243/365 - Happy 39th Anniversary (two days ago)

Monday night at Borders. I went off to get something to read, and this was what I found on my chair when I got back. In case you can't read it, his apron says 39th anniversary. Actually, the reason they have the bear is that Seattle's Best coffee, which is served at Borders, is 39 years old.

Happy 39th anniversary Paul! (two days ago)

242/365 - Mason and Natalia

Today was the annual cookout at Stacia and Amy's (Janelle's mom and sister). We lucked out with the weather as yesterday was a complete washout. There were lots of people there and three little babies. This picture is of Mason's "girlfriend" Natalia (Mark and Janelle's good friends Mike and Maria's daughter). She is six weeks younger than Mason. We were trying to get a picture of the two of them together but she was too sleepy and I guess he wasn't too happy about her sleeping on him!

241/365 - Connecticut Science Center

Today we took Marley to the Connecticut Science Center. It has only been open since June and it was wonderful. Marley knew about this place because the company that Kristen works for had the heating and cooling contract. In fact, when were were buying our tickets she said to the ticket person, "My mom built this place." This picture was while we were waiting for a 3D movie about dinosaurs to begin. We were there from 10:30 until it closed at 5 and still did not do everything. I think this place will be a regular!

240/365 - Honor Prims

Tonight was the annual Girls Ministries Honor Celebration at our church. Marley and one other girl were Honor Prims, along with girls from different age group clubs. To achieve this, the girls had to complete all of the badges for their particular club. Marley had not wanted to do this from the beginning. Every time I asked her why, she would say "embarrassed." In the end, she did walk down to receive her award, and I was very proud and happy!

239/365 - 39th wedding anniversary

We drove home today along the coast. We spent some time in Old Orchard Beach and also York Beach. Since it will be our 39th wedding anniversary in two days, we thought it would be apropos to take a picture of ourselves in front of the motel where we spent our honeymoon!

Our room was the middle room on the second floor of the wing that you can see in the left of the picture. The curtains were open and no one was in that room so I peeked in the window. Believe it or not, I can remember this room; it hasn't changed much in 39 years!

238/365 - Changes at LL Bean (again)

When we got to LL Bean today we found out that they were making some changes (again)! The area where Paul used to sit in their "Home Department" and read books and drink coffee while waiting for me to shop was in the process of moving. Awhile back they moved the little snack shop the "Dew Drop Inn" to another part of the store which was bad enough, but now the furniture is moving to another building across the parking lot. One thing we have learned, though, is that if you love LL Bean, you have to be prepared for change every time you go!

P.S. Happy Birthday Kristen!

237/365 - Vacation, Pennsylvania for Carissa and Andrew's Wedding, Day 3 From Gettysburg to Freeport

On Tuesday after we left the hotel, we drove to Philadelphia and toured around Historic Philadelphia from the car. We then drove to Freeport, Maine. This is a picture of Paul in the hotel lobby planning out our route for the day!

236/365 - Vacation, Pennsylvania for Carissa and Andrew's Wedding, Day 2 Amish Country

The day after the wedding we toured around Amish Country in Lancaster, PA. I think this must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is relaxing just to be here.

235/365 - Carissa and Andrew

Today we went to a wedding in Philadelphia. Paul's cousin, Priscilla, has four girls. Today her third daughter Carissa was married to Andrew. It was a beautiful church, beautiful service, and it was wonderful to be with family!

235-365 - Vacation, Pennsylvania for Carissa (Burgmayer) and Andrew Garcia's Wedding 8/23/2009

Today we traveled to Pennsylvania to go to Carissa Burgmayer's wedding to Andrew Garcia.  (More info in my Travel Journal 2009.)

234/365 - Birkenstocks

I love my Birkenstocks. These are called Birki's; they have a soft footbed. As much as I love them, I don't think I will buy the Birki's again. They are very comfortable, but not as strong as the regular Birkenstocks. Both sandals have split right at the end of the first strap. I took them to a shoemaker and he put some super-glue type stuff in the cracks and said that was about all he could do. My regular Birkenstocks are still going strong, they are at least 10-12 years old. These sandals are so comfortable I might have to look into some shoe and/or boots made by Birkenstock.

P.S. Happy Birthday Big Baba!

233/365 - Friday night with Mason at 11 weeks

Friday night - Marley was away at the camper but Mark, Janelle and Mason came for the evening. Mason is almost 11 weeks. My friend Linda, her granddaughter Katie, her son Bobby, along with his son Jeremy also came to see Mason. It was so good to see them; I wish I had thought to take a picture.

232/365 - Izzy's perch

Izzy has her own haunts around the house. One of them is on top of my scrapbooks which are on top of a bookcase in the family room. When she first started sleeping there we put a beach towel over them to keep the cat hair from getting in. Recently we put the old mattress that was in the little crib that got fixed up for Mason under the beach towel on top of the scrapbooks. I feel better in case an "accident" should happen, and I'm sure it's more comfortable too.

231/365 - Izzy loves cheese popcorn

Every time Paul eats cheese popcorn Izzy will not leave him alone. She is relentless. He finally gave her a piece and she ate it, for which I yelled at him and told her she could choke on it (and you all know me and choking)!

It's been a year.....

Today, August 19th marks one year of doing Debbie's Blog. I looked back in the records and this is my 73rd post. Wow, I still love it as much as when I started!

230/365 - Picnic

We took a ride up to Grafton, VT to the cheese store. We had a picnic just down the street; cheese, french bread, jam, and old fashioned sasparella soda. It doesn't get better than that!

229/365 - It's hot tonight!

I guess Summer has finally arrived. It only took until the middle of August to get here. 81 degrees is HOT for 8:30 at night!

Sunday

Is he just the cutest thing?

Mason is getting big. He is not so "tiny newborn" anymore. I saw smiles today and even coos - not much mind you, even though Mark and Janelle say he does this all the time now. I'm not sure that he is comfortable yet with all of the chaos at my house when everyone is here. I said that it was almost as if he was strange and Mark had no idea what that meant. STRANGE??? I used to get the same reaction from Kristen when Marley was a baby. I guess it's a generation thing. We always use to say that babies were strange if they cried in an unfamiliar setting. No one says that anymore I guess. I had to explain to him that No, I did not call Mason strange, it just seemed like he knew he wasn't home. Anyhow, that is not acceptable at Grandma's, no strange babies here.

Marley got to feed him a bottle today for the first time. She was excited about that, and she did a great job. She was a little out of sorts later in the day because "Why does Mason get so much attention when he doesn't even do anything." After much reassurance from Grandma that she got that much attention when she was that age, and a game of Apples to Apples, she was fine.





P.S. We tried chicken shish kabobs for the first time today. Toby grilled them; we all really liked them!

228/365 - Marley feeding Mason

Today Marley fed Mason a bottle for the first time. She did a great job!

227/365 - Kayaking with Marley at Lake Mashapaug

We took Marley kayaking and swimming at Lake Mashapaug in Union, Ct. today. For two years we have been taking her to Laurel Lake in Lee, MA but it is closed to boats because of some type of mussel invasion. There are not that many lakes that I would actually swim in, but Lake Mashapaug is one of them. It was very crowded today because it was so hot, but the water was beautiful. It was so warm it hardly took any getting used to. We paddled out to a little island and then did some swimming. This time we brought some blow up raft type things and Paul rode her all around on that also. There was one place, in between two islands that was shallow enough for her to walk between. She also paddled the kayak by herself and actually went around an island all by herself (with Paul in the other kayak right next to her). We had a great time. She slept over tonight and I thought she would fall asleep the minute her head hit the pillow. When I went upstairs at 11:00 pm she was still reading!

226/365 - Steaks on the grill

Steaks on the grill tonight. No Marley (we are taking her kayaking tomorrow and she is staying overnight Saturday night). She always wants cerael on Friday night.

225/365 - Friends?

I would love to know what this bunny thinks of our "roaming gnome." Maybe they're friends.

Throwback Thursday - Christian Bookstore

This is a picture of the Christian Bookstore taken in 1974. It was on Parker St. in Springfield. My mother-in-law, Priscilla Radtke, was the manager of this store for years. She went to work there when Paul started college. The manager retired within a few years and Priscilla took over the job. Her good friends, Ruth DiLorenzo and Dottie Burt worked there with her, along with Dottie's daughter, Susan Carrington. There were people from other churches that also worked there. I loved the fact that she worked there; we always had whatever Bibles we wanted, the kids had so many Christian books to read, and it was fun to hang out there (occasionally) when she was working. There were just so many perks to having her work there. She retired sometime in the early 1990's. Check out her little 1967 Volkswagen bug. She loved that car!

This picture is a postcard from some time in the 1980's. It is basically what the store looked like until the end.

224/365 - Scrapbooking buddy

Aren't I lucky to have a scrapbooking buddy?

223/365 - Wait Monument

In 2003 Paul and I started doing some genealogy research. We spent a lot of time in this cemetery in Greenfield. This is the Wait monument. We have traced my father's side back to when the first relatives came over from England in 1638 to Malden, MA.

222/365 - Ice tea tonight at Borders

I guess summer is finally here; at least this is one of the hottest days so far. No hot tea for us at Borders tonight, but the ice tea was very good!

221/365 - Marley's Room

This evening Toby put Marley's new bookcase together and then Kristen, Marley and I cleaned her room and loaded up her bookcase. She seemed very happy in her new, clean room.

220/365 - The tobacco process

Now, I am by no means an advocate of tobacco, but I do enjoy watching the process - from the planting to the drying of the tobacco leaves. I drive by this scene on my way to work (and I have worked at the same place for 12 years), so I see the process a lot. It seems like there is a lot of time from when they plow the fields until the tobacco plants are big, but then one day the fields are full of people and within a week or so the leaves are cut down and hanging in the barns. They gradually turn from green to yellow, and then all of a sudden, the tobacco is gone and the barns are empty, ready to start cycle again.

And, yes, I did have to work today (Saturday) so this picture was taken today!

219/365 - Family time

Friday night family with time with Marley and Mason (and their parents).

218/365 - Dragonfly

Lots of dragonflies at Upper Spectacle Pond in Otis where we went kayaking today.

Throwback Thursday - Bob and Judy Ramsdell, 119 Silkey Rd., Granby, CT

Paul's aunt and uncle, Judy and Bob Ramsdell, use to live in this houuse when their kids were young teenagers. They had horses there. I remember going with Fred and Priscilla to their house for holidays. When Paul and I bought our house, Judy and Paul dug up three maple trees from their property and planted them in our yard, one in the front yard, and two in the back yard. One came down in a big thunderstorm but the other two are still going strong.

Throwback Thursday - Dan and Joan Charko, 43 Morin Drive, Easthampton, MA

From Project 365, March 14, 2009

We went for a ride to Vermont again today via Easthampton (Paul's new favorite hot dog stand). I wanted to see if we could find our friends Danny and Joanie's first house in Easthampton. I was surprised that we still remembered how to get there. I think they bought this house around 1972. When they lived there the house was red with striped cloth awnings, perfect grass and cement walks in the back yard. We had a lot of fun times in that house.

Throwback Thursday - Ralph and Linda Lathrop, 41 Arthur St., Springfield, MA

This was our friends Ralph and Linda Lathrop's first house, 41 Arthur St. We had many good times there. They moved from there when their oldest son, Bob, started college. They moved to North Carolina, but thankfully, they moved back a few years later. Most recently they built an apartment on their youngest son Tim and his wife Terry's house in Westfield. We were at a softball game near this house a few days ago and decided to take a look at it. I haven't been there in so long, the only way I recognized it was by the carport that Ralph built.

217/365 - Prims bonfire

Tonight at Prims we had a bon-fire. This must be a yearly thing because when I started with Prims last summer they had one also. The girls seem to love it. They toasted marshmellows and then made Smores. After that they ran around throwing cups of water at each other. It really was a fun time.

216/365 - Paying bills

I'm always telling Paul that paying bills and working on his budget is his hobby; he does it so often. At least he has a nice chair to do it in now.

215/365 - Mason at the mall

Tonight we went to the mall and had a surprise visit with Janelle and Mason. We met them for a quick bite to eat and then a little shopping at Babies R Us. Mason didn't seem to thrilled to be at the mall (in true male fashion) but I was sure thrilled to see him!

214/365 - Mason at the Softball Playoffs

Today was the softball playoffs for Mark and Toby's team. Not the best day weather-wise, or winning-wise. They won two games, lost two games, but were eliminated (last year they won the championship). I chalk it off to three new sleep deprived fathers! Mason didn't seem to mind the weather; he stayed dry under the umbrella!

213/365 - Crop Shish Kebobs

Today was another scrapbook crop at my friend Janice's house. Her grandson enjoys cooking and very graciously agreed to cook chicken shish kebobs for us. They were wonderful. Thanks, Nick.