VT Christmas!

What a fun VT Christmas!

We drove up to Memere's and Papa Kings Friday for lunch.  It was a rainy day - so we opened some presents, played games and watched movies.  Saturday we went sledding in the morning, played music and hung out.  Early afternoon we're off to Grampies.  We played some games, and opened presents.  Sunday we got our sledding on.  Adley got to watch some football and we got to play more games.

Have a Happy New Year!

Love,
the Christmas Buddies

Cookie Making

We made our signature sugar cookies on Friday!  As sweet as ever!

Saturday we had a couple basketball games, then off to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas.  We even got to sing Happy Birthday to Grandma - with a nice big cake!

Sunday was nice and relaxing after church.

Today - our Solar Panals are coming OFF - and the Contractor says we begin after Christmas!!! (Directly after....a few days after...a month after.  We shall see. :)  But he tends to be more punctual than long distant in his estimations.)

Happy Eve of Christmas Eve!

Love, The Boys

Gingerbread Men!

This dude was excited to make some Gingerbread men with mom on Sunday afternoon.  There will be more cookies made this week.  Tis the Season.

Christmas Time is HERE!

Go Cavs!!

Look at our 24 on the court!  Jeremiah had a great time.  The first part was a bunch of drills, the last 30 minutes was a game. 
Go CAVS!
The Thunder will have a 5pm game today.

Love,
The B-Ball Boys

Boston Fun!

Thursday we dropped Adley off at CC for his mid year exams - followed by a party, and Nathanael Jeremiah and I went into Boston.  We took the subway into the Harvard Natural History Museum.  That was a nice trip.

The rock room was really cool - there were so many animal rooms.  This was the largest BONE creature.
We had lunch at Dunkin Donuts.
We went to Altitude the Trampoline place.

On Friday we went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for their homeschool program.  Another fun day - where we get a little culture.

Next week looks more low key - low on school, baking cookies and wrapping presents.  :)

Love,
The fun boys!

Christmas tree time!

At the tree farm getting our tree today!
Merry Christmas!

Saturday is a basketball day!

Go Thunder!

Look at our #5!

It was a close game, but the Thunder came out on top.  There was a last minute schedule change for the Clippers I missed, so Jeremiah's first game will be next week.
Love,
The b-ball dudes!

Thanksgiving FUN!

The Parson's Came TUESDAY for Thanksgiving fun.  We went to the museum of Science Wednesday!

Look at these two sewer rats?!

The happy Wintertime T-Rex (and US)

We finished our day off with a ride on the MBTA to the Aquarium to see the seals in the outside tank.

What a sweet day.

Thursday was a delicious day at Grandma's

Friday Ma Taunte Andrea came over for a sleep over.

Memere and Papa King arrived just as we woke up Saturday morning for more delicious fun.  Grampie and Nana came too.  What a fun yummy day.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love,

The Turkeys

Hot Dog Saturday

Cooking Hot Dogs on the Fire!  What a nice afternoon.
Just enjoying the nice weather while we can!
Love,
The Outdoorsman

Adley's 13 year Check Up

Adley had a very healthy report from his annual checkup.  He is 5 ft 6 in (1/2 inch shorter than mom, and in the 87%).  He grew 4 inches this year.  He weighs 114 lbs (in the 68%) and grew 18 lbs.

:)

Love,
The Big Guy!

Hiking Saturday

What a fun day at Purgatory Chasm Saturday with friends.

Cool Bouldering, caves and gorgeous weather.

Happy Hiking!
The Hiking Dudes

Halloween Preparations

We carved our pumpkins last night!

Adley is the Falcons (again), Nathanael is a Goul and Jeremiah did a Sabertooth tiger.

We are ready for Thursday!
The spooky boys!

Museum of Science

We had a nice day at the museum today.  There was a race challenge to build the slowest and fastest bobsled using a variety of materials. Nathanael beat the high score for the fastest bobsled by 0.01 seconds....pretty fun.  (His sled he named speed on the spot....he was rushed for it... :) )

Memere - the Anime Fest is coming to Boston - Save the Date.  We'll deck you our in Pokemon - Pikachu. :)

The Halloween costumes are under construction....but we made good headway yesterday. 

What a nice week!

Love,
The Science/Anime/Halloween Dudes

Fall fun!

Today we had a nice hike at Great Brook!

Love,
The hiking dudes!

The Bears!

Jeremiah had a GREAT first practice/game night tonight!

Go BEARS!

Love,

Jeremiah

Annual Check UPS

It's late, but time for Dr. Checkups.

Jeremiah is 55 inches tall (92%) and grew 3 inches from last year.  (He is 2 inches taller than Nathanael at 8, and 3 inches taller than Adley.) He weighs 67 lbs (75%) and gained 6 lbs. (He weights 6 lbs more than Nathanael did at 8, and 7 lbs more than Adley.)

Nathanael is 61 inches tall (89%) and grew 3 inches.  (He is 2 inches taller than Adley when he was 11.)  He weighs 103 lbs (84%) and gained 18 lbs.  (He was always so super slim.  GROWTH SPURT).  (He weighs 17 lbs more than Adley did at 11 years old. :) )

Nathanael had 2 shots - not to shabby.  A healthy report from the Dr.

Love,
The healthy Dudes

Saturday is a Football Day!

The boys had a BLAST on their first football game day. We didn't win either of our games.

The Chiefs did a good job.  Here is Nathanael in the QB position.

Adley on the Rams is about to hike the ball to the QB.

What a good season start!

Love,

The Footballers!

The Grapes

The Grapes are ripe for harvest!  We're ready to make Grape Juice.

Today we biked to pick!

The harvest was plentiful!

6 quarts of juice were made and canned.  (2 broke in the canner.... maybe I filled the jars too full.)

In 2 months we'll have delicious grape juice!

Love,

The grape pickers

Labor Day Camping Fun!

Wow, what a fun weekend we had.
We arrived at Woodford State Park Thursday at 4ish.  This park is on a plateau in the Green Mountians at a bit of elevation.  It was breezy that night setting up.  We had so much fun seeing everyone and enjoying.

The first morning wasn't super warm, but people kayaked and  mom swam a good length of Adams Reservoir.  Then the clouds and wind came in.  So we had some dry fun.  That afternoon we were planning to take a walk around the lake, but accidentally took the reservior trail.  Still a good walk and about the same distance...just no lake. :)  The evenings were cool as well, But we brought our warm clothes.

On Saturday we drove into Bennington to check out the Revolutionary War Memorial.  A HUGE obelisk.  Then we did the driving covered bridges tour - 3 of them.  We hiked a fabulous 3 mile trail on the Appalachian Trail & Long Trail.  (They are one and the same in southern VT.) 

The rest of that day was just camping fun.

Sunday we packed up to go home, but not before taking a fun family photo!

What a Blast!
Love,
The Campers

Challege A

Adley is OFF on his first day of Challenge A. His backpack is full to the brim.

Here's to the start of a fun new school year!

Love,

Mom

First Day of School!

Ok, we started school today - only 2 hours of school to start.  We treated after with some Dunkin Donuts!!

Boston Cream all around and some Coolatta's.

We've got a Jeremiah 3rd grader, Nathanael 6th grader and an Adley 8th grader.

A good first start!

Love,

Teacher Mama

Hartwell Pond

What a fantastic spectacular long weekend on Hartwell Pond!!

We will have to get some of Dad's pictures!

We kayaked, paddleboated, fished, celebrated Adley's birthday with some Fortnite Monopoly - which the boys played hundreds of times!!

We had roasted marshmallows, played games, took walks - to the eggs and back.

So, Much Fun!!!

Love,
The Pond Dudes

Happy Birthday Party Adley!

Adley had 2 buddies over Monday afternoon.

We went to the pool for some afternoon fun.

Had Burgers BBQ for dinner.  Then Dave took all the boys to a questing place.  Where you have to complete the competitions in the rooms.  Everyone had a blast.  Then once home we had angel food cake and ice cream.  The big guys stayed up for a movie.  The next morning the boys had some Minecraft game time, breakfast, laser guns outside and finished with some relaxing board games.

(Also, on Adley's birthday here was his actual cake.) 

 Adley is looking GOOD for 9,766,550 years old!

Happy 13 Adley!!

Swim Championships!

Wow, what a fun summer of swim!  The boys did great!   We had our awards banquet at the pool tonight.

Jeremiah scored 2 medals because he placed 3rd in the breaststroke and 4th in the backstroke, he also got a 9th place for freestyle in the 7-8 age group.

Nathanael scored 7th in Backstroke, 10th in Freestyle and 10th in a relay for the 11-12 age group.  He got 3 ribbons.

Nathanael scored 1st in two of his heats at the event which was so fun!

Adley scored 11th in the Backstroke, 10th in the Breaststroke, 7th in a relay, and 11th in the Freestyle for the 11-12 age group.  Adley finished a strong 3rd in his heat for the Freestyle.

So fun!

The swimming fishes!

VBS

Vacation Bible School was AWESOME!
Son Surf Beach Bash was the theme.

Every day was fun, many days we had play dates at friends houses or we had friends over.  It was the BEST week!

(Mom took no pictures.)

Adley enjoyed serving with the Kindergarten group.  Nathanael was on the Turtle team and Jeremiah was on the Dolphin team.

Water Day was Friday - the gym leaders sprayed many with the hose and they played some super fun wet games.

So FUN!  Time to relax on Saturday!
The Beach Dudes

Duct Tape Boat Regatta!

Our pool hosted a duct tape boat regatta - first time this year.
Monday was the build - Adley and Nathanael were on different teams!

Thursday was the boat phase.  One team member had to get the boat to one end of the pool.  The rest of your team could swim it back to the start.  No touching the bottom, no sinking the boat!

Nathanael's Team went in the second heat (There were 15 boats entered)!

Adley's Team was in the third heat!

Adley's buddy Timmy is on his belly kicking behind.

One of the boats disintegrated in the middle of the pool.  The next heat had to be postponed while teens and older kids dragged the bulk of the soggy cardboard out.  After all the races they spent a bit of time on vacuum and net sweeping before the kids could swim.  

This was fun - we've got great ideas for next year - if the pool will do it again!

Love,

The silly sailors

Trip to Memere & Papa Kings

Wow, we are behind!  We had a super trip, Nathnaael, Jeremiah and Mom, to Memere's and Papa Kings while Dad and Adley were in Hartford.  We started out in the pool!  We brought a load of sugar wood in the tractor, we swam some more!  We played games and had so much fun.  We returned home and found a dead fish...so we welcome Bluey to the tank!  He has been enjoying his time with Red Fin.

Love,
The fun travelers!

Swim Team

We've been having a blast on the swim team!
Our first meet on Monday was a bit intense - that team was large and really good.  Our home meet we did great!
Jeremiah got first in the 25y Breast Stroke
Adley got first in 50y Breast Stroke
Nathanael got third in the 50y Breast Stroke.

The guys swam 3 events on Monday and 4 events on Wednesday.

This is Nathanael coming in!  A 100y freestroke relay

50y Backstroke - Adley's in the closest lane - Nathanael in the furthest!

I think this is Jeremiah Backstroke 25y in the closest lane

Big guys taking off the blocks.

We're having some swimming FUN!

Love,

The 3 fishes

Word of Life Camp - was so much fun!

What a blast we had last week.  These are some fun photos from our week at camp.

I was screaming!

Swimming Fun!

After the water slide!

Group Picture!

Mud Fun!

Mud Tug of War!

S'more Fun

Group Shot!

Super Super Fun Week!

Love,

The Campers