Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The work of Hurricaine Irene



Hurricane Irene blew into our area last Sunday. Luckily our particular area did not have too much damage. All of the weather channels were really talking it up to be a really bad storm, high winds,flooding, etc. You can read about it here.

Vermont was one of the hardest hit areas in New England. You can read about that here.

Today Paul and I decided to go for a ride and check things out. We took back roads through Western Massachusetts. We had to re-route twice and never did get very far into Vermont. All the roads were closed. Parts of Brattleboro were a real mess, streams flooded, roads buckled, mud everywhere. Sam's Outdoors Outfitters had their basement flooded and lost thousands of dollars in shoes.

On Rt. 9 in Brattleboro Channel 22 News was there reporting.

We have had such weird weather this summer, from the tornado in June, to a microburst a week or two later, to an earthquake in August and now the hurricane.

Here are some pictures that I took, although they did not do justice to what it was really like.

This is Littleville Dam. Although it was nowhere near flood stage, the road that goes down to the lake was totally flooded.




Knightsville Dam. Still not at flood stage but usually in the summer it is just a stream. Note the debris.




Road in Brattleboro, VT




Channel 22 reporting




These next few pictures are from the Green River Park, or as I call it, the Greenfield Pool. This was a place I used to go to frequently with my grandfather and my cousins. My grandfather's brother lived in Greenfield and we used to come here a lot with him.

The water had bent over the iron fence and there was mud everywhere, on both sides of the road.









This is where my grandfather's house used to be, across the street from the golf course, which was flooded. They moved all the golf carts here.




We came across a little door in our travels. I can't remember exactly where this was, but I'll remember eventually.




***Note - today I decided to begin, in addition to my little doors, another series of pictures.

With all the talk of the Postal Service maybe closing some of the post offices, I decided to take pictures of the post offices that we encounter in our journeys.

Today we went by the Brattleboro, VT post office



and the Deerfield, MA post office.

Happy Anniversary

A very happy anniversary to you too.



This is an unauthorized post by Paul.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Friday, August 26, 2011

Happy Birthday Kris!



This is my favorite picture of me and Kristen.

Happy birthday Kris.
Love, Mom

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Dot's patio.....so sad!



Tonight we went to Dot's house to get some things to bring to her new place. We have been keeping the blinds to her patio closed, so when I opened them to look at her patio I was so shocked. I guess I never thought about how much she used to work on her garden to keep it looking nice. This is what it looked like three months ago.



Even though she is doing so well now, this makes me sad.


On a happier note, she got her hair done today and I think she looks so nice.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

End of year Prims party

Tonight we had our end of year Prims party. This is the group that is leaving for Stars (3rd grade).




This is the group that is staying.




We invited the Daisys (kindergarten) that will be coming into our class.




We had a lot of food and fun. We played a couple of games.




This one is one of their favorites. They split into two teams. One person from each team puts on a huge T-shirt, and the rest of the teams sees how many balloons they can stuff under the T-shirt.





Our new year starts on September 7th.

Wish us luck!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Marley's new phone



This summer Marley started wanting a phone. I mean really, really wanting a phone. She even asked me to talk to her mother about it.

Kris and Toby wanted to put if off a little longer, but Marley was persistent, which is really not like her. She's not the type of kid who asks for a lot.

So....Marley's phone came last week in the mail. It is a Samsung Intensity 2.

She asked her mother if she could "text" her at work. Kris said yes, and that day she got about 47 texts!

Kayaking with Marley at Lake Mashapaug



Would you believe that today was the first time that we have been kayaking this summer?


I didn't want the summer to go by without taking Marley to Lake Mashapaug at least once. It was a little cool today but at least it was sunny.






We went to our usual haunts on the lake, one of which is the rocks....




She had brought her scuba diving mask, snorkel, and flippers to use today. She had a lot of fun with them until she lost the mask. Paul tried diving to find it, but this is a very deep lake and he never found it.






She also had her yearly kayaking lesson. She did great this year (except for the time when she felt she was going off course, panicked, and jumped right out of the kayak!!).






She paddled all around this little cove.




We swam for quite awhile. Paul stayed in the water longer than I did; it was a little chilly for me even though the water was still warm.





These days are always so much fun.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Happy Birthday!



Today is my father-in-law's birthday. This picture was taken in 1967; Fred with Paul's 1937 LaSalle, and their dog Tony.

Happy birthday Fred/Dad/Grandpa/Big Baba!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Brian and Michele's wedding



Our friends, Carl and Gladys' son Brian got married today. He and his bride Michele were married at La Notte restaurant in East Windsor, Ct. It was a beautiful wedding. The day was sunny which was perfect seeing the ceremony was outside in the restaurant's gazebo.








This is their wedding cake. They're bikers so how perfect it this?




This is Carl and Gladys, parents of the groom.



It was a fun evening with some of our best friends.

Congratulations to Brian and Michelle!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Girls Ministries Honor Ceremony



Tonight was the Honor Ceremony for Girls Ministries at my church. Pat and I do Prims, which is for 7 and 8 year old girls. In order to "honor", the girls have to achieve 18 badges over the two years. This year two of our girls, Katya and Sarah, were our Prim "honorees."





Pat and I will definitely miss these two next year!

Three years of blogging

Today marks three years of doing my blog, and I STILL LOVE IT!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Hanging pictures in Dot's room


Tonight we brought some of Dot's pictures to hang in her new room. She seemed so pleased to have them. We all agreed it made her room so cozy.








**Update....We brought some more of her things a week later. While we were sitting out in the front room she commented that this was a nice place, not like at home with your mother and father, but when she goes in her room, she has all of her own things, and then it feels like home :)