Monday, August 6, 2012

Water

 Ira has been loving water lately. 

 Before the Ellsworth Reunion he wanted to wear clothes in the rain.

 Now he just wants to strip down to the essentials.

We had fun with the Applebees when they came for a few days after the reunion.  Their last day, Ant got off work so we could go into New York with them.  It didn't work out for us though, mostly due to sleep deprivation, so we stayed to get an hour or two more of rest, then realized that it was probably our last chance to make it to Rhode Island while we're living here.  It's the last of the New England states on our list, so we planned a spontaneous trip to the Ocean State and hopped in the car. 


 Ira was unenthusiastic to be at the beach at first.  He played in the sand for almost 2 hours, before he even considered playing in the water.  The lady next to us noticed our encouraging Ira to get into the water, and gave us a friendly lecture about not changing children's personalities.  And then she looked at Ira, and in the best New England accent I've ever heard said, "ChAHrish who you ah sweet haht."  :)  

At first I thought this is as wet as I was going to get with a grumpy baby strapped on.



But then he fell asleep.  Woohoo!  The water felt great!  The waves were fun, and it wasn't too crowded...

and with time, even Ira decided to join us. 

 but not without his hat.


 He had so much fun, he didn't ever want to leave.



 Eliot of course, was having fun chilling on the beach.



Good thing we brought Ira's swim suit so he had something dry to wear home.

In other news, we started packing last night.  We load up the truck in three days, which suddenly feels a little too close.  We'll take the drive to Michigan slowly, over three days, with a long weekend in Lancaster visiting friends and family.

Today, Anthony started his new job remotely and is enjoying it so far.  

Ira has been acting more his age lately.  He's kind of like a preschool Jeckll and Hyde: super cute, loving and funny one day, and then extra aggressive and defiant the next.

Eliot is grabbing things left and right, though I don't think he's quite realized that he has thumbs, which is funny since they seem like especially large thumbs to me.  He's started growling lately, not when he's grumpy.  I think it must be all of Ira's dinosaur growling that he's picking up on.  It's pretty cute. 

Nothing much is new with me, except for starting an online class through coursera.  It's Listening to World Music, which is pretty awesome.  Thought I'd ease in with something not too demanding with all the craziness this summer.  

Anyway, life is good and busy.  Wish us luck with the move!

2012 Ellsworth Reunion - Ludlow, VT

Tah Dah!...again.  
Yes, just a couple of weeks after the Arave reunion we were blessed with more reuniting.
Enter: The Ellsworth Family Reunion


Dad:  This makes me think of Vermeer, if he were a photographer... into images of older men, rather than young women. 

Activities included: 

Hot Pinata
The fact that Eamon's Birthday Pinata is a home-made Earth will contribute to Ira's confusion since I made that Earth-day Cake.  He always wants to sing the "Happy Earthday" song.  


Lighting bug making
(I stole this idea from the Arave reunion, only I was too lazy to make holes for the legs or find sticky googly eyes.  Th kids were really creative.  I think among the bugs, there was a lightning lobster, and "lightning thug."

Hat Wearing

Corn Hole

  
Yes, after a very serious and competitive Corn-hole Competition, Anthony became Champion.  We've already framed the duct tape belt of honor and hung it over our mantel (as if we had one.)  He won everyone's forgiveness for missing the past two reunions, and has now been accepted into the clan. :)

Swimming at the Buttermilk Falls

I wish I had some good pictures of us jumping of the mini-cliff.  I was impressed with the gutsiness of some of the younger nieces and nephews.  


The Loop


Chilling in Ludlow, VT

Visiting the Black River Acadamy Museum.  It was right across the street from us, and was the childhood school of Calvin Coolidge.


Duct tape art


 Improvised rain storm slip and slide

 Hiking...or at least strolling




 Ben and Jerry's Factory
Mmmm...I can still taste the Chocolate Therapy free sample


Sharon, VT-birthplace of Joseph Smith.  
I'm also embarrassed I didn't take any pictures there.

We also had fun blueberry picking, visiting the Vermont Country Store, and that cute cheese factory whose name I can't remember.

Ira loved playing dinosaurs and rough housing with all his cousins.

I miss everyone already.  I think we need to have another reunion soon. 
 How about in a couple of months? :)  







Sunday, August 5, 2012

Arave Family Reunion

Wow!  So much has happened since our last post.  We've been too busy to write about it all I guess.  But things aren't about to slow down any time soon.
The Arave Reunion was excellent.  
But it all started out (at least for our branch of the family) with a two hour delayed flight, and a missed connecting flight, resulting in a 20 hour layover.  This is how we felt about it:
 Ira: Zombie mode at 11:00 pm  

 Eliot: Fairly neutral.  He had the benefit of little to no biological clock to tell him when to sleep.

 Ant: A little suicidal...if you count death by cell phone. 

 Me: Building up some assertiveness to whip out at the Delta people. 
But, the blessing from it all was that we were in the Detroit Airport, about 20 minutes away from our old apartment.  Ant posted a call for help on FB and some of our awesome friends came to pick us up even though it was super late and they had just gotten back from Nauvoo!  The next morning we got to the ward pancake 4th of July breakfast and saw some of our friends we're really excited to live by again soon. 



Enter: The Arave Family Reuinion (Anthony's Mom's side for those you don't know)

 Tah Dah!  What a beautiful family!  We were (almost) all smiling in this photo despite Ira wailing, "I want the poopoo (purple) car!"  

 Goodmorning.


 Ira had bloody blisters from playing with these trucks non-stop.







 What a cute Grandma..I mean Grandpa in a Grandma hat. 






Activities included:

 crazy rope swinging.

Volleyball

 Canoeing

Rope Coursing
The missionaries at the Heber Valley Girl's camp were quoted as saying, "Sheesh, the way these kids act, you'd think they have a ropes course in their back yard!"

 
Sunset viewing

Awesome Arave themed game playing

Eliot holding and so, so much more.

What a blessing it is to be in a family with people we enjoy being around so much.  Sorry for the abrupt ending, but we have about 4 more posts to get to!  

To be continued...