Day Hike to Crow Hill Ledges

What beautiful weather for hiking this past weekend! Love this fall weather! We headed up to Crow Hill Ledges in Princeton - part of Leominster State Forest. It was a great hike - we actually intended to do the Redemption Rock Trail but after several attempts to find the trailhead, we settled on the Crow Hill Ledges trailhead instead. What a nice spot! The ledges were really cool and the kids enjoyed climbing around them. We saw several people scaling the actual ledges with their rock climbing gear - pretty neat! We think Uncle Phil likes to climb this spot, as we recall. We much prefer to be soundly on the ground, on our feet rather than suspended in air by ropes!!! Sophia did great on her own and only had to be carried a couple of times on the really steep parts. It is great that she can hold her own now so that we can get back to doing some fun hikes as a family. She was not a big fan of the carrier backpack, unlike Evan who loved to hike in the backpack as a baby/toddler, so we have been very limited the last 3 or 4 years as to the hikes we can do together. Hope to get out more often now! Here are some pics....

New Big Girl Bike!

Sophia got an early Christmas present so she can enjoy these beautiful fall days riding bikes with all the kids. Trike was just too small. She's doing great - been down the end of the street a couple times already and has the hang of braking and everything. And her Cinderella doll is enjoying the rides too - this new bike came complete with a basket that she can strap her dolls into. It's quite the ride! Yay Sophia! Evan has a new ride too - he bought his bike at the church yard sale a few weeks ago with money he saved from his lemonade stand. (and a few extra $$ from Mom and Dad) Not a scratch on it - it was less than a year old and looks brand new. Love these fall days for riding bikes!

1st Soccer Game!

Here are a few pics of Ev's first soccer game this morning. Jeff is head coach again and the name of their team is "Val's Restaurant". They have a good little team - a few of Evan's friends from school are on the team, including Shannon. He had a blast and played really well! Ev has his Pats shirt on because the league was short 2 shirts for their team - hopefully he will have a team jersey on next week!!

Miss Sophia's First Day of Preschool!

Little Miss Sophia started pre-school this morning! She was very excited to go off and wanted pictures on the front step "just like Evan did." Very cute. Today was just an orientation day so I got to stay with her. She was a little shy, a little clingy, but did go off for a bit on her own to play with the playdough and legos. And they have a fantastic playground which she loved. There are 21 kids in her class....lots of little girls and only 7 boys. I know she will make lots of friends and have so much fun this year!

Lemonade Stands; Pool Parties

Back-tracking a bit to the end of last week prior to the first day of school - here are a couple of pics of some end-of-summer fun!! Ev and his buddy Tyler had a successful lemonade stand on Lowell Ave. They split the proceeds - each banking about $5.50 which isn't bad for a dead-end street, selling lemonade at .50 a glass!!! Needless to say, the few customers they had were quite generous with tips!! Then on Saturday we headed to the Carpenters' for a super-fun pool party - We got to see Eloise and Dawsey Persson too - they are so big now and such cute and happy babies! The food was amazing - kudos to John, I had 3 helpings!! Ev and Sophia had a blast playing with the Carpenter twins - they have become great buds this summer. These pics make me laugh...as you can see, dressing up has become a common theme amongst the kids lately - Sophia is constantly in some sort of princess costume and even Ev and the twins were happy to join her in costume. There's also a pic of the kids swimming in their clothes - we allowed them to jump in fully clothed and they thought it was the best thing ever!! Sad to see summer coming to an end - we had so much fun. On to school and a bit more structure. Only 179 more days until summer vacation again!!! :)

Our Little Man is off to 1st Grade!!!

Today was the big day - first day of school! Can't believe Ev is a 1st grader! He was super excited and practically leaped onto the bus this morning...in the rain! It is quiet without him. Both Sophia and I miss him lots. At least we know he is happy and having fun!

Whale Watch Part 2

Jeff was able to grab the picture below off of the Captain John's blog posting from our whale watch that day. This is a picture from that day of Reflection breaching and spinning around. It was so cool!

SNO (Sisters Night Out)!

I love this picture and forgot to post it earlier...so glad these girls are in my life! (love the tie-dye napkin Ca - oh wait, that's the random hand-me-down tee-shirt!!) ;)

Whale Watch!

We had a fantastic time last week with Grandma & Pepere on our Whale Watch - blue sunny skies, calm seas and best of all.....lots of whales! We took Captain John's boat out of Plymouth Harbor and headed out to the southern part of Stellwagen Bank, which is where we started to see the whales. (off the coast of Provincetown (Race Point), Cape Cod Bay and Nauset area) We saw mainly Humpbacks and one Minke whale - oh, and also one seal! No sharks, thankfully! It was amazing to see the whales up close - they came fairly close to our boat a few times - one Humpback named "Reflection" (some whales actually have names and have been living in the waters near Stellwagen Bank for many, many years - I think the naturalist who narrated our tour said they have named about 100 whales over the years.) Anyways, Reflection actually breached (jumped high up in the air and turned around) twice next to the boat - but it was at the beginning of the whale sightings and we were so caught off guard that we didn't get any pictures of it! We all saw it though, even the kids, so we have the memories at least! We also saw a mother and her calf traveling together which was cool. The kids really seemed to enjoy it. We ended the day with fried clams and scallops at a seaside shanty for dinner - a perfect ending! Here are a few of our pictures....

Mother humpback and her calf

Happy 3rd Birthday Sophia!!!