Lights Out

Posted on December 17, 2022 by Tessa

We had a pretty awesome snow storm on Friday. Started Thursday night. Snow day Friday. It snowed all Friday and into Saturday morning. Thick, heavy, wet snow. It was beautiful, but also took down TONS of trees!! Our power flickered a few times on Friday, then went out Friday night around 10:30. Our awesome Tesla Powerwall battery system kept us up and running for the rest of the night (when normal people would have just gone to bed) and all the way until noon the next day. Then it died. Sad. The internet went out sometime overnight as well. We roughed it, like in the olden days, with no video games, no Google Suite (the kids tried to do their homework), and eventually no lights. It was fun for awhile. Eve complained about being bored, then found something to do.

*She’s shoveling! All on her own! I didn’t even ask her to do it. She’s also wearing the sweet new sweatshirt that Champlain College sent to Lex (and all other applicants).*

Eve and I were going to go grocery shopping, but we got a mass text alert saying power was out in all of West Leb. Lex had to work so he spent some time deliberating about what to do, finally deciding to just go to work since there was nothing else to do here anyway. The power in West Leb came back mid-afternoon, so Eve and I spent some time shopping and enjoying our weekly Starbucks treats.

Home again, still no power, so we broke out all the candles we could find. Eve was in heaven! :) She and I played Uno for a long time, by candle light. Lex was at work and B’Lake talked to his girlfriend all afternoon. Good thing our cell phone batteries held out! :)

Candles, candles, everywhere. I fixed that green one post haste!

Lex got off work at 7pm, so we met him in West Leb for dinner at a restaurant. I was going to have him bring home take-out for us, then realized it would be more fun to eat with lights and heat. :) Halfway through dinner I got an alert that the power was back on. Yay!!

We got home and everyone retreated to their own devices. Lex and Eve realized at 10pm that they had homework due, so they are working on that now. Late night Saturday night homework. Sure to be successful. :)

*When you’re stuck on your math homework but you have two math-happy big brothers eager to help.*

More music

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Tessa

The blog this year might be pretty Lex heavy. :) Enjoy!

Lex and B’Lake had their winter concert tonight.

The dress code is always “black on black” with kids in jazz band instructed to wear a “touch of blue.” I gave Lex an early Christmas present with a cool (IMHO) blue/gray Lego tie. He liked it well enough to wear it, which is all I can ask for. :)

Every year they honor the seniors who have been part of the music department for all four years. The band director made a really nice speech tonight about how this year’s seniors entered high school in 2019 when everything was easy breezy, then they proceeded to face every variation of band and choir imaginable. Singing/playing outdoors in the winters, performing with masks, social distancing, recording performances, live streaming, etc. Yet they stuck with it. She acknowledged how easy it would have been to quit when band/choir no longer looked/sounded the same and took a lot more work, but this year’s seniors stuck with it. It was a sweet and touching statement. Then she announced that all of these 4-yr seniors would get a snazzy fleecy zip-up!

Here is the jazz band’s final song, with many solos, including B’Lake on the flute and Lex on the vib e s!

I picked Eve and Simon up from work and brought them to the concert. On the way out it was snowing and they started heel clicking. They were both doing really good heel clicks, so we thought it would be fun to get a picture of them clicking together. It didn’t go so well, but we had fun anyway. :)

‘Tis the season

Posted on December 4, 2022 by Tessa

It was Christmas tree day today!

Lasts?

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Tessa

I’m sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office while Lex has his well-child checkup. Once they hit the teen years the doctor kicks parents out for the exam portion. I’m bored and it dark out and it feels like it’s taking forever, but it occurred to me now that this might be the last time we do this. Next year he’ll be over 18 and not even here. He probably won’t need me to take him to doctor appointments any more, at least not scheduled appointments.

I can’t say I’ll miss it, but it’s interesting to think this might be the last.

Music and friends

Posted on November 19, 2022 by Tessa

They boys had their “Districts” music event this weekend. Schools from around the state send select students to perform together for two full days, then put on a concert Saturday night. Eve and I went down to see the show, then we all joined Eirene and her boys for dinner. It was lots of fun. Teenagers are so interesting and silly and fun. Also, I got to chat with my friend too. :)

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work she goes…

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Tessa

Eve had her first day of work today and she sure did dress the part! She read the dress code at the last minute and realized it ruled out all of her athletic wear, so she grabbed a pair of jeans from my closet (from way back when I had lost a lot of weight!) and threw on some tall boots, just for fun. 😄

She’s so cool. She was putting on her mirrored heart shades as she walked towards the building.

Her bestie also started work at Hannaford today, so they got the tour together and did the training videos together. Eve said she did some bagging for a few customers too. Good thing I’ve trained her well on that front! 🤗

She came home in a very positive mood and even made herself a healthy dinner!

She has two more shifts this week, one with her bestie and one without. I hope the positive attitude sticks around.

Rotary Exchange

Posted on November 13, 2022 by Tessa

I guess it’s about time to start documenting Eve’s next adventure — Rotary Exchange Student! She applied to be a Rotary Exchange student for the 2023/24 school year, her Junior year. We completed round one of interviews and paperwork, and yesterday we did round two of interviews. We spent a few hours at a Youth Exchange event yesterday, meeting the Rotarians, several inbound students, and several other outbound applicants. It was interesting.

Eve is pretty excited to go to Norway, the UK, or Iceland. Last week they sent a list of currently available countries and it was way shorter than expected and did not include any country she was interested in. We got nervous and I think she started having second thoughts. At yesterday’s meeting they handed out updated country lists, which now includes all of the Scandinavian countries and many others. Eve was much happier! Me too, truthfully. She enjoyed meeting the other outbound applicants and left the meeting in a pretty positive mood.

At some point between now and January she will have a chance to select her top three countries and indicate up to three that she would not go to. There is another Youth Exchange event on January 7th and we are told that if all goes well they’ll tell the kids which countries they’ll be going to. That should be right around the time we hear back from the colleges Lex applied to as well.

Dear Santa, bring me tissues this year. 😢

All good changes. All good things. All part of growing up and spreading their wings. Sometimes parenting is both amazing and terrifying at the same exact time.

Footloose

Posted on November 13, 2022 by Tessa

Another AMAZING high school musical is on the books! Lex ran the lights, while Eve and her bestie, Simon, ran the spot lights. Our old neighbors, Macy and Asher, stole the show! Well lit, of course, by my children. :)

They both had a great time and the show was fantastic.

Drop in visitors

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Tessa

I went to the gym this afternoon and decided to cook a healthy dinner. As I was filling the pot with water I noticed a balloon out the window. I put the pot on the stove and went outside with the kids and the dog. The balloon was low, very low, but started rising. It was fun to see. Then it started coming down again. We waved at it, just for fun, and it came down lower… and lower….

Then the guy yelled down to us “want to help us land the balloon?” Umm… what? Where? How? He threw down a rope and yelled to us to help guide them down. What?! He yelled to wrap it around the tree. What tree?? Our trees are babies! So Lex, Eve, and I were pulling the rope, trying to direct this balloon, not having the best of luck.

Then suddenly neighbors and friends/balloon chasers showed up and pitched in. It was exciting and fun, once it was on the ground and not on my roof!

There’s me in the middle. Neighbors joined along the way to help us bring this thing down. It was hard work!

After we helped land the balloon we all hung out and chatted while the chase van came (with the help of directions over the radio from one of our neighbors). That was when I remembered I had water boiling on the stove!! So much for cooking a healthy dinner tonight. Lots of people were out to watch and it was a fun gathering. Everyone had fun except Huxley who was definitely scared of the balloon, especially when the fire blasted. Lex and I were the last to go in. When I said goodbye and thanks for the entertainment, the guy asked if I wanted some champagne or syrup. Traditionally they give a bottle of champagne to the homeowner as a thank you for the use of the land. Apparently they now offer options. :)

We live in the land of hot air balloons and they are always fun and beautiful in the sky, but there’s nothing like having one come down in your side yard, a yard that seems barely big enough to land a balloon!

A day trip to Maine

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Tessa

Eve and I took a little drive to meet up with Rosy in Maine this weekend. Just for the day. We meet in Freeport, ME at the LL Bean flagship store.

It was huge! We had a lunch, did some shopping, then did some more shopping at a candy store that my friend recommended. It had a 1700lb chocolate moose named Lenny.

We then moseyed on down to Portland. People say it’s an adorable town full of funky shops and cool restaurants. We found it to be crowded and I was bummed that there wasn’t much of any water view due to the shipping warehouses. Oh well. We had fun checking out the stores for a few hours, then headed further down the coast to find some good waterfront.

And boy did we find some waterfront! We went to Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth. The state park closes at 6pm and I was worried about getting locked in (is that a thing?!) so we went to a nearby beach that I think it part of the same place. Or not. Who knows. It was BEAUTIFUL though. We got there at sunset and saw the full moon rise. We took a thousand photos — give or take a few. :)

We were going to have dinner at a pirate ship restaurant on the coast, but when we got there they were very, very closed! We continued down the coast and ended up at a diner place in Old Orchard Beach. The diner was a fortuitous find! The food was awesome, the waitress was adorable and as decorated for Halloween as the whole place was. She got Eve a big mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. I had a house-made black bean burger that was way better than any diner food should be. It was a great way to end a really fun day.