Fun in Burlington

I had read about the Echo center in Burlington and thought that would be a fun place to take the kids. The night before, I checked their web site, and noticed they had reciprocal membership with Museum of Science in Boston. This was great, since we have an 8 person membership in Boston. Not only that, but the membership was going to expire two days from now, so it was just in time to use it.



Well, Echo's idea of reciprocal turns out to be only 2 adults and 3 kids. We still had to pay for the other kids. Large family discrimination yet again. Which I thought was even more puzzling since our membership in Boston is for 8 people, but they only honor 5. If I was organized at all, I would write them a letter, but I don't expect I will actually get around to doing so.



The Echo Center was fun, it was even more fun to meet some good friends there. Friends we had NO idea about that they would be here on that day. Very cool.



After a while, we went outside and spent lots of time at the water front. Enjoying the views, the sun, the wind, the good food. We even found a geocache!



We were supposed to find more geocaches, but decided to take the ferry instead, it was just the perfect day to be on the water.



It was very windy, but also very beautiful.



On the other side of the lake, we explored a bit, and then decided to spend a few hours on the beach. We were annoyed at ourselves for not bringing our bathing suits, that won't happen to us again!



The afternoon got even better when we got treated to live music. Beautiful!



The kids were soooooo hoping to see Champie, Burlington's residential lake monster. But the only Champie they saw was this one.



The sun was setting while we were at the lake, and we had a glorious full moon on our way back home.



We might have found only one cache, but this sure was a great day. This is what summer should be like. This is why I love spending time with my kids, they are a joy to be with on trips like this. At least, most of the time ^^

Lazy Days at the Beach

Did I ever mention how I love Vermont lakes?



We brought our inflatable boat.



We rented a rowboat and both Erik and Sylvia had fun dangling their hands into the water.



Just a nice and lazy day.



And on our way home, we saw deer yet again. Perfect ending to a relaxing summer day.



This is the stuff childhood memories are made of.

Love Thursday Breakfast

I love summer.

I love having many fresh, organic vegetables for breakfast. Some even from my own garden!



I love having a daughter old enough to help me cook and to often cook for herself or her siblings.

Thank you, Tara.

Circus

We had a great time at the circus.
Sylvia 'Maybe they'll have animals.'
'Yes, i think they will'
'Maybe they will have a pink elephant!'
'Hmmm, maybe not'
'Or a pink horsey!'



They didn't have pink elephants, but there were TWO pink horseys, so she was very happy about that (people dressed up as horses) She also got pink cotton candy, and ended up being super sticky.



It was kind of an impulsive decision to go, but I am very glad we did.

Picture of the Day

You Know You Live in the Middle of Nowhere...

when you try to find a good restaurant to grab a bite at 4pm, and the first THREE restaurants you try all are closed. Luckily we found a Chinese place which was open, but no Indian or Thai food for us.

We studied go and ate good food, I was just amazed how hard it was to find a restaurant in the middle of the afternoon. Gotta love small towns.

Now off to the circus! Kids are excited ^^

Spider

Tim found this scene in our backyard.

News Flash

Today, people in our neighborhood were startled by an unusual noise from the Deerbaby household. When they went over to investigate, they were greeted by a big van, which looked like its contents had exploded all over the driveway. There was a stack of clothes, a bag of half eaten crackers, a moldy lollipop, and a few torn up books. There were towels, beach toys, spare bottles of oil, many broken toys, and empty fast food wrappers. There were shoes, boots, mittens, some even were in pairs. On closer investigation, they realized that most of them were single ones though, just like everyone has in their own car.

Most peculiar items were a big box with many square boards though, and many boxes with black and white pieces of candy-like looking tokens. Mr Peterson counted ten of the weird looking boards, and another one which was smaller, clearly an infant incarnation of the big boards. Mrs Sibelius told us 'I don't know what's up with this family. Last year they had all those ammo boxes, this year, they are getting even weirder. I am looking for a new neighborhood to move to.'

Mrs Deerbaby could not be reached for commentary, as we saw only her legs sticking out from the door of the van. The sound of vacuum cleaning could be heard from inside it.

Quote of the Day

Sylvia 'And they will live happily ever again.'

Double Digits

Wow, I have four kids in double digits now! How did that happen? How can they grow up so fast???? Won't be long till we have four teenagers.



She is having a great day. Many cool presents, much fun.



Tara and Jane baked a birthday cake for her. She has chosen Friendly's for birthday dinner. Such joy to go there on Saturday night ^^

Summer

Summer in Vermont.



Boating fun.







Burying your sister.



Cool water toys.



Oh, and we played go :p

Picture of the Day

How we spent our weekend. More pictures at flickr.

Deer

We saw many deer last week, I love watching them.



When we were stoppped at the Vermont roads, to watch the deer. We had three different people stop and ask we were ok. Nice to know how friendsly and helpful Vermonters can be.

Picture of the Day

When you have a small army, you must carry a big stick.

When I Grow Up...

Sylvia, talking in a very sweet voice to me 'When I grow up, I will be a mama, and you will be my baby!'.

The Story Continues...

After walking in on those, today I discovered her on the stairs.



A few steps higher:



Do I even want to know the story?????

Caching at the Lake

After our rainy adventure and DNF, we decided to do an easy cache next. The closest, easiest one, turned out to be a cache under an apple tree which sounded fun. What I hadn't counted on, was that the cache turned out to be RIGHT next to a lake, with boating access. The kids had totally NO interest in the cache at first, but just wanted to play at and in the water.

It all started very innocently.



But soon, Sylvia and Erik took off their shoes 'We just want to get our feet wet, mama!'



And it didn't take long before all were in the water.



So much for 'Only our feet, mama!' Erik was the first one to fall down backwards in the water.



Let's just say that this reminded me why I should have put dry clothes in the car. Some day, I'll be organized, I swear. Up to then, we'll just have to make do with solutions like this:



Yes, we did eventually make it to the cache, looking like a gang of vagabonds, but that only helps to confirm to people what large families are like. Nothing like living according to stereotypes.



Talking about families, I really liked the welcome message of one of the towns we drove through. "XXX! Where a small town is like a large family"

We were going to go caching again today, but the weather is not quite cooperating. As in: it is pouring down right now, with lots of impressive thunder and lightning. I might be forced to stay home, and study go instead.

Caching Through The Rain

Today, I really felt like geocaching. I did what every sane cacher would do, I checked the weather forecast. Rain! I followed up, as every cacher would, by going caching anyway :p



Things started out well, by having to cross some small streams.



The rest of the trail just went up, up, up, and up.



The views were totally worth it, though!



We had a nice view over a small lake. We didn't know the name, so the kids decided to call it Reindeer Lake.



Amazing rocks.



Blooming moss.



A nice cairn.



And of course, the ubiquitous eft.



After all this, the perfect end to the story would be to actually find the darned cache. But we did all this hiking and having fun, only to not be able to find the cache. The cache hadn't been found since September last year, so we knew we ran the risk of it not being there. Either it had been muggled, or we are lousy geocachers, because we could NOT find it. (Don't bother answering that question :p) There was much wailing, and gnashing of teeth, but the cache still didn't get located.



Caching trips like this, reaffirm to me how much I love Vermont. The mountains, the lakes, the trails, the people, everything about it, is good.