Happy Birthday to me!

I celebrated 47 wonderful trips around the sun yesterday. We had a busy weekend, mostly involving driving and waiting at the car place for tire changes. Nothing exciting, but also somehow still fun. Friday I drove down to WPI to pick up Lex, brought him home, picked up Eve, then we went to the high school’s production of Curtains: The Musical. It was fantastic and hysterical. Lex was happy to be there and all his theater friends were happy to see him again. We brought two cars so I could go home while the kids socialized, but in the end they went home before me because I was socializing! LOL.

Saturday morning I took the kid car to the tire place and waited for four hours (FOUR HOURS!) in a freezing cold tire place for them to put snow tires on the car. Clearly I waited too late in the season to do this, but in my defence I did start calling around in early October and everyone was booked through December, so…. anyway. Towards the end of my long wait, Lex and Eve showed up with a mug of hot tea for me, and plans to run some top-secret errands (that Lex repeatedly reassured me were not bad errands).

Saturday afternoon they surprised me with beautiful flowers, presents, and a table display. 🤗 I opened presents Saturday afternoon while Lex was still home. Then Eve and I drove him back to WPI. Eve hadn’t had the chance to see his dorm room yet, and also she love car trips with me. We left around 4:30pm, when it was almost dark, so it felt like a super long drive in the dark, but really it was fine and we were home by 11pm.

Sunday, my actual birthday, Eve made waffles for breakfast and angel food cake for dinner. I went to an adorable wine bar / cafe in town with a fellow librarian I haven’t seen in many months. It was super nice to catch up with her. When I got home Eve had cake ready and we watched a Great British Bake Off together, then I joined a Discord video chat with my college buddies.

Overall, it was a great birthday weekend! I’m happy to be 47 and starting another trip around the sun. 🌞

He’s 18!

Holy moly! My baby is 18. Somehow that happened today.

At this time 18 years ago, we were snuggling a tiny baby. The first in the next generation of Collier/Johnsons. It was such a surreal experience.

And in the blink of an eye he turned into a giant, functioning human being, rocking his life in high school and preparing to spread his wings and fly.

For those who can’t do the math (me!) the answer is WPI. :)

We had a perfectly lovely, low-key Lex style birthday day. He wanted cookies instead of cake and an evening with the robotics team, which he hasn’t been to in awhile due to recent theater and band commitments. We all did the normal school thing, of course. Eve and friends sang to him at lunch and his buddies bought him Twizzlers. After school we had a quick appointment at the doctor’s office where Lex had to fill out his own medical forms and a separate form authorizing the doctor to talk to me and Alan. Welcome to adulthood, it comes with paperwork. :)

After that we came home to open presents. He got fun stuff like WPI gear and a new phone (sort of fun, he is a neophyte after all — Mom, this is not the right word! What is the word you always use?!), and boring stuff like sheets and towels for college. After a quick dinner of New York bagels, he was off to robotics to prep for their match at WPI next weekend!

We had another fun surprise this evening when I was tidying up the birthday celebration and we realized the bagels were a monthly subscription! Who knew you could get a subscription for authentic NY bagels?! (clearly Rosy knew!)

He has a few more weeks of senior-slide school left, then it’s summer vacation. I’m going to make those days last as long as possible before I deliver him to his new life on August 20th.

Happy Birthday Lex!! I could not have asked for a better kid. I love you forever and ever. 💗

Sweet 16

Happy birthday to this beautiful human being.

We had a pretty low-key day. I had to work, but the kids were home and Alan came down for the day. Lex and B’Lake had to leave at 3pm for a robotics event, so I came home at lunch time for the birthday celebration. I never got around to making a cake, but we have plenty of sweets around here these days and Alan brought her a birthday cupcake. She got a new laptop, an awesome hiking backpack, flowers, and more. She was pretty happy with the birthday presents. :)

The boys left at 3pm, I got home around 4pm, then Eve, Alan, and I spent the afternoon/evening watching silly TV and eating sushi. It was a good day.

Boston Museum of Science

We wrapped up Lex’s birthday weekend with a trip to the Boston Museum of Science today. It was a beautiful day for a road trip. We got there by mid-morning, explored the museum, watched the cool lightening show, had some expensive cafeteria food, and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely.

All about Lex

This handsome fellow had a birthday recently. He is thriving in all ways. We had a quiet birthday celebration with just a few gifts — cookies, books, Legos, and money — just what he wanted! :) Here are a few pics of my favorite 17yr old!

Spring brings concerts and plays as well, which Lex has been rocking. He had his spring concert, a district music festival, the high school musical and the middle school musical – both of which he ran the lights for. He even went in early before the spring concert so he could program nice lighting for the concert.

He won a few awards this spring too! At the spring concert he was given the Spirited Percussionist award, in celebration of Armand Zildjian. It came with a nice certificate, a personal note from a guy named Damian Poludin in Texas who manages (runs? is in charge of?) the award. It also came with a check an a cool laptop backpack with drumstick holders for percussionists. It’s pretty cool. He was pretty proud of himself. I am too!!

Yesterday I got a text from Eve saying “Lex just won an award.” I was confused because it was the middle of the school day. Lex replied, saying it was a “come to this college” book award and he was mostly just excited for the book. Apparently they announced a bunch of “college awards” over the loud speaker. So random! :) When I got him he showed me the certificate and note that says he can get his application fee waived and qualify to apply for an annual scholarship. Yep, definitely sounds like a “come to this college” recruiting award. Sadly he didn’t actually get a book. They gave him a paperweight instead. I’m not sure what the deal with that is. I told him to ask the counselor, but he said no. :)

I’m so proud of this kiddo. I miss the tiny baby and curious toddler (though I don’t miss the tantrums!), but I love seeing how well he has grown up and how happy he is with life in general.

💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙

HBD ERJ

Happy Birthday to this beautiful soul!

She took the day off, watched YouTube, baked brownies, and slept late. We celebrated this afternoon with presents and sushi for dinner.

Miss E brings us joy and laughter every day. This world is lucky to have her.

💗💗💗

HBD to me

My birthday was the other day. It was pretty awful, but I gave myself a re-do and did much better the second time around! 😁

I got my Covid booster shot (Pfizer) on Thursday evening, then went to school Friday morning because I was feeling ok. I have a light morning on Fridays so I figured I could take it easy, do some stuff around the library, and be ok. Turns out I was NOT ok! We had 11 teachers out and I was called to sub in kindergarten. I said I’m not feeling well and probably can’t teach kindergarten all day, so the boss said, “ok, how about subbing for the para in the other kindergarten?” So I did that, until the chills set in, then the shivers and aches. I ended up in tears in the office around 10am and heading home around 10:30am (after crying in both kindergarten classrooms!). Everyone was super supportive (I love that about my school!) but I felt guilty leaving anyway since there were already so many people out. When I got home I crashed on the couch for the rest of the day. Teenagers came and went, and I dozed on. I had aches, chills, sweats, vomiting… it was awful. I was feeling much better by Saturday. Alan came down and did a bunch of jobs around the house, I opened presents, we all laughed and had fun, then we went to watch Cinderella at the high school. Lex is running the lights again this year and Eve did stage crew. It was a great show. I’m feeling close to 100% now Sunday evening. The kids did their final Cinderella production this afternoon, then Eve and I went grocery shopping this evening. I bought myself some birthday cake. :)

It was a miserable day, but an otherwise good weekend and 100% worth it to keep myself and others safer from Covid!

A big 70th in Boston!

Everyone who reads this blog probably already knows all this, but I’m writing the post anyway! :) This past weekend we spent in a mansion (practically) just outside of Boston, with family who came from near and far to celebrate Mema’s 70th birthday!!

It was a secret of the very best kind. My sisters and uncles and aunt all coordinated a mini-vacation, without telling my mom about it. I invited her to Boston for the weekend to do a whale watch with us and SURPRISE big family party! :)

The house belonged to this guy. We had a lot of fun admiring his posters and his house, and Googling him to learn more. :)

I didn’t take any pictures of just the house, but you can get an idea based on the pictures I did take. It was huge and beautiful! The house had a big backyard with all the amenities, including a jacuzzi and fire pit.

Friday night we did a little grocery shopping at the biggest Wegman’s ever, enjoyed a hearty dinner of kale soup made by Greg and Kathy, and generally just relaxed with one another.

Joyce was in charge of the decorations. We all enjoyed them. Happy Birthday Mema!! :)

There was a pool table, a foosball table, and a chess table! We called this the Red Room. I felt like the queen’s servant opening and closing those drapes each day.

First things first, chess!

Our jacuzzi even came with a mermaid!

The kids had fun with the lights and bubbles settings, creating an “RGB gamer hot tub.” The mermaid enjoyed herself.

Greg and I stayed up late with the kids the first night and played a few rounds of pool. Or maybe they stayed up late with us. I’m not sure anymore. We all had fun.

We might have gotten a little silly. :P

On Saturday we headed in to Boston to visit the aquarium and go on a whale watch. This sounds very straight forward, but choppy seas, broken transit, and unclear parking made it an eventful morning. Eventually we made it though and it was soooo worth the effort!

The Boston Aquarium was beautiful, as usual. Some people in our party had never been before, so if was fun exploring it with them for the first time.

We only saw one sea turtle this time. We were wondering where the rest were. I’ll have research that at some point. The turtle did a nice lap around the tank for us. Showing off just a little. :)

I missed the best picture of this guy smiling at me, but I got him on the second time around.

The penguins are always my favorite part!

What are these sea lions doing?!? Look at their flippers all wrapped up. Both of them had a side flipper and their tail flippers wrapped around each other (not tied, it looks like something they did themselves) and their other side flipper doing small turns in the water below. Like they were just chilling with their flippers all up in the air. It was so funny looking.

These three were also resting with one flipper down and the other straight up. It seemed to be naptime for most of them. One (not pictured) was having a good time with a toy, but the rest were pretty chill.

Then we headed out for a whale watch. The captain assured us the water wasn’t *too* choppy – yet. She said she thought she could get us out and back in before the water got too rough. Reassuring? I’m not sure. She was right though! She got us out there, the water wasn’t too bad, and the whales were a plenty!!

We say five different whales, two of which were a mother/calf combo that spent a lot of time feeding and playing around our boat. The boat had a “naturalist” (scientist? biologist?) on board who’s job it was to tell us over the loud speaker what we were seeing. She was also taking notes and documenting and doing science kind of stuff along the way. She was thrilled to see so many whales and just giddy over the “silly baby calf” that was playing and flipping and practicing it’s dives. She kept exclaiming over and over about how cute it was and how surprising and that baby whales like to play, just like baby people. Her enthusiasm was contagious and we all really enjoyed the experience. She said they don’t bait the animals or use sonar, so it’s kind of hit or miss what you see on each trip. I guess we got lucky. Maybe the whales wanted in on the birthday surprise too!

Everyone say CHEESE! Or WHALES!

We sailed on the Asteria. It sounds more glamourous than it really was, given the number of barf bags used. LOL. Not by our crew though!

I got LOTS of pictures of water. We saw so many whales and so close, yet my camera didn’t capture any of them well. Oh well.

I love this lady. 🧡💚💙

I got lots of pretty water pictures though. :)

Hi!

There’s a whale’s tail!

Despite my photography skills, I promise we had so many great views of the whales. We saw Freckles, and Dross, and Dross-2021-calf, and Owl, and a Minke. You can learn more about these whales on their website. The website is a little out of date, unfortunately, but you get the idea.

Back at home we were all exhausted so we ate pizza, tried to watch tv, and fell asleep. I say “tried” to watch TV because the homeowner and his family are Russian and therefore all of their books were in Russian, the clock was Russian, and even the TV was all in Russian. I can guess at some languages, but Russian left me pretty clueless.

We just wanted to watch Jeopardy! :)

Sunday came slowly and we all looked forward to a day at “home” enjoying each other’s company. I finished putting together the birthday cake, Greg and Kathy made another delicious meal, and we kept each other busy with games of Dominoes, Scrabble, Catan, and of course, pool.

Dominoes

Scrabble. Eve won, with a little lot of help from her neighbor! :)

This Catan game lasted longer than TWO rounds of Scrabble!

Yummy delicious strawberry cream birthday cake. I was looking forward to this all week! :)

Mema got a Lego flower bouquet for her birthday and asked for assistance building it. We were all eager to help out. Grandpa Tom was waiting patiently for the pool table to become available again.

A sneak picture of Eve. :)

Happy Birthday Mema!!

Uncle Carl and Mema, holding the completed bouquet of Lego flowers.

Monday morning we packed up and headed home, promising each other we’ll do it again soon. I’m so happy the pandemic is (mostly) over so we can gather again. I love my family!! <3

Sixteen!

Here it is. The big day. Sixteen years ago right now I was holding an hour old baby. Now I’m looking at a handsome teenager. We had a low-key day, just school, presents, pizza, and ice cream cake.

Happy birthday kiddo. I’m so glad to know you.

HBDE

Today we celebrated this beautiful spirit and her 14th trip around the sun.

It was a normal school day, so Eve work up to presents on the table, but had to wait until after school before digging in.

All morning I thought about 14 years ago, at 7am when we were going to the hospital, at 10am when they broke my water, at 10:45 when that beautiful baby girl was on her way. They were nice memories. She is an amazing human being. Alan came over to celebrate with us so we were all together to open presents after school.

This was the year of wigs. This lovely purple one is for an Entrapta cosplay.

Percy Jackson is always welcome too.

We can’t remember what this wig is for. Pure silliness, maybe.

Did someone say silly? She’s wearing a red beret hooked over the purple pony tail.

I love this wild child more than anything!

Guess what was in the big box from Aunt Mandy? A sword! It works well for cutting ribbon, among other things.

This looks safe, right?

How is she so tall?!? I think she must be wearing huge high heels. Yep, that must be it. At least she’s smiling for the camera. :)

14

So many smiles for mommy today!

Just when we thought it was done, UPS came with a big box from Aunt Rosy!

Eevee of many looks.

We ordered take-out sushi for dinner (Eve’s favorite) and watched Pirates of the Caribbean (Eve’s choice). A good night was had by all.

Eve is a pretty amazing child. Full of laughter, creativity, imagination, and chatter. She makes me laugh, she makes me crazy, and she makes me happy. The other day I came home from school totally exhausted and stressed. The boys were at musical rehearsal so Eve put on a good show and we snuggled and laughed on the couch for awhile. It was awesome. I felt so much better afterwards. Another day I came home and found her outside, in her woodland fairy whatever whatever costume, reading a book. It was such a lovely sight and she even let me take a few birthday photos. She’s so good to me. 💙💙

This amazing child has changed my world and I am thankful every day for her presence in my world.