Little Rays of Light...

Yeah right!

So Scotty and I just got assignments in our church. We teach the Sunbeams; yep, those little 4 and 5 year olds. There are only four of them (5 if you include my dear husband), and a much bigger handful than I could have anticipated. Sunday was our first day with them and they are too funny. Little Henry got them all started on this goofy thing where if they want to say something and think they aren't interrupting they say, "I have a question..." It got me every time. They never actually had a question!

"I have a question.... I have Thomas the Train Set."

"I have a question.... I don't have Thomas the Train Set, but my friend does."

"I have a question... MISSILES!!!!"

As for the "missiles" comment, that was when Paul decided to grab every single crayon in the room and stand 4 inches from my face and through his 90mph fast ball at me - directly at my face! OUCH!!! Oh yeah, he did that like 3 times too. At least I caught on for a little Duck And Cover time 2 and 3.

The lesson was on families - none of the kids could think of what their parents do to show love (gives you an idea about our kids, huh). But Marcus pointed out Baby Jesus and the fact that he has a piano.

Marcus also told us some inside information about his family, Esme tried to kiss my on the lips about 1000 times and when that didn't work preceded to make me talk to her through a tube covered in her saliva. Paul tried to take off his clothes in class. Scott was fine with it: "Just don't take your pants off kid." And Henry just loves to talk.

The only thing that got them all on the same page was when we were explorers with "binoculars" (hands over our eyes) saying "Is that Paul? Is that Henry? Is that Marcus? Is that Cat?" That took up the time until Sharing/Singing Time started. They were pretty good after that. Fixer Uper Scotter kept disappearing to fix the microphone, or meet the Bishop, but they were pretty well occupied so I'll keep my SOS for another day.

Well, we are excited and very nervous (me mainly) for our continued Sundays with the crew.

Sister Face

We got back late from New York and it was hard for me to get up and be at work by 7am. I only had to work until 11, so Babes and I pretty much still had all day together. I didn't have to work a lot while Laura was here, so we got to have a lot of fun. From Maine to first row seats at Fenway, Laura and I had adventure after adventure.

Maine was a blast, we went out searching for some great Lighthouses, and ended up finding the cutest town - York, Maine. We came home and Scott had gotten "Newsies" for us to all watch together. It was one great Sing-A-Long!

I got to show Laura all over Boston! We had lunch right on the water, saw Faneuil Hall, visited Scott, and much more. It was neat to see that under every crack in the road is cobble stone. This city was literally built up from the old cobblestone roads. Its so cool!!

On Wednesday Laura and I decided to go to Fenway. They save a few hundred tickets to sell the day of the game. We waited in line for about an hour and a half so we could be at the front when the booths opened at 5.

Right after we bought the tickets we had to go in. No leaving once you've entered so that brought us to the game over two hours early. It was great though. We marched right up to the front rows of the stadium and watched some batting practice.

So people start filling into the stadium all around us, just not in our seats. We are sitting first row, halfway between third and home. Incredible seats that HAVE to be owned by season ticket holders and here we are sitting in them. We were so close, getting hurt was actually a possibility.

We are so close that we could (and did) have a conversation with Dan Uggla (no worries, he's on my fantasy team), heckle the Sox, and chant for Cantu as he actually hears me yell Laura's phrase "I CANTU, can you?!!" NICE!

While good things like that can't last forever, they can last 2 innings! After that we were nicely kicked out by the actual ticket owners. Its ok, we headed out to Yawkey way and got some food.

And by food I mean Babes got the biggest Hot Dog ever! and I got a mini!

The game was great, even from our other, normal people seats, and even though the Sox won. But we had fun cheering for the Marlins all the way. Laura was happy though that her Sox fantasy boys were doing great.

Babes' last day we spent at Walden Pond in Concord. What a blast we had!

We got to hang out in Thoreau's house for a little and use some of his things (none of which were original unfortunately). Babes decided to write a letter:

I decided to take a nap:

And cook some food:
And Babes cleaned up after us:
It was a beautiful day at the pond, which is really a lake, and we ended up having such a fun week together. I miss her already!

It's Up to You, New York, New York!

We here come Big Apple, and here we come Laura-Babes and Henry... more family! Scott and I took off for another road trip. Back home (some-what) for the both of us (some-what). We went through Long Island to pick up Babes from the airport and then drove to New Jersey to stay with our friends the Coombers. Oh the traffic, but we made it and had a great night sleep.

We woke up and got to see Kathy and Don, who were the dearest ever. Their son is getting married in 5 days and they still let us stay with them. How dear! Heart breakingly!

We took off for the train station - Ho Ho Kus - and went to Penn Station.

Then we took a taxi to Serendipity and meet up with Henry. After 2 frozen hot chocolates and a Can't Say No Sundae (peanut butter, banana, ice-cream delicious) we took off for Yankee Stadium (on a subway not nearly as clean as Boston's). Thank goodness we had Babes who knew those Subways like she lived there :)

The Stadium is HUGE!! Yeah, that's four tieres!

We got there super early so we could look around at the enormity of the place. It was raining a bit, but our seats were under an overhang so we got to stay nice and dry. It was a great game, for me, the sole Mets fan. We had a lot of fun!

After the game we got back on the Subway and enjoyed the entertainment of a couple of drunks. These two fans walked up the subway totally drunk and got into a conversation with some business men about who would win in a fight: a man or a German Shepard. It was hilarious!

We then walked around the city for a little and decided to hit up a comedy club with a piano bar that Jessie had told us about.

The Comedy was alright, but the piano bar was really cool. There were two guys each playing their own piano, but accompanying each other. They played really fun songs, classic rock and Babes and I danced our hearts out. After that it was back to Penn Station, the back to Ridgewood, NJ.

The next day we went to Times Square early in hopes of buying some cheap musical tickets. We had our hearts set of Mama Mia, and we got them! After we got the tickets we went and visited our Grandparents Harry and Judy. Judy was at work, but we got to chat with Harry for a bit, and Scott got to fix his printer. Harry loves his crossword puzzles, and it was getting annoying not being able to print them out and finish them; Scott now holds a special place in Harry's heart.

We headed from Harry's straight to the Musical. It was so much fun. I loved it, though the movie still might be better (its just because you can do more with a movie). We had a blast, but had to start back home right after.

On our way back to the car, we saw a street closed off for a bunch of stands in honor of Puerto Rican day. We walked around, got some delicious smoothies, ate some corn, and Laura got her meat... yummmm.

It was awesome being able to spend the weekend with Henry. We were sad to leave him, but hopeful he'll come up and visit us now.

Go New York!!

I Just Couldn't Do It

I bought the hat, I bought the shirt, I bought the tickets. I went on the tour, I went to the game. I ate a hotdog. I couldn't do it.
I can't cheer for them, I can't cheer for the Sox. I thought I would be able to. "Root, Root, Root for the Hometeam" we are told. But we also know that Home Is Where the Heart Is and while I love the city of Boston, the Sox can never have my heart. My heart is in Shea, my heart is in the Coliseum, my heart can even be in 27 other places, but it can't ever be in Fenway. I tried, and I failed. And it confused everyone around me.
Here I am, wearing my wonderful Sox batting helmet ($1 at GoodWill) cheering for Nick Swisher's amazing catch. On my feet for back-to-back Damon and Posada homeruns, cheering for the ump for a great call, less than one pitch later yelling at him for a horrible one. No one knew what to do with me. I got funny looks, but no mean comments, I was one of them in looks, but not in heart... never in heart.
Yes, there were great moments of fun (this is baseball we are talking about). Here are the top (and only) 3 reasons to be a Red Sox fan:
1 - Neil Diamond
2 - a whole stadium chanting A-Roid
3 - Papelbon.... man oh man was that cool!
So Boston is just crying out for some better pitching. The Yankees have nearly caught up and they need something. Tito walks up to the mound and all of the sudden... Boom-Boom, Boom-Boom, Boom-Boom. The whole stadium is on their feet freaking out and this incredible killer music is playing. Its like Gallic with the most incredible base. All of the sudden Papel runs out onto the field from the bull pin and everyone is singing this absolutly crazy stuff - "I'm Shipping Up to Boston oh, wey, oh". I was pumped up and I'm not even a Sox fan. But that song, that moment, that was baseball and I loved it!

More Family!!!

Kristina, Kevin, and our favorite Andrew came up for a visit this week. It was so much fun to have family around again. Kristina blogged all about their visit... you can check it out here:

SmithKirks

Check out the June dates (around the 8th).

But thankfully Kristina is so great at taking pictures, I've stolen a few from her site to post here. A photo-montage of our events.

We took a tour of the Red Sox stadium. It was neat to see the stadium so empty!

Scotty got to meet up with Andrew for some lunch!

Andrew just thinks I'm so funny!

Andrew got to hang out a lot in our car. It' crazy how messy a baby can be. My heart goes out to Kristina and Kev (and Mikey and Jess too!)

Kevin introduced us to a great Mexican resutant in Cambridge, super cheap and super fun!

It was usually easiest if Kevin was driving, he usually knew where he was going. That let me hang out with Andrew in the back. I'm a pretty funny friend of his.
We treked up to Walden Pond in Concord and Andrew had a fun time swimming aorund and filling his diaper up wtih as much water as he could.
Again, having family around is simply the best!