! Meg and Sidney spent a nice sunny day with us hiking around the woods near Penny's house trying to find Olivers Cave (unsuccessfully) and then we all met up with Katy (Toby's godmother) and her awesome fiance John (congrats guys!!!) to see a great bluegrass show in Montpelier. Katy and John spent the next day with us which unfortunately was pouring rain! Of course, all of our visitors got to either press cider or eat a heavily apple focused meal :) We feel so fortunate to have such great friends from our MT years that we stay in touch with!!

October Visitors Part 2 - Bowdoin Reunion

Our great friends from Bowdoin College, Pam and Eric Loeb and Matt and Jen Samuelson and their 2 and 3 kids respectively all gathered in E. Barnard Oct 20th weekend for a mini-reunion of sorts. Toby and Eli (9) were outnumbered by girls pretty heavily but they weathered the girl drama very well by burying their heads in legos and periodically coming up to run around outside. It was our first chilly weekend of the fall so the Baltimore (Loeb) contingent looked a bit cold but we all had a blast. We picked apples and made cider (of course!) and did a short hike on the Appalachian Trail and otherwise hung out at our friends the Woodwards house just over the hill who so generously lent their house for the weekend. It is so fabulous to see the kids of our good friends becoming good friends themselves. We got to see the Samuelson family (Matt, Jen, Emily (6), Hannah (4) and Paige (2)) again last weekend at their house in Manchester and the kids had a blast. We think Cassidy is ready to secede from our family and join theirs – they have the girl thing down perfect. Cassidy came out of the girls rooms and said in a dreamy voice “those girls have some really PINK rooms!”. I think she probably wore 10 different princess gown, ballerina, fairy combinations in an 8 hour visit! Toby and Emily had a great time and he introduced a new level of testosterone in the house. We taught Matt how to do the mentos and diet coke experiment in preparation for Emily’s birthday party with 9 girls and 2 boys!! Good clean (I mean messy) fun!

October Visitors Part 1 - COUSINS!

October was our month of visitors – perfect because we were all really starting to miss our Colorado friends. (I will break this up into several posts to get the photos to work)

Dave’s sister Susannah and her kids Allison (4) and Timmer (2) (Martz) came for the first week of October from Florida. We were a bit worried about that many kids in Penny’s small house particularly because the girls (9 weeks apart) had a serious love hate thing going last year when they were three and Toby struggled with his boy cousin in his toddler years but turns our all our worries were for naught. The kids got along amazingly! Cassidy and Allison were inseparable from the start and were so happy hanging out with each other. They were even roomies for a few nights. Timmer absolutely adored his big boy cousin and his uncle Dave and Toby put up very well with being followed around by an admirer. He learned to tell Timmer that he wasn’t ready to talk yet in the morning (since he normally wakes up 2 hours after T and T would be pretty wound up by the time he came downstairs for breakfast). Then Timmer learned to turn that language around on us when HE woke up from his nap and would say “I not ready for talkin’, I gouchy (=grouchy)”. We had two visits with the Middlebury cousins while the Florida crew was here which was fun. Unfortunately I had to work that week so Suz and Dave did major kid duty and Suz in particular had the littles for a lot of the time. Toby and Dave had boys night out and saw the opening of the new Chris Sharma climbing movie in Hanover – Toby loved it!

Eating Vermont Style

Eating Vermont
Living in Vermont has shown all of us how amazing it can be to live in a verdant land. There are about 8 apple trees on the property (including one “Papple” tree which is a pear tree that cross pollinated with its neighboring apple tree) so we have apples coming out our ears! We have been making apple cider every weekend and drink nothing but that, water and milk. We have apples for snacks, apple sauce is a fun kid project and there have been many apple pies, apple crisps and apple cobblers! (We will welcome the change to mangos and bananas when we head south!). The garden has been producing all fall thanks to the unusually warm weather we’ve had here (global warming anyone?!). Aside from a splurge on broccoli now and then we have been making salads solely from the backyard – the kids love the process of harvesting the food and then revisiting it at the dinner table. We buy eggs from a neighbor down the hill who usually throws in a few purple potatoes because it thrills the kids so much. Since there are actually still working dairies in Vermont you can buy local milk and cheese at most stores and the local store sells beef from our neighboring farmers whose kids Dave went to school with. The kids usually make bread with their Meme once a week. There is a diner outside of Woodstock about 15 miles away which was mentioned in Barbara Kingsolver’s new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” called the Farmers Diner which is typical diner fare but primarily with local ingredients – and its not any more expensive than the Red Rock Diner in Cdale!! . It is really inspiring how seriously Vermonters take the idea of eating locally and how truly easy it is here. Inspires me to plant a better garden next year in Carbondale but unfortunately we will be getting a very late start!!

September in Vermont

Toby and Cassidy in the cornfield and with their new friend Hannah Smith in the leaf pile.

Highlights of September include: going to the Montshire science museum (LOTS!), having a harvest party with cider pressing, doughnut bobbing, pumpkin carving (check out our awesome scarecrow. . . ). Shannon started working for Lyme Timber in Hanover NH and rides her bike the 20 hilly miles to work about once a week (dodging wild turkeys!). Dave visiting the White Mountain School, Gould Academy, KUA, the Mountain School and climbed in North Conway with his new climbing partner Bob. Toby has made a friend who lives down the hill, a 1st grader named Micah. Cassidy and Toby play really well together and share a friend - Hannah, our friend Tao's daughter, who is 6 and is in half day kindergarten and comes over usually once a week.

to Vermont then visiting Rochester

It has been SOO long since we have written, largely because we now have only a dial-up connection. I now need to go back and reconstruct the last month and I’ll start where we left off. We left Maine a few days after labor day weekend just as the weather started getting chillier. The three hour drive to Vermont seemed like forever because Cassidy claimed to be “getting’ car sick” half the time which we believe means she is “sick” of being in the car rather than any real malady!! We were very happy to arrive here and see Meme (Dave’s mom Penny). Her garden was in full bloom and we were able to have fresh lettuce, tomatoes, basil, parsley, string beans and zucchini whenever we wanted. Her apple trees were also fully loaded but more of that in the next post!! Our original plan was to head to Cape Cod two days later to see the Stanton cousins but we decided everyone just needed to stay put. So we stayed in VT and Penny went to the Cape. We got settled in, Toby sleeps in a little cubby bed in the upstairs hall and Cassidy is in her Auntie Q’s (Dave’s sister) bedroom. The house, for those of you who haven’t had the chance to visit, is a cobbled together little 200 year old farm house perched on the top of a hill above the “village” of East Barnard (184 residents or something like that!). She has about 7 acres of garden, mowed grass, hayfields, apple trees and forest and a fabulous view of the surrounding hillsides. It definitely feels like someplace you could settle in and fend for yourself if the rest of the world goes haywire. We can call up a neighbor to order some local beef or walk over the field to another neighbors to buy fresh eggs ($2/dozen!).

Wednesday morning we headed to Rochester NY to see the Korfmacher cousins and do all the fun city stuff they told us about. Given that the drive was 6 hours the kids did amazingly well. We left early planning on a couple long stops but they were so excited to see their cousins they only let us stop once at a playground we passed en route. We arrived just as Ty and Stefan were done with school so we had lots of play time at their big beautiful house. They have an awesome rope swing and a zip line and great sidewalk loops for bike riding so there was lots to do. The big draw as far as Toby was concerned was Rochester’s National Museum of Play (Strong Museum). It is huge and by far the best kids museum I’ve ever been to. In addition to great exhibits of every variety they have historical exhibits of toys from the last two centuries. The big hits were – the butterfly garden (indoors with 30 varieties that land on you), adventures in storyland, making wizard hats, crowns, design your own bugs, miniature pirates, treasure chests etc, dance dance revolution (toby loved but never really figured out!) and a kid sized grocery store. The next day we hit up the Rochester zoo and then back to the Strong museum with my kids who would have moved in there if they could. Saturday got chilly but we went to watch Katrina play soccer (I almost got enlisted to play but a sub showed up and saved me from playing in my Capri pants and running shoes that didn’t fit!) and the kids rode bikes around. We decided to drive at night rather than deal with our recalcitrant travelers so we left after an early dinner, watched one video in the car, stopped for a potty break and put pj’s on the kids and crossed our fingers. Cassidy through a big but short fit until Dave squeezed into the backseat between them and they both fell asleep on his shoulders (very cute). So much for actually talking to each other in the car while they slept!! The next day was the perfect cool Vermont day and we went to the Tunbridge World’s Fair – a huge country fair about a half hour away with everything from antique motorcycle racing to historic reenactments, prize oxen raised by Penny’s old students, a 700 pound pumpkin raised by a class of pre-schoolers, pig racing, ferris wheel (kids and I rode), cotton candy, fried dough (with maple butter!!) and everything in between. We actually saw the only two families around our age that we knew at that point at the fair (among easily several thousand fair goers!) And the next day Shannon started work at Lyme Timber in Hanover!! Phew … more to follow when I can download some photos.

To the Coast!

Today is Labor Day and we are thinking of all of you as school probably starts up for most (who havent already started) tomorrow. Temperatures here are cooling down and letting us know that our time in Maine is coming to a close. We will head to Vermont to live with Dave's mom on Wednesday and sadly say goodbye to the Lake house and summer fun. Labor Day weather here was great and we did a lot of swimming and sailing with my parents.

Last week we had a great treat - meeting up with our Carbondale friends the Gavettes in Bath Maine at the house they rented. Toby and Cassidy were ecstatic to be with their two best friends Levi and Gretta again and we all had a blast reconnecting. Lori is on sabattical from CRMS as well so we all bonded over the wonderful but odd limbo we all find oursevles in for this hiatus. We spent two full days at Popham beach (where the Costler flick "Message in a bottle" was filmed") with perfect beach weather. Toby learned to boogie board and was so into the ocean that we had to drag him home sand drenched at the end of the day. He got pummeled so hard by one wave that he came up with a full sand helmet but went right back out for more. Cassidy tried it to, but just on the little waves and had fun. Their house was on a small pond and a few minutes from Dam Cove where the kids slipped in the mud and caught hermit crabs. The third day we were there the 8 of us rented sea kayaks and explored around and then we took our kids to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath - lots of cool ship models (cassidy thought it all smelled bad :) ). Then we headed south to Gorham Maine to see our good friend from Bowdoin, Renate and her husband Sean and kids Madeleine and Alex (10 and 8). Toby and Alex bonded hard over legos and Madeleine pulled out all her Barbies and horses for Cassidy so both kids were in heaven!! Finally back to Bethel with so very tired kids!!

Next post will come from Vermont!!! Hope you are all doing well. Drop us a comment so we know if people are reading these or not :)

Shannon, Dave, Toby and Cassidy