Tonight marks the end of a fun-filled, family-packed, vacation week! I’ve been smiling, laughing, sharing, and enjoying for a week. My heart is full.

Last weekend Rosy’s book group came to VT for a visit. On Sunday her group and mine joined together to take a baking class at King Arthur Flour, and then came back to my house for pizza and a big, joyful book discussion. Lots of laughter, new friends, tasty treats, and so many book recommendations. We read Jodi Picoult’s newest book, Hollow Bones. Both groups gave it three stars (of five) and a resounding, “It’s ok.”

Sunday night and Monday morning brought parents, more siblings, aunts, and uncles from near and far. We gathered at my house, ate lots of food, explored local attractions, played lots of games, did a few puzzles, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. Somehow I lucked into the world’s best family. Everyone is kind, smart, friendly, funny, and amazing.

(photos in no particular order….)

Everyone left on Thursday. I was sad to say goodbyes, but already had another adventure ahead. Lex was home all week and his vacation week ended with an overlap of Espen’s family weekend at Hofstra, so on Friday he and I drove to Long Island. We stopped by WPI to drop off his car, then continued on to Hofstra. We visited with Espen for a few days, got a tour of her campus. (she gave us the “critters tour,” which included random animals, places she’s seen random animals, the cat city on campus, the bird sanctuary, and other random animals around) We also made last minute plans to go into the city and see a show, Maybe Happy Ending. The show was sooo good!! My only complaint is that the only affordable tickets were “obstructed view” so we missed a bit of the side stage action, and the tech/design was so amazing that I bet it was 100x better from head on, but that’s a-ok. We had a great time and the show was fantastic!

This morning we had bagels and did some hanging out at Espen’s house, then Lex and I headed north. Back in Worcester we went out to dinner with Lex’s new…. girlfriend!! The big news of the week! LOL. She is very sweet and we all three bumbled through an silly and awkward “meet the mom / meet the new girlfriend” dinner. Lex picked a local restaurant (not the OG!) and even made reservations for us! It was a lovely dinner.

Now I’m home again, kitty on my lap, and looking at a clock that says midnight. I should probably go to bed, though I sure would like a few more days of vacation. :)

Until next time, family, I love you all! Thanks for visiting, hosting, traveling, exploring, laughing, and loving with me. I’m am lucky girl to have all of you in my life. <3

Espen and Huxley came home for fall break this weekend and we packed in as much fall fun as we could. Fall fun, fall baking, car time, sunshine, snuggles, football, music, and more snuggles.

She got home super late Thursday night, and Friday I got to go into work a bit late, so we had a nice morning and took the doggo to the vet. He’s healthy and was a VERY good boy the whole time the vet had treats in her hand. He was a little less happy when the needles came out! He needed multiple vaccines and a blood draw. Poor boy.

On Saturday we went down to WPI to watch Lex and the band perform at a WPI game. The football team is undefeated this year, which makes the games extra fun to attend!

We got there a little later than we hoped (shocker, I know!) and parking was a challenge, so we didn’t get to spend much time with Lex before the game. We hung out for a bit on campus after the game, but he had to go to a Marching Band Exhibition event that evening and their call time was shortly after the game ended. So it was a quick visit with him, but a beautiful drive and quality car time for us girls.

We started Sunday with a girls’ trip to CVS for flu and covid vaccinations. Whee! Then we tried to pack in a full day before the the effects kicked in! We went to Riverview, a beautiful local farm that has apples, berries, pumpkins, flowers, and more. It was a popular place to be on Sunday!

The have sooo many flowers there. We admired them for awhile, then Espen decided she wanted to pick some of the dry-able flowers and bring them home to dry. We debated about getting some giant sunflowers too, but decided to be reasonable. LOL.

Espen has an app she uses to identify all living things, so she was learning about the flowers as she picked them. She shared the knowledge with me, but I forgot most of it. The bright colorful ones are called globe amaranth and they are so cool! The top middle one is very cool looking, but apparently very poisonous. We were surprised at how many poisonous plants were growing at this family-friendly farm. It’s a good thing I had my daughter there to make sure I don’t eat anything poisonous! LOL

Once we were done having fun (and by that I mean once we had spent many many dollars at the orchard!) we went grocery shopping and then headed home.

Espen was committed to baking lots of apple treats so when we got home she went right to work in the kitchen. I put away groceries and other stuff, then plopped down to work on a puzzle as the vaccine kicked in. When she finally wore out we watched some Great British Baking and snuggled under the heating blanket.

On Monday I had to go back to work and she took the dog to the groomer, did some more baking, and visited some friends. Monday night we lamented the fact that she had to leave in the morning and began the countdown to our next visit. :)