Look who came for a visit?!!! We were so excited to welcome my mom for a visit on her birthday weekend. It was a quick trip but we packed in a ton. We spent today at Brimfield flea market walking around, scoring a few unique finds and visiting. We saw the coast, attended various kids sports, and went out for a nice seafood dinner. We even fit in a little crafting. Thanks for a lovely visit mom, come back soon!!!
We are digging out, or better yet the sun is out and melting it all away. Early February brought winter and tons of snow. I don't mind winter if there is snow. Almost 20 inches over one weekend. We don't pay for a plow, instead we snowblow and shovel. Our long driveway can be completed in about 2 hours with the 4 of us.
Among the routine of work, school and life we got out a bit. Below are a few pictures form the last 2 months. Details below each pic.
Spring Attitash ski day! Nic was in lessons and Chris is not yet cleared to ski from his hip replacement. 1/2 day in 55 degree weather, second half of day in downpour.
Dogs loving the snow, Scout more than Lucy. :) She tolerates it.
Chris and I are both pros with snowblower. Chris even repaired it a couple of times.
Inside shenanigans.
Celebrated a birthday and the big V Day.
Bus stop. Here, kids are required to go to school in snow gear. They can go out for recess unless it's below 20.
Cold days as the snow melts away. Nic is a ham.
The start of College tours with Andrew. He successfully took the SAT. Lots of prep.
Day at the Museum of Fine Arts and surrounding city walk. Boston 2017.
Snow hikes with the dogs at Steel farm.
Wow! When I stop updating the personal blog I really do it well.
How about we catch up? October and Early November on the East Coast is my most favorite time of the year. The weather is perfect, the scenery is beautiful, the days are brighter and the bugs are pretty much nonexistent (except ticks). Nicholas had his first tick bite. We caught it before it burrowed completely and successfully removed it. So gross.
We purchased the most amazing leaf blower! It works like a dream and has so much power. It pushes the massive amounts of leaves back into the woods. No bagging is needed. This blower will even blow the acorns out of the grass like rolling marbles.
Halloween is a little different living in the woods. Not many Trick - or - Treaters are ready to brave the long walks and darkness. We decided to drive to a local subdivision so Nic could hit the doors. He made out with just enough candy - his costume this year was Captain America. Andrew and Ben dressed as teenagers. So elusive there are no photos.
Andrew is taking a photoshop class at school for an art elective. He is learning the ropes. He created this cool graphic with Nic and the Avengers.
Thankfully I did a previous post about Andrew turning 17. He is driving, prepping for the SAT and has just successfully complete 20+ hours of certification to be a ski instructor at our local ski hill. As of yesterday he is officially employed. Woohoo!
Ben is totally enjoying High School and is immersed in school work, Latin and Chinese being his favorites. I'm not sure If I ever mentioned it but he made the freshman soccer team and had an awesome undefeated season. He is now playing Futsal and practicing weekly with a competition team. If you want to reach Ben, send him a snapchat.
We are still playing tourist over the weekends when we can. We've enjoyed a couple of long days in the city. Walking the Freedom Trail, exploring the North End, Ice Skating at Boston Common Frog Pond and a visit to the Aquarium. Boston is a great city for Pokemon hunting so Nicholas does not mind walking around.
I took a quick 3 day trip to New Jersey for Stampin' Up!'s OnStage convention. I drove down myself (about 4 hours) got lost in downtown New York along the way. I enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones. I was selected to be one of the project display stampers for the event and created over 15 fun projects that highlight new products from the upcoming Occasions catalog. If interested, you can see many of those on my creative blog.
Chris and I are lucky that Andrew and Benjamin are such great sitters. We've enjoyed a couple of really fun date nights.
Thanksgiving was wonderful and intimate. I made the entire meal (2nd year in a row Chris!). Food was delicious and not to hard to prepare. Leslie came down an stayed and introduced me to the Gilmore Girls. I had never seen it before and now I am a huge fan. I love Netflix!
Chris and I did a little black Friday shopping, on Friday! No stores are open here on Thursday which is super nice. The parking lots were virtually empty. It was so weird.
The house is all decorated and we are ready for Christmas. I've been making caramels left and right. The shopping is done. Cards are mailed. We are basically enjoying a low key December. Our Elf, Elfy, has been making daily appearances. Some days he is more creative than others. Hopefully more to come if I can get my act together. Happy Holidays!
We had the great pleasure of attending the wedding of Abby and Sam Conger over labor day. CONGRATULATIONS!!! For those that aren't familiar, Abby is Chris' cousin, daughter of Renetta & Alan.
What a gorgeous wedding it was. I'll describe it as biker chic. The decor, cake, flowers, and scenery were picture perfect. I snapped a few phone photos to help us remember this special day.
The wedding took place in Jackson, NH over labor day. We decided to make a full weekend of it and packed in a trip to Storyland, a family photo shoot, golf, antiquing and a few nice meals out. What a nice way to end the summer.
Abby & Sam Conger #conger2016
Chris' family: Leslie, Megan, Renetta & Kim.
Us!
Nina w/ Leslie & Me with Holly
Reception happenings from table 2.
Nic and his killer dance moves.
Scenes from Jackson & the Eagle Mountain House in Jackson.
A Day at Storyland. Andrew was there, just not pictured.
2016 Family photoshoot.
THANK YOU Brooks family for an amazing visit. So much fun! Geoff, Ky & the kids came from Utah for a visit over spring break. We packed it in, everyday something new.
Ky ran the 120th Boston marathon. So impressive! We watched and cheered her along. There were so many people cheering it made me tear up. Many spectators along the route provided water, food, lube and basically looked out for all of the runners needs. With Chris' navigation skills we were able to see Ky 4 times along the route! We even caught up to Melissa once. When we hit the city we were blown away by how many spectators. Geoff and I tried to find Ky after the run and it was insane to navigate. 27,491 runners and 500,000 spectators. WHOA!
The night before the marathon we had a quick Sunday dinner with our family, the Brooks Family and Paul and Missy (Melissa ran the marathon as well). It was so great to catch up with everyone and it literally was the first time we've had more than 2 guests over. LOL.
120th Boston Marathon - KY is AMAZING!
I should have posted pictures daily. Instead I'll bombard and download highlights from the week here. We had such a great time. Come back soon!!!
Kennebunk - Maine
Cape Elizabeth - Maine
Cape Elizabeth - Maine
Boston Duck Tour - the kids got the drive the boat!
Red Sox game
Lobsta!
Antiques! - Pyrex bowl sets for 45$ & 60$ - Mom you got a deal!
Even though the older boys aren't shown in pictures they had a nice spring break too. Ben spent the first 1/2 of break in DC for a School trip. 80 kids took DC by storm. Ben got some visit time in toward the end of of the week. I believe he kicked Geoff's butt multiple times in FIFA.
Andrew had 3 baseball games, more driver's ed, game nights with friends and also tagged along on most of our adventures above. He's good at avoiding the camera!
The view around our house of our snow covered trees.
A regular weekend turned into a 4 day weekend, sandwiched by two snow days. The powers that be don't mess around when it snows around here. Friday's forecast predicted 6-8" of snow which triggered a school cancellation on Thursday night. Another forecast for Monday 6" triggered another snow day. It's strange to have the kids sitting home from school (before the snow even starts). As predicted, we got dumped on. They know their snow.
Snowman!
Scout digs the snow.
Before we checked the weather Chris has bought tickets to go see Masefield Perkins Fishman & Bolles (Fishman aka drummer for Phish for those not familiar) in Portsmouth, NH. We decided to brave the 1 hour drive and had a great time listening to a night of Jazz in a very intimate venue. Not the best pics but documented all the same.
Masefield Perkins Fishman & Bolles is the jazzy, bluegrass-y Vermont supergroup featuring Jamie Masefield (of The Jazz Mandolin Project), Doug Perkins (Smokin’ Grass), Jon Fishman (Phish) and Tyler Bolles (Swale).
A great thing about living here is so many nearby places with things going on. You can hit a band/event/something almost every day within an hour drive. So ... Saturday, Chris and Ben decided to hit the campaign trail and track down a few candidate rallies. Since the NH primaries are today, every candidate can be seen with little effort. I'm not sure anyone in particular won over Chris but he said it was fascinating all the same. Beau - they had tickets to see Bernie but got burned out after Clinton (lol).
NH rallies for 2016 primary
Let's SKI! Nic started ski lessons this weekend. While he has been skiing 3-4 times with us he needs a little more help to get him up and going with the rest of the family. For the next 4 Saturdays Nic has lessons at Nashoba. Isn't he the cutest little skier?
Nic ski lessons
Ben and Andrew also enjoyed the snow weekend with much needed relaxation from a serious week or two of midterms. Say screen time. Andrew also played winter ball, worked out a bit and continued with his throwing program. The weekend involvedchores & shoveling - lots of it.
I've been hunkering down working a bunch of hours lately so I have been neglecting the personal blog updates. All is well in Mallett land.
We have enjoyed a mild weather January. It feels like spring. I know this won't last but it makes daily walks with the dogs so much more pleasant.
I celebrated another year last weekend! GO 42! Andrew & Ben volunteered to watch Nic while Chris took me into the city for a spa day and a nice night at the Liberty Hotel. The Liberty is the old Boston prison converted into a luxury Hotel. We enjoyed nice food and people watching. It was a great birthday. Family and friends sent nice gifts and birthday wishes. It feels great to be remembered. THANK YOU!
The dogs are well. Puppy training is helping keep Scout in line. Nicholas loves him so much that sometimes his hugs are little to hard and invoke a tiny growl from Scout. Lucy is enjoying feeling young again and I am constantly picking up stuffed animal guts as these two dogs can really tear them apart.
Ben and Andrew are great but, as you know, not too willing for photos. Andrew is enjoying ski team and is improving daily. The snow here is different from Utah and he has a bit of a learning curve. Andrew made the local paper the other day. Benefit of living in a small town.
Ben and team won a soccer tournament. Five games spread out over a Saturday their team won 4 of 5 games and Ben had a 4 game shut out with NO goals scored! He played super well and had a great time!
Chris spent a large chunk of time finishing his chapter 4 & 5 of dissertation. These are out for review right now and hopefully with minor edits he'll graduate in April!!!
Morning dog walk.
Big car in the city. Parking like PRO!
Hi everyone! I made a few simple changes to my website recently. Most obvious is creating a personal blog and moving personal posts to this blog. My site has a couple of different audiences. While I know BOTH audiences are totally interested in my personal posts I thought separating the two made sense as I try to grow my craft blog. I have been hesitant to post too much crafty and too much personal and now I don't have to be so selective. Now I may even post what I ate for lunch. Kidding - I'll try to keep it real. So far I have moved personal posts from Sept 2014 forward. I will likely continue to move posts in the coming weeks.
As always, thanks for stopping by, reading, commenting and keeping up with us on our life's adventures. Hugs.
Folding socks. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! psych.
Summer is ending and it's hard to believe it is the last day of August. This past week was full and we enjoyed our last bits of summer. We took a day trip to Mattapoisett to pick up Ben (Ben was invited to stay a few days with a friend). Nic and I really enjoyed our visit. We spent a few hours on the beach and toured around the amazing town with new friends. So peaceful and a summer highlight.
While Ben was away I headed up to Nashua, New Hampshire for an afternoon with Andrew and Nic for some back to school shopping. It was a quick trip (Nashua is about 40 minutes away). Nashua has a ton of the big name shopping stores (and a Costco) with the benefit of NH tax free shopping.
We love playing tourists. Saturday we headed to the city to continue sight-seeing and walk a bit more of the Freedom trail. This trip took us to Faneuil Hall and the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony in 1776. We toured the Museum and brushed up on Revolutionary War facts. We even visited the "Historic" 1980 Beacon Hill Cheers Bar location and ate some grub at a Cheers replica.
More stops along the Freedom trail: Faneuil Hall and the Old State House and Cheers on Beacon hill.
We snuck in a play set just before the end of Summer. Nic is beyond happy. He loves his new clubhouse and slide. The weather has been perfect here for the last week and it's made being outdoors really enjoyable. The humidity is giving us a break.
Our new play set - before and after
The playhouse is huge but luckily we have the space. This would have never fit in our Sandy backyard. It makes our yard feel much more homey. The playhouse has an area for a sandbox. I plan to add sand underneath the play house one bag at the time of the next while. We'll see how that goes ...
Other highlights from last week; kindergarten orientation - Nic is beyond excited!!!, a visit from Leslie, visit from Abby and Sam, yard work—the hillside is free of weeds, bike rides, crafting, a new countertop area for my craft space, and lastly a bunch of work. Yeah for work!
Can I also just note how much I LOVE full weeks? LOVE. THEM.
We are used to celebrating July 24th or Pioneers Day in Utah. In our small town of Boxborough they celebrate Fifer's Day. The town puts together a parade, fair with booths and fair type things. We were invited to sit along the parade route with a few new friends from kindergarten. Nicholas met 5 new kids and collected parade candy. He declared "this is the best day!".
A fifer is a non-combatant military occupation of a foot soldier who originally played the fife during combat. The practice was instituted during the period of Early Modern warfare to sound signals during changes in formation, such as the line, and were also members of the regiment's military band during marches.
Some history for you about our town and why it celebrates Fifer's ... taken from Wikipedia:
Boxborough is known for its annual Fifer's Day celebration. The day commemorates Luther Blanchard, the fifer who marched the local minuteman company to the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775. At the North Bridge, minutemen companies from various towns of the Commonwealth successfully engaged the British, forcing the redcoats to retreat. During this action Blanchard was wounded slightly, one of the first battle casualties of the Revolutionary War. He survived to fight the British again a few short weeks later at the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he was again wounded. But in September of the same year, he died, ostensibly of the wounds he received in these battles. He is buried at the Old Burial Ground in Littleton, Massachusetts.[17]
Andrew had a baseball game near the coast later in the day so we decided to head down a bit early and check out Marblehead. We stopped by Devereaux Beach, ate some yummy seafood and watched Andrew pitch in the game.
We are slowly acclimating to life in Massachusetts. We miss Utah and all of our family and friends. We feel your love and thank you for your frequent contact.
All of the kids have started their new schools. Nicholas is really enjoying his new preschool and all the the new friends he has immediately made. Andrew and Ben had a great first day and came home is good spirits ready to take on new academic challenges.
We experienced our first Nor'Easter which resulted in two days of school closure due to weather and road conditions. The NEU campus was also closed as well as a travel ban instated for all motor vehicles. Chris was able to work from home and the boys enjoyed two more days of "vacation".
We have looked at and pretty much eliminated all the active home listings in both Acton and Boxborough. It's not that we are picky but we need a few more to choose from. I think I am almost over the sticker shock but still feel we should LOVE the house we will eventually purchase and not settle. While we are completely comfortable in our apartment, we miss our belongings and personal spaces. Lucy misses her yard. We are motivated to find a home!
The boys resume their second day of school tomorrow!
Random scenic shots from around Acton and Boxborough.
Apartment living.
The "Blizzard of 2015"
Impromptu road trip over Labor Day to California. Beach day, Angels game, Disneyland and various roadside attractions. It was nice to get away and spend some quality time with the family.
Dana point
dana point
Angels game
Let's do this Disney thing!
Tomorrowland
Pooh and Nic
Bottle tree ranch
