Snapshots from Vacation

There are a few more photos here.

Longest Night

I hope that a solstice eve bonfire will become an annual tradition for my family.

Back to Real Life

My Las Vegas vacation was wonderful! Five days was just about perfect! I didn't make it out to see the Hoover Dam bypass and I didn't get to visit with friends as much as I would have liked, but I think I would have been dreadfully homesick for my family if I stayed longer. I hope that we'll be able to travel together as a family in a few years.

I'm afraid to even start a to-do list, as I'm sure it will overwhelm me. I'll try to sneak in a few computer minutes here and there to share some of the photos from my trip.

Happiness Is...

...my feet on sandstone
...a quilt shop hop
...being humbled by Utah's geology
...snow at Red Rock
...desert rain
...book club
...gelato at the Bellagio
...half-full flights
...solving a tricky sudoku
...coming home to the smell of balsam fir, sleeping babies and a clean house

Beautiful Blue

It's 65° F today! A mix of rain, sun, wind and clouds. I think the kids are getting sick.

Mild Winter?

We observed this fuzzy woolly bear caterpillar today at Fort Stark in Newcastle, New Hampshire. According to the old wives' tale, the width of the brown mid-section of this caterpillar indicates the severity of the winter to come. The wider the brown, the milder the winter. This is the caterpillar stage of the Isabella tiger moth, Pyrrharctia isabella. It will hibernate as a caterpillar over the winter and then spin a cocoon in the spring.

The weather today was certainly mild; about 10 degrees above normal. We enjoyed being outside in the sunshine on the beautiful seacoast. In addition the the woolly bear, we found a neat a skeleton (probably a bird), broke open milkweed pods to watch the seeds fly, took a lot of pictures and wrote our names in the sand.

Autumn Days are Fleeting

Autumn Afternoon

Leaf Peeping

This afternoon, I took the little ones on a leaf peeping excursion across Route 101 to Keene, New Hampshire. On the way there, we stopped at Miller State Park and drove up the auto road to the summit of Pack Monadnock. The kids were absolutely thrilled!

They climbed the fire tower three times and then wandered around on the summit looking for trail blazes. We found the yellow triangles of the Wapack Trail, but then the red circles looked more intriguing, so we followed those instead. We made a short stop at the Raptor Migration Observatory and saw a turkey vulture from a distance. We were all happy to be in the mountains and are looking forward to going back.

Sweet September

Sand and Sun

"In summer, the song sings itself." ~ William Carlos Williams

Evening at the Shore

Places to Go

It's rare that a day passes without me finding a new and interesting place to take the kids in Manchester-Nashua-Lowell area. Here are a few places I'd like to check out (or visit again):

• Seacoast Science Center, Rye
  
• Massabesic Audubon Center, Auburn
• Currier Museum of Art, Manchester
  
• Salisbury Beach
• Stone Zoo, Stoneham
  
• Rye Harbor State Park, Rye
  
• Two Bridge Park, Merrimack
• White Park, Concord (New Hampshire)
  
• Beaver Brook, Hollis
• Silver Lake State Park, Hollis
• New Hampshire Farm Museum, Milton
  
• Butterfly Place, Westford
• Fort Stark, New Castle
  
• Children's Museum of New Hampshire, Dover
• Bear Brook State Park, Allenstown
• Charmingfare Farm, Candia
  
• Parlee Farms, Tyngsborough
• Mine Falls Park, Nashua
• Lowell National Historical Park
  
• McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, Concord (New Hampshire)
• Pawtuckaway State Park, Nottingham
  
• Horse Hill Nature Preserve, Merrimack
• Apple Hill Farm, Concord (New Hampshire)
• Willard Brook State Forest, Townsend
• Great Brook Farm, Carlisle
• Fruitlands Museum, Harvard

There are dozens more places that I'll add to my list as the little ones get older. Our area of New England is rich in history and I am looking forward to when they are old enough to appreciate it.

P is for...

Our Summer Alphabet

A - adventures
B - bicycle bells
C - cucumbers
D - daydreaming
E - eating fresh veggies
F - freckles
G - gardening
H - humidity
I - ice cream (homemade!)
J - July Fourth fireworks
K - keeping the garden as organic as possible
L - lightning bugs
M - morning glories
N - night owls
O - orange daylilies
P - peeping frogs
Q - quilting
R - rain, rain go away!
S - strawberries
T - turkeys and chicks in our yard
U - umbrellas and rainboots
V - vacation in Maine
W - water fun in the sprinkler
X - extra long days
Y - yard work
Z - zinnias

On the Road Again Music Mix

With a little help from all of my children, I put together this mix CD for an upcoming road trip:

• Barracuda -- Heart
• Give It Away -- Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Crocodile Rock -- Elton John
• Meet Virginia -- Train
• Cherry Bomb -- John Cougar Mellencamp
• Air Stream Driver -- Gomez
• No Phone -- CAKE
• New York City -- Peter Malick featuring Norah Jones
• No Rain -- Blind Melon
• Shiny Happy People -- R.E.M.
• Should I Stay or Should I Go -- The Clash
• Crazy ABCs -- Barenaked Ladies
• Personal Jesus -- Depeche Mode
• Ants Marching -- Dave Matthews Band
• All of My Love -- Led Zeppelin
  
• Centerfold -- J. Geils Band

There are a few titles here that aren't completely age appropriate, but thankfully my little ones aren't old enough to figure out the meaning of all the lyrics. The innuendo is lost on them! I love how they choose music based on the rhythm and whether or not they can groove to it.

Hey There, Wildflower

After many, many days of rain, my garden has been taken over by weeds. I'm hoping to take advantage of the drier weather to whip it in to shape. And while I weed, the kids will be shaking their sillies out in the sunshine. May all your weeds be wildflowers!

In the Forest

Yesterday, I took the little ones on a short hike. It was a gorgeous day to reintroduce them to hiking. We've moved into a new phase of hiking, with no infant carriers in use and the start of a nature journal. During our half-mile hike, I reminded the kids to use all of their senses to better experience the beauty around them.

We heard:

• a small woodpecker tapping on a tree
• a pileated woodpecker calling and tapping loudly
• the wind blowing through the leaves

We saw:

• two chipmunks
• tent caterpillars
• a delicate pink lady slipper
  

This Is Green

Sparkle

Timeline

The past three weeks have been full of upheaval and change for us. Here is a quick re-cap of what's been happening:

• January 8: (Thursday) Mr. Q is in New Hampshire, waiting to close on the house. Our teenager is preparing for her first semester exams of high school.
• January 9: We officially become homeowners!
• January 10: Mr. Q returns home.
• January 11: Our family pet, Bear, passes away unexpectedly. We have a going away party and birthday celebration for our youngest daughter at Chuck E. Cheese in Las Vegas.
• January 13: (Tuesday) The professional packers arrive to start boxing up everything. They inexplicably start with the toyroom. We have a small family birthday party with ice cream cake and sparklers. It was our last dinner and last night in our home.
• January 14: The packers return to finish up the house. We drag all of our suitcases and belongings to a Residence Inn.
• January 15: We say good-bye to our best friends in Las Vegas and the moving truck arrives. I spend most of the day cleaning.
• January 16: We finish cleaning the house. Our teenager finishes her final exams and says good-bye to her first high school. Mr. Q's co-workers have a good-bye luncheon for him at Claim Jumper. We eat one last meal at Del Taco and Chipotle (we let the kids choose). We take one last drive on The Strip, stopping at the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign (for the first and only time).
• January 17: We fly from Las Vegas to Boston and then drive to our new home in New Hampshire. On the way, we stop for dinner, get muffins at Hannaford and clean up a potty accident. I am pleasantly surprised by all of the creature comforts Mr. Q and my in-laws have arranged for us at the house. Right around midnight, everyone is settled in and the first snowflakes start falling.
• January 18: (Sunday) Mr. Q spends over six hours shoveling the foot of snow that fell overnight and early Sunday, plus the snow that was already in the driveway when we arrived. I help out a little. Sears cancels the delivery of our new refrigerator due to the storm. I practice driving in the snow to pick up a few groceries; we use the back deck as a freezer and the garage as a refrigerator. We have our furnace serviced, but the technician actually makes the problem worse.
• January 19: My dear friend Amy and her boys come to visit. She brings us lunch and a dorm-size fridge to borrow.
• January 20: Barrack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. We listen on NPR. Later that day, our cable modem, telephone and television are connected. I check my email for the first time in days.
• January 21: Our new refrigerator arrives. We have the carpets steam cleaned. We spend $450 at the grocery store filling the new fridge and the pantry cupboard. After just a few nights of sleeping alone, our five year old is lonely and decides she does want to share a room with her younger sister. The baby insists on having his own room. We decide that I will be able to have my sewing room upstairs instead of in the basement.
• January 22: (Thursday) Mr. Q goes to work for the first time since we moved. I take my teenager to Home Depot to look at paint colors.
• January 23: Our stuff arrives!! My in-laws drive up to help with the kids while we set up the kitchen and some of the living room.
• January 24: We decide to make a "den" in the basement with a shared computer and space for our homeschooling supplies. I donate my computer to the room, which means I will not have it as a distraction in my sewing room. (I have mixed feelings about this).
• January 26: Mr. Q goes to work. Our vehicles arrive. I drive into Boston to pick up Mr. Q after he returns the rental vehicle. I make it to Logan without a map and with no stress.
• January 27: (Tuesday) I register my teenager at her new school and we get library cards.
• January 28: Another snow storm keeps Mr. Q at home. The furnance is finally repaired.
• January 29: The washing machine is finally repaired by Sears (after they miss two appointments). The kitchen, family room, bathrooms, master bedroom, baby's bedroom, girls' bedroom, den, playroom and dining room are almost fully unpacked. Nothing is decorated yet, but we have years to work on that. We also have some time to go through the totes of "storage" items we've accumulated over the years. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get into a regular routine starting next week!

What I'll Miss

Today was our last full day in Las Vegas, so I decided to make a list of some of my favorite things about this area. I will miss:

• hiking at Red Rock and in the Spring Mountains
• my mama friends from book club, hiking and camping
• the smell of desert rain
• that Las Vegans take school zones seriously
• the state's homeschooling law is simple and straight forward
• the dry heat (well, the days that are under 100° F anyway)
• having true wilderness an hour away
• the convenience: practically everything we could ever need is within 30 minutes or less
• that large families are fairly common
• the great parks and playgrounds
• the proximity to Utah's National Parks

So Long, Cozy Peak

This is the last blog post that I'll write from the office of my current home. Most of my fabric is in boxes, my printer is packed away and my shelves are all dismantled. There's still a fair amount to do throughout the house before the moving truck comes tomorrow. Apparently, I have so much fabric that the movers were overwhelmed and decided to leave some of it to pack today. Or, it could be attributed to the fact that it was hiding on top of the closet. I never realized just how many places I have squirreled away my precious treasures!

I have to admit that I am not going to miss the constant traffic noise at this house, but as a family, we'll miss the convenience of living across the street from a grocery store. The little ones will miss the communal play field and the low-traffic neighborhood streets for their bikes and scooters. I'll also miss being 40 minutes from Red Rock Canyon, but my heart is too heavy to think about hiking at the moment.

The kids are a bit confused about everything, but they are having a great time drawing on boxes. Thank goodness I kept out a big container of crayons! My teenager is trying to study for and take semester finals during all of this upheaval. We have a few busy days ahead, but I do hope to blog again from the hotel. If I don't get a chance, I'll be back sometime next week from our new home!

Our Friend Bear

This morning, our dear friend Bear passed away. He had gone to the vet to get his health certificate for traveling. The stress must have been too much for him, because shortly after he returned home, he became distressed and then stopped moving. He was gone by the time Mr. Q and my oldest got him back to the vet's office, apparently of a heart attack. We are saddened, but slightly comforted knowing that he died here at home and not on a plane all cold and alone.

In August of 1998, my oldest and I found Bear tangled in the blackberry bushes behind my parents' house in Maine. He was a scrawny feral kitten with a tummy full of worms and the worst case of ear mites our vet had ever seen. He was a low maintenance cat, preferring to sleep the day away and only seek attention when it fit his needs. He always enjoyed sleeping under our bed; under the coffee table was a favorite spot, as well. He was quite timid, and even as a kitten, he didn't want to go outside like our other cat, Ariel. He never had a knack for jumping, either.

Bear moved with us from Maine to New Hampshire, to Massachusetts and then to Nevada, growing chubbier every year. He never liked the car, but all told, he moved nine different times (if you count his first trip as a terrified kitten) and always managed to calm down after the car trips. Sadly, it was not meant to be this time.

Good bye, Bear. I hope you are safely across the rainbow bridge!

We're Officially Homeowners!

Mr. Q signed all of the paperwork this morning and it has been filed with the Registry of Deeds. We are now officially homeowners! Mr. Q took this photo back in late November before the ice storm and before the snow. I'm anxious to see it.

Torn

In less than two weeks, we'll be sleeping in our new home in New Hampshire. I'm torn about whether I should be full of joy or mired in sadness. For the most part, my brain can't slow down enough to focus on saying good-bye, because it's too busy processing to-do lists and strategizing ways to get six people through the next month until we're unpacked.

Part of me is in denial about leaving the city we've called home for almost four years. It's been a grand adventure, but I feel like we haven't experienced the Southwest enough yet! I still have a long list of hikes that I want to tackle and so many places I'd like to see. I wanted to take my two youngest to the Pacific Ocean, I wanted to go to Mexico and I wanted to go to Utah again. I think that no matter how long I lived in a place, I would always have a list of things that were left undone; it's just part of my nature to want to experience things to the fullest. There's an ache in my heart for the friends that we will miss.

On the other hand, I am looking forward to returning to our roots in New England. I'm feeling overwhelmed by the house purchase and finances, but there are a lot of things I miss about the Northeast. I'm sure that we have many exciting adventures awaiting us, our families are anxious for us to return and I want my grandparents to meet my little ones. I can't wait to fall back into the rhythm of the seasons, especially having a real autumn, which I have missed terribly. I know that the coming years are going to be full of wonder as we introduce our little ones to gardening, deciduous forests and the Atlantic. My heart is bursting with the thought of being an hour from my ocean!

Las Vegas has been good to us and that makes it difficult for me to be completely at peace with how this new chapter of our life is unfolding. Our new home is big enough for our Southwest friends to come visit and hopefully we will be able to visit here, as well.

In With the New...