Fall in New England

 I have some catching up to do.... School started just after Labor Day. Bruce started middle school, Phoebe started first grade, and Oliver started preschool! They are at three different schools with three different schedules, so I spend most of my day picking up and dropping off kids. Bruce said the first week of middle school was boring ("it's all introductions.") and was happy to dig into learning the following week. He is running cross country, playing piano and drums in the jazz band, and working on activities with the Boy Scouts. 

Phoebe thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of summertime, but was happy to get back to school where she sees her friends every day. She says she isn't going to be a firefighter anymore; when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, there is a different answer almost every day. Some of the recent responses: astronaut, scientist, veterinarian, taekwondo instructor, and preschool teacher. She is taking guitar lessons and learning to play Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off." She joined a soccer league (more on that later) and is still passionate about taekwondo. She has a double black stripe belt and is immensely proud of it. I love taekwondo too: it is the one time during the week that I see her focused and serious. It lasts 45 minutes and it is wonderful. I keep waiting for all those skills of patience and respect and whatnot to translate into other areas, but so far not so much. But those 45 minutes! Ahhhhh.

Oliver started half-day preschool! It is a city-run preschool that is free and part of the public schools, so when I enrolled him forever ago I thought we would just try it and see how it goes. It was free, so there was nothing to lose. For the two weeks, he moaned about how he didn't want to go to school while we walked there. When we arrived, he would run in and say goodbye and be just fine. After those first two weeks, he was happy about preschool all the time. He loves his teachers and talks about them constantly. It is a small class with only five kids and two teachers, so it has been a good transition for him. Now that all my kids are in school for at least part of the day, I thought I'd have so much time on my hands. But I've been running most of my mileage while they're at school rather than waking up super early (more sleep = happy mom!), I started volunteering at my neighborhood food pantry, I'm getting back into a more regular routine of writing, and I'm working on a few side projects (a blood drive next week!). Today was classic: I dropped off Oliver, walked to the food pantry and worked for a few hours, walked home and grabbed a sandwich for Oliver and a sandwich for me, ate my sandwich while walking to pick him up, pushed him in the stroller while he ate his sandwich to the pet store, picked up hermit crabs for Phoebe's birthday this weekend, and walked home. I do a lot of walking. I don't have a FitBit, but the mileage on my iPhone's health app usually logs a couple non-running miles. Today it was 4.4 miles walking, 7 miles running.

Scott has been working a lot, so when we get a free weekend we take advantage of it. One weekend we went apple picking (the photo of Oliver above) at a farm near the beach. We picked apples (and Oliver sampled most of them), got cider donuts, and went for a hayride. Then we drove down the street to Crane Beach and played in the sand. The ocean is cold, of course, but that didn't stop the kids from getting in.

They dug a million holes, buried each other in sand, built castles with moats and dams, and had a blast.

This has been our other recent weekend activity: soccer. Phoebe has been begging to join the youth soccer league and I've been resisting because I feel like we do a lot already. But she kept begging, so I caved and now our Saturday mornings are spent at soccer practice and scrimmages. Phoebe is on the red team, which she was pumped about because it's her favorite color. As it turns out, she is pretty good (I guess being aggressive is a positive thing here). At her first practice, she scored three goals. Each time she scored, she threw her hands up and screamed and did a victory dance. Her team has a tradition of having a "pig pile" at the end of practice; I believe Phoebe started this.

Last weekend was a three-day weekend (Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day or whatever you want to call it) and Scott had the whole thing off, so once again we took full advantage. We drove to Maine and rented a little cottage on a lake. We kayaked, biked, and hiked in Maine and nearby New Hampshire. The photo above is Bruce biking with me on my run, which he's done a few times. He has biked 10 miles with me and been just fine; he keeps up and usually chatters the entire time, sometimes about the molecular structure of Fritos and sometimes about theoretical war between squirrels and people. He's a great running partner.

The fall foliage was out in full force in Maine.

The kids had a day off school for Yom Kippur, so we drove down to Hartford to see the new temple during its open house. The kids were wild before and after (pictured above), but by some miracle were amazingly reverent and quiet in the temple. Even Oliver held my hand and walked calmly next to me and listened to the tour guide. Afterward, I asked the kids if they felt the spirit. They said they did. I asked where they felt it the most. "The room with the big chandelier that was really quiet," said Phoebe. That would be the celestial room (photos of it and other rooms in the temple here).

And despite all the craziness afterward, here is what Phoebe wrote in water by the fountain: "I (heart) God's House."

 There was a visitor's center after the tour that had this statue of Christ in there. I told the kids to smile so I could take a picture, but they wouldn't listen (except for Bruce, of course).

 But when Oliver gave Jesus a big hug, I thought that was probably a better picture anyway.

 And then Phoebe joined in the hug. Sometimes these kids make my heart explode.

Cape Cod in April

 Marathon Monday was just the start to a great week. Scott can only reserve vacations as week-long blocks (rather than a day here or there) and since the kids were off school for the week too, we drove down to Cape Cod and made a mini vacation out of it. We stayed at Nickerson State Park in a yurt because I wasn't too keen about sleeping on the ground right after a marathon. The yurt had bunk beds, a table, and even electricity, so it was pretty plush by our standards.

Cape Cod was amazing in April. No one was there! I have tons of pictures of us digging holes in the sand because that's what we spent most of our vacation doing. I got the kids garden tools for Easter and they're pretty awesome as beach toys too.

 Almost every night we went to Crosby Landing Beach, the closest one to the campground, and dug holes and walked around while watching the sun set across the bay.

 During the day we did a few short hikes and found lots of horseshoe crab shells. We brought the kids' bikes and scooters and did lots of that around the campground and surrounding paved trails. There was a great little playground at the campground too and the kids played there every day.

 We checked out lighthouses and other beaches...

 ...like Coast Guard Beach on the Cape Cod National Seashore. Another sweet perk to visiting Cape Cod in April is that you don't have to pay a zillion dollars to park at the beaches. Free parking!

 We went to the southern tip of Chatham where the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge is located. There are lots of cool sand bars that go far out into the ocean and it's a place where many seals come. Phoebe was more interested in the weather balloon launch though; twice a day, a balloon is launched that carries instruments to take measurements and help predict the weather. We had to visit Monomoy again and time our visit so that we would be present for the launch. We were the only spectators of this very unceremonious event. Still, it was cool.

The kids got in the water a few times throughout our trip even though it was in the 50s and 60s. When it hit 70 on Friday though, they spent hours in the water. That would be Oliver in nothing but a diaper climbing on the rocks.

And that is Phoebe making her "sand angel." Cape Cod was a nice relaxing trip - mostly. We did have a few moments - like when I got lost while looking for a public bathroom in Eastham or when Oliver threw his daily fit. One night, Scott took Phoebe to the bathroom to brush teeth and such. It was late and Oliver hadn't napped and was really tired. I tried to put his pajamas on him, but he kicked and screamed and wanted Scott to put his pajamas on him. He was yelling, "No dad! Noooo dad!" over and over. A few minutes into this fit, our campsite neighbors came over to the yurt and said, "Is he all right in there?" (I'm sure because it sounded like Oliver was being beaten by the way he was yelling!) I said he was fine and that he just wanted his dad. They said, "Are you sure?" YES, I barked back; I was in a foul mood from the tantrum. Another classic vacation moment.

Maine Event

We drove about five hours up to Gouldsboro, Maine after the marathon. My legs were tight and sore especially after a long drive, but I was ready for vacation! Our vacation doubled as a reunion; Scott's parents and three of his siblings and their spouses met us in Maine. Only his youngest brother, Mark, was not there (he is serving a mission in California right now!). We booked a house that could fit all of us and was right on the water. The house was beautiful and the view was even better...

This is the view from the back deck: pink granite shores of the Schoodic Peninsula. There was a small pebble beach suitable for putting in kayaks (pictured below, with Oliver chucking rocks into the ocean), so we rented kayaks for the week and put them to good use.

 So many rocks to throw.

 This is Lana and her husband, also named Scott.

 This is my Scott, who went out in a kayak every single morning - even when Hurricane Joaquin sent some big waves all the way to Maine.

 Phoebe kept begging to go, so Scott took her out once. After this, Oliver also begged so much that Scott took him out too. It didn't last long though: a big wave came in just as they were paddling out from the beach, the kayak flipped, and Oliver decided he didn't want to do that again. Of all the things that happened on vacation, he cites this the most. He has told several people, "Boat, drop, wet," which is his way of saying, "I fell off the boat and got wet!"

 This is the view of the house from the pebble beach.

 We did our share of relaxing.

 But we didn't overdo the relaxation: here we are hiking the Precipice Trail in Acadia National Park. There are a bunch of metal ladders and rungs to cling to, but still lots of climbing over boulders which my tired legs didn't appreciate.

 It was worth the climb though.

 We made it to the top of Champlain Mountain...

 ...so we celebrated... (this would be Leslie and Marc)

 ...and snapped sibling photos. Scott with his three sisters: Leslie, Nancy, and Lana.

 We hiked from the mountaintop to Sand Beach, where Scott's parents were watching the kids. It was chilly, but not enough to keep Bruce from swimming or Oliver from taking his pants off.

 He loved inching toward the water, then running away when the waves came in. He did this for hours.

 We have been to Acadia National Park before, but we had not been to the portion of it on the Schoodic Peninsula. It was closer to where we stayed, so we went to Schoodic Point in the national park a few times. The waves were huge here!

 And there were plenty of cool tide pools for the kids to explore.

 OK, the adults too.

 We hiked onto Little Moose Island, which is only an island when the tide is in.

 When the tide is out, you can cross this sloppy tide pool. It was full of really cool creatures though; Bruce found a few crabs and sea urchins.

 One day we rented bikes and biked from Northeast Harbor to the Jordan Pond House, mostly on carriage trails. Nancy's husband, Jared, pulled a trailer with their baby Ethan and Oliver inside. At first, they tried to poke each other's eyes out. By the end, they were buddies.

 Phoebe biked with Grandma the whole time and went pretty slow, but was so proud that she had biked about five miles. It was a hilly five miles too!

 We returned the bikes to the rental place in Northeast Harbor (side note: the bike rental place was also a laundromat owned by a super-nice guy named Steve who drove me and the babies up to the carriage trailhead so we didn't have to pull the trailer up a big hill!), and entertained the babies at a playful storefront while everyone else finished the ride and loaded up on fish and chips. We ate so much amazing food: we got lobsters, clam chowder, and my new favorite - fried pickles.

 On our final full day, we hiked Mount Dorr and Mount Cadillac - the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard - before hiking down to Bubble Pond. We really lucked out with the weather this week. It only rained one day and it wasn't that bad. The rest of the week was sunny and in the 50s. Awesome.

 This is Scott checking out the view of Eagle Lake.

We hiked down to Bubble Pond, where you can see the foliage. It was beautiful, but I think it may have gotten even better when we left.

All in all, our vacation was amazing. The only bummer was on the last night of the trip: Baby Ethan put his hands on the hot glass of a fireplace and burned his hands very badly. Ethan, Nancy and Jared, and a support crew spent a few hours at the hospital that night getting him bandaged up. It was a small hospital in Ellsworth, so they didn't have the right doctors needed for the job. They flew back to Philadelphia the next morning and checked into a burn center there; Ethan is now home from the hospital after more than a week there, but will have bandages and surgeries over the next few months. Poor little guy!

Cape Cod camping

 Scott's sister graduated from physician assistant school, so Grandma and Grandpa came out to celebrate. They went to her graduation in Philly, then she and they came to Cape Cod to go camping with us. Oliver got a proper introduction to hanging out on the beach. He loved crawling all over the sand and water, tasting the different colors and grains of sand, chasing hermit crabs, and watching his siblings run wild.

 Most of the beaches on Cape Cod are shallow especially at low tide. The kids loved building dams to keep the water from flowing out of the shallow pools.

 We camped for a whole week on Cape Cod, spending the mornings hiking or sightseeing and the afternoons lounging at the beach.

 Oliver reminded us of a sea turtle, leaving his crawling tracks in the sand as he headed straight for the water. He did a lot of mileage on those knees.

Phoebe and Bruce enjoyed building and digging in the sand, collecting mussels and crabs and starfish, and making new friends everywhere we went.

 The weather for camping was nearly perfect. It was in the high 70s and sunny or partly cloudy for most of the week. It rained just one day, so we went out to eat and toured a potato chip factory.

 My favorite hike was the Fort Hill Trail in Eastham. It starts at a ship captain's home that has a whale's jawbones out front. It then winds through a swamp, by some blackberry bushes...

 ...through a meadow of wildflowers, across a vista with views of the Atlantic and surrounding marshes, next to some fun wooden statues in a forest...

 ...and to a rock.

 Not just any rock! This rock is an ancient Indian rock used for sharpening tools and weapons. It has a bunch of gashes in it.

 One day we headed out for a whale watch and saw minke, fin, and humpback whales - all within sight of Provincetown. The humpback whales were by far the coolest. There was a mom and baby feeding together (pictured above, mouths cresting). Unfortunately, Scott's mom and sister got seasick; it probably doesn't help that Nancy is six months pregnant and still nauseated even on a good day. She's a trooper for agreeing to camp with us for a week.

 We finished our trip by picking blueberries at a pick-your-own farm near our campground.

Bruce picked a few berries, ate a zillion, and then grabbed the camera and took a few pictures. He took this one of Phoebe and Scott heading out with their picking cans...

...and this nice selfie. Of course.