No, it can't be true! Lido's is closing!

Paul and I L.O.V.E. Lido's.

Imagine my horror when I saw this Facebook post yesterday.



We have been going to Lido's since before we were married. I think it is really our all time favorite restaurant. Kris and Toby had their first date there.

I have blogged about Lido's before here.

When we found out that it was closing today, we actually thought about going there for dinner tonight. We decided that it would just be too sad though. I found out later that there were so many people that they ran out of food.

You can read more about Lido's closing here.

This picture was taken in 2004. We went there for my birthday. Happier days!



I read online that they are going to sell their sauce at Big Y. That will help a little.

R.I.P.  Lido's. We sure did love you!

Mason's first haircut

Today was a big day! Mason had his hair cut today!

Janelle posted on Facebook a few days earlier that she was feeling pressure to cut Mason's hair. The whole family was probably guilty.

Last summer I had a different hairdresser cut my hair because my regular one was on a medical leave for her father. "Kissy Chrissy", as everyone calls her, was cutting my hair. I had Mason there, and Mark came to pick him up. Mark got talking with Chrissy about cutting Mason's hair. Both Mark and Mason really hit it off with her.

So...the last time I had my hair cut, Mark came to pick up Mason, and Janelle asked him to talk to Chrissy about an appointment for Mason's haircut.

Today was the day. Janelle's sister Amy was visiting so she went with them to the appointment. Mark said it almost didn't happen, but that Chrissy was a magician. She had him laughing and spraying the water bottle in no time.

Here are some pictures.







It's still on the long side, but out of his eyes! I think he looks adorable.



That same night we had planned to take Marley to the Easter Presentation at our church. We asked Mason if he wanted to go too, but he said no that he wanted to go home with Daddy. Just as we were about to leave, in fact, we were in the car, Mason said he wanted to come.

I was a little leery. Being like a Passion Play, I was not sure how he would do or whether he would be scared. He did fine. In fact, when Baba asked him if he liked the Easter Presentation after it was over he said yes. He thought for a moment and then said, "Those soldiers were not nice to Jesus."

As is our tradition we went to Friendly's afterwards.













Big day!

Throwback Thursday - Dot's knitted sweaters

Tonight Paul and I went to visit Dot. She wasn't in a very good mood. I got out my phone and started to show her some old pictures that I have on it. She kept asking me what this little gadget was. She couldn't believe it was a phone!

These pictures were my 8th grade picture and 9th grade picture respectively.





I asked Dot if she remembered knitting these sweaters. They were the same pattern but one of them was some type of angora yarn. Surprisingly, she said she did remember that. We looked at some more pictures and her mood seemed to get better.

It felt good to make her laugh remembering old times, if only for a little while!

Throwback Thursday - Our first Christmas tree

The screen saver picture on my computer is a Christmas picture of my grandmother, my cousin, me and Paul. I have blogged about this picture before here. I must look at this picture 1000 times a day. Today I went looking for a picture of our first Christmas tree.

It was 1970, we had been married for four months and, obviously, we had none of our own Christmas decorations. Paul's mother gave us quite a few of her ornaments. She had gone to a small tree by this time and she had some ornaments that went back to her mother's tree.

At the time, Paul worked at Rocky's Hardware and he brought home some ornaments from there. As I look at this tree, I can see that we still have some of those old ornaments. Somehow I am not surprised!

New kayaking places

A friend of Paul's told him about four new kayaking places in Western Massachusetts. It was too cold and windy to go kayaking today so we decided to check them out.

The first one was Twining Pond in Tolland.





The next one was Noyes Pond in Tolland.





The next was Hayes Pond in Sandisfield.



And the last was Lower Spectacle Pond in Sandisfield.





It was fun to try and find these ponds today. Aside from the fact that I really like kayaking, I also enjoy the beautiful rides that we go on to get to these places.

P.S. Three new post offices

Pine Meadow, CT


Riverton, CT


Enfield St. Station, Enfield CT

The Red Bucket Sugar Shack

It was spur of the moment, but everyone was available to go to The Red Bucket Sugar Shack this afternoon.

This is an exerpt from our visit there in March 2004 -

Marley’s first visit to The Red Bucket Sugar Shack was on Sunday, March 14, 2004. Paul and I started going there while I was working at BayState Service and Systems, sometime in the 1990’s. A fellow employee named Gerry, who lived in Huntington, said she thought it was the best sugar house around and she always took her grandchildren there. The people who own and operate it are around our age. They have a photo album there with pictures of when they first built the sugar shack back in the 1970’s. We try to go there once or twice a year. It was very crowded when we got there; we had actually never seen that many people there. Come to find out there was a birthday party with about 10 or so kids. Talk about noisy; Fred had his fingers in his ears! I think Marley enjoyed the excitement of it though. She colored “Maple Sugar” pages and Big Baba bought her a coloring book on the way out. She liked seeing them making syrup, the big fire and all the smoke. We had a great breakfast and a nice family time.

These are a few pictures from our visit there in 2004.







Marley was exactly the same age then as Mason is for his first visit here today.

We have been only a few times since then, and not at all since 2006.

We had lots of maple syrup today and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

This is a picture of the couple who started The Red Bucket Sugar Shack back in 1979. They still own and run it themselves.



Here are a few pictures from today.

















Hopefully we won't let as much time go by before we go back again!

First time kayaking this season!

It was so unseasonably warm this past week that Paul and I decided to go kayaking today. We have never been out this early in the season. The earliest that we have ever been kayaking was April 9th in 2005, and that was only because Paul was going to be having hand surgery at the end of the month and wanted to get in as much kayaking as he could. That year we went to the same lake that we went to today, and at that time the lake was mostly frozen. We could only kayak around the edges.

Not so today. Even though it wasn't as warm as the previous week, the lake was totally unfrozen. Very weird!



We went to Thousand Acre Swamp in New Marlborough. I particularly wanted to check out the little handmade wooden boat that I have been keeping track of there. We started kayaking in 2004 and Thousand Acre Swamp was one of the first places that we kayaked. This is the first time that I saw this little boat.



Somehow it just intrigued me and I have been taking pictures of it every year as it has been breaking up. We never got there last year (would you believe we only kayaked once last year?) and I wanted to see what shape it was in. We had to really search for it. There wasn't much left to it. The water level was low and I could see some of it on the bottom of the lake.







We didn't stay out too long as it was cloudy and pretty cold, but it was sooooo good to be out on the water again!

P.S. More post offices -

Sandisfield, MA


Southfield/New Marlborough, MA

Girls Ministries Sleepover

Tonight Marley and I went to the annual Girls Ministries sleepover. This is our 5th time going to this. Twice I have slept over. I think twice is enough. That floor is really hard.

Marley and I got there at 4 o'clock to help set up, and I left at 12:45 a.m. after the movie was over.

It was a Hawaiian theme tonight. As the girls entered they were given a lei and had the option of having their hair styled with a big hibiscus flower.



Miss Pat really got into the Hawaiian theme.



Me not so much. I did wear a hibiscus in my hair and a lei.

After a little introduction and song worship, we had pizza and then a speaker. I thought the decorations were really cute.



After that there were tons of activities. My job was painting fingernails and little flower decals. Do you know how small some of their fingernails are? I could barely see them much less paint them. Luckily, as long as there was lots of glitter, they weren't fussy! Some other activities were tattoos, a craft, musical Hawaiian beach towel (like musical chairs), beach ball volleyball, the limbo stick, hula hoops, and learning the hula dance. After the activities there was decorate your own volcano cupcakes.

The last thing was to get in your pj's and sleeping bag and watch a movie. They watched Ramona and Beezus. I had never seen it and I thought it was really cute. The hope is that they will fall asleep during the movie, which ended at 12:45. I left then, and I would say that 80% of them were still awake!

I asked one of my little Prims if she was having a good night and she said it was the best night of her life. That makes it all worthwhile!