Verdant Vermont

As we were driving to our camp site in Vermont over Memorial Day Weekend, Cardon explained to us that one of his vocabulary words that week had been verdant. He thought it was a great adjective to describe Vermont, and I have to agree! We spent the weekend with some families in our ward at Silver Lake, a state park very near Joseph Smith's birthplace. It was awesome!

By the shores of Silver Lake


The kids

The teens

The family

A very old cemetery

Verdant

Quaint!

Prayers Answered

This is Sox, our beloved cat. Unfortunately, not the sharpest tool in the kitty shed, so to speak. In March of 2009 he treed himself in a tall skinny pine in our backyard, and after many hours of hand wringing by the family--(OK, not me. I was in NYC with my friends!), our friend, Gregg, a tree cutter by trade/hobby, climbed up the tree in his spiked boots and rescued him.
On Monday, Sox was nowhere to be found and when we called to him, we heard frantic meowing from the trees in the front yard. Sox was stranded on the tiniest of limbs quite aways from the ground. After much begging/crying from the kids, I put on some long pants and sturdy boots and headed out to get the ladder. By the time I had the ladder ready and was headed out into the thick of the forest, here came Sox through the undergrowth. He was down! Em explained that the reason he was out of the tree was because she prayed he could get down. Thank goodness for answered prayers!

He doesn't like to sleep in the garage at night. He thinks he's tough and sleeps outside so who knows how long he'd been stranded?!

Baseball Bud

Bud has had a great baseball season this year, and it's been a lot of fun to watch his team. They actually had their first loss of the year on Saturday. These photos are from May 15th, Em's birthday. She doesn't even get out of watching baseball/softball on her birthday. Poor girl!

Happy Birthday, Other Baby Girl!

My Emmy is 5! How can that be? Life just seems to go by in a blur. I must be getting old because I can remember people telling me this would happen and I didn't believe them!
Em is surrounded by lots of men--at church and at school. Being surrounded by men is not always a bad thing, but it is when you want to invite them ALL to a birthday party. Unfortunately, she had to settle for a Girls Only party at Chuck E. Cheese. She's being waiting a whole year to be the birthday girl at Chuck E. Cheese, and it was worth the wait!
What for a cake, you ask? A Polly Pocket Beach Cake. The beach cake was easy because I made one for Chiara's 11th and one for a YW luau. Polly Pocket just made it extra special! ;)

Here are some photos from her birthday.

Polly Pocket at the beach!

The birthday girl

Some girl friends

Puppy Divas gift! Wooo!

A reflective looking 5-year old

Em and Joy in the virtual roller coaster

A birthday pose

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

My baby turned 15 on the 26th. Fifteen! How can that be? Yowza! It's true what they say, it goes by too quickly! Her softball game was rained out so we had a low-key family evening with dinner at Bertucci's and then a really yummy, gooey cake! Happy Birthday, Darlin'!

(ps. One day I will remember to put the photos in backwards order so the blown out candles won't be the first photo!)

Boston Temple

I've had the pleasure of visiting the Boston Temple for the last two Saturdays. One Saturday was spent on a stake Primary outing and the second was to attend the wedding of one of my lovely young women! As you can see from the photos, Mother Nature was very cooperative!

Chiara and Casey went to babysit kiddos but it was great for them to see the pay off for Loralee's "hard work"!
The pay off!
(The cute younger brothers in the background were a bonus--for Chiara and Casey--not me!)

The beaming bride

I don't know if I've ever seen the sky so blue on a spring day in New England!

A very handsome Senior Primary boy!

Spring Has Sprung

So....my camera is still broken so I haven't had much to "say" on my blog but a few weeks ago I pulled out the good old Kodak and took a few random photos that all whisper, "Spring is here!"( You'll have to tilt your head to the left because this photo is in sideways!) In a little brook at one of Chiara's softball games, Cardon found a baseball with a tree growing out one of the split seams!
My neighbor has a beautiful rock wall with some lovely daffodils growing along its length. Aaah, rock walls--one of New England's beauties!




This is how Em kills time at the 5 baseball/softball games we attend per week!



Chiara's first game as a jv catcher!











First up to bat!

ps. If you want to see some real photos from Chantel's visit, check out the photos on her blog. She has 3 different posts of our little reunion!--(look on the links listed on my "favorite blogs.")