MA Trip

 Our long overdue trip to Massachusetts is too soon a memory (Delaney, what figure of speech is that?). We left Saturday morning, June 26, and drove back on July 4. In addition to seeing a lot of family that we haven't seen in maybe 18 months, we also thought we could enjoy some really pleasant summer weather. Well... that was not what New England had in store for us this time. For the first half of our trip, it was upper 90s and humid, and for the second half cold and rainy. What the heck! But we had a lot of fun. We had originally planned on staying till the morning of the 5th, but after what an easy drive home we had, I think leaving on an actual holiday might be the way to go from now on. Compared to the 14.5 hours it took to get there (and this with only two 10-minute stops for gas and bathrooms), we made it back home in 11.5 hours (with a third 5-minute stop). We have no time to waste because Tim can not take many days off from his new job yet -- or probably ever, because he only has one other employee, and the rest are volunteers.

This was two hours into the trip there, right after we got on 95 North. When I saw this I said, "I'm questioning all my life choices right now." Ha! No, of course I wouldn't change a single one that led me here, but man, to be staring down the barrel of 623 miles on 95...there's nothing like it.

On Sunday we celebrated our niece Juliana's high school graduation. She graduated second in her class, and will be attending Tim's alma mater, Worcester State University, this fall. I believe she plans to major in elementary education. Juliana's the one at the far right in the picture above.

On the first really hot day, a bunch of us went out for mini golf and ice cream. I had to kind of wonder as we sweated in the sun why are we doing this to ourselves, but in spite of myself I enjoyed it. Tim got a couple holes in one, and we was proud of himself.

Back at Grandma and Grandpa's, Joey finally took off his swim muscles and started doggy-paddling. Yay!

We spent another day at Kathy's for lunch and the pool. I wasn't complaining, not one bit.

We did a lot of things at Karen's. Let's see... a movie for those who wanted to watch a movie (I think only Tim and I didn't), games for the kids, dinner for all of us (and no one was opting out of Matt's grilled steak tips!), and a very silly game called Incohearent: Family Edition. There might be another edition out there that is not family friendly, but I'm not sure. That night we presented Tim Sr with his Father's Day gift, a replica of the Point Judith lighthouse, where he would often go with his brother Billy who passed away a few months ago. Eternal rest grant unto him, oh Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him.

One morning Tim took Delaney as promised, along with anyone else who wanted to go, to Patriots Place in Foxboro. It was very hot, and they only stayed long enough to buy a few t-shirts. Delaney, Annie, and I have matching t-shirts, but I have no pictures. Boo.

This was the point of the week where the heat and humidity started giving way to clouds, storms, and falling temperatures. Karen has a few of these cute hot air balloons hanging on her porch, and I loved how they looked with the mix of clouds and sun.

Matt told us he saw Tim Sr trying to play Pokemon with Joey, and when Timmy offered to help his grandpa, Joey said, "Yes, please help him!"🤣

We all went out to dinner together one night, and had a really nice time. Tim and I got Delaney to take our picture outside with the nice view before it started to rain. Ideally, we would have gotten a picture of all of us out here, but by the time we were ready for a group photo, it was pouring.

Delaney said, "But I wore these clothes as a deterrent to taking photos." Well, so much for that.

This spider plant belonged to Tim's grandmother Alice Grazulis Brady, who died when he was three. I don't know much about her, but I have gathered that she was devoutly Catholic, her parents were from Lithuania, and she once saved Tim Sr and a neighbor boy from a tornado by shoving them behind a refrigerator. We took home three of the babies, and they are all thriving so far. If for whatever reason they don't make it, there's plenty more where that came from. I love plants, and I especially love plants with family history.

And that's about it. We were sad as always to say goodbye, but then we had an easy trip home and the sight of our blooming crape myrtle and hydrangeas to welcome us.

Topsail 2021

My sister Grace has brought it to my attention that I have not yet written the annual beach vacation post. Silly me. I replied to her text which included a Giphy skeleton checking its phone again and again, saying that it's strange how uninspired that I am to blog anymore; but I still do enjoy looking at all my old stuff and I'm so glad I was motivated to do it all those other times!

I think this one will be mostly pictures, but we'll see how it goes.

We pin so many hopes and dreams on this one little week in June. It always feels kind of unreal at first, when we all make it down there. Above is Grace with her "golden envelope" and key, the attainment of which is always the first obstacle we must surmount before beginning our week at the beach. 

We were on our way back over the bridge after Mass that night, and "Alone" by Heart came on. And when that happens, you've got to put all the windows down and blast it. Or at least you do if you're Tim. I laughed until my cheeks hurt. It was kind of a "you had to be there" moment, but fortunately I have this little video snippet. 

Our first night there started with a bang. My brother-in-law Joey brought this gummy bear and got Timmy and Robert (Anna's husband) to try a piece of it. What followed was... a very rough half hour for both of them. I thought, how ironic -- we get here all in good health, and then go and sabotage ourselves! But the good news is it went through their systems fairly quickly, and now everyone knows better about hot gummy bears. (Honestly, I knew better just looking at the box. Nope!)

The kids always love to go crab hunting when it gets dark. 

We were so happy to have Anna and her family with us again.

The weather was so changeable, which resulted in dramatic seascapes and unusual cloud formations.

Due to a miscommunication, Scotty and Faith did not end up in the beach house they usually rent that's close to ours. Instead they were a few miles away on the sound side. They invited us over one night, and we had margaritas and watched a beautiful sunset on their balcony. They still would have rather been closer to us and on the beach, but I think they really did like their soundside house. It had a little trail leading to the ocean too.

We had Maggie filling in for Sophie in this picture.

The cousins are growing up so fast!

We had plenty of sun usual for the first half of our days there, with some sprinkles more likely as the day went on. I think we had an actual downpour maybe once, but I could be wrong. The wind would start to pick up every afternoon around 3 or so, and eventually we would all head back in because it would just keep increasing. So the one thing we didn't do that we normally do, is take sunset walks on the beach, and I think we all missed that. We also didn't take any family pictures on the beach because the conditions were never good for that in the evening when everyone's done swimming and the light is best. We couldn't bear to spend the whole night inside the air conditioning though, so if we sat on Grace and Joey's side of the deck with the door closed to our side, we were OK. The wind was always coming from the same direction.

Most of the men went out on a fishing boat Wednesday. They didn't catch much, but I guess they had fun.

Tim and Delaney decided spur-of-the-moment to walk to the pier three and a half miles away. They were like, "See you in a few minutes!" and were gone for over two hours. I was more than a little annoyed. I didn't think they'd left prepared for a walk that long. I would have liked for Tim to have on a hat and shirt for a seven-mile hike, but that was just me being a nag, I guess. He didn't even bring his phone. He had a stranger take this cruddy photo and text it to me. 

Scotty and Faith took a bunch of the kids to the sound for a change of pace on the last day. As Faith put it, "We're driving the fun bus!" No one could do it better.

The last night found most of us sitting on Grace and Joey's deck saying a rosary and staying up too late talking. As was fitting, because we know once we all say goodnight it is all over. I do miss them so, but am so grateful as always that we made it happen yet again.

One Year(ish) Housiversary

 Earlier today in the course of a conversation, Tim reminded me that last winter when we were house-hunting, he'd been the one who liked this house right away, and I was the one who was like, "Nah." I didn't disagree. "It's because we kept coming back to the same thing being wrong with it, and we'd talk ourselves out of it, go look at other houses, and then you'd be like, 'Let's go back to that house.'" There were lots of good things about it, and I could see, at least sort of see, the potential to change what we didn't like. But I had been hoping for something more turnkey. I'd wanted everything perfect as is, but really almost nothing we were looking at would have fit that bill. I came around because he had a vision, and I trusted that.

I told him that recently it occurred to me that I've really settled into this house, and am really glad we live here. There were some hurdles to me liking it, but we're over those now, and it is definitely feeling like our home. It reflects us. 

I love this little corner next to the garage. I had no idea that the catnip would get these gorgeous purple blossoms in spring. 

You've seen most of the changes we made inside; we've also done quite a bit to the yard, front and back. It is so much more of a welcoming sight. Tim took down the chunky railings off the porch, and we invested in some good landscaping to just catapult us to where we could maintain it from there ourselves. Many new things were planted; some of them such as Japanese maples and hydrangeas, were on my wishlist, and some were suggested to us to add all the color and texture we were looking for. We cut down some big ugly dead trees both front and back. A few things remain from before: a crape myrtle, the holly tree right in front of our garage, and some boxwoods and gardenias.

Maybe next year this little tree will get leaves on the top branches.

I was remembering today how one of the biggest things I didn't like about this house was how when I would sit outside, I didn't see anything that was pleasing to the eye. We have fixed that. It was hard for me to imagine how nice it could be; as I've said before, being able to visualize things is not my strong suit. Fortunately for Tim that is much easier. He and the landscaper put their heads together in the backyard, and I'm pretty blown away with what they came up with. 

The picture above is right outside our bedroom window, to the right of the screened-in porch. It's a row of azaleas flanked by two little lime hydrangeas. The azaleas will bloom in spring and fall, and the hydrangeas in summer; so with the exception of the dead of winter, something will almost always be in bloom.

The fence line used to be just a lot of dirt and weeds, overgrown trees and shrubs, and other assorted vegetation. Now we have five of those arbor vitae trees, a cherry blossom tree in the corner, and more grasses, verbena, more azaleas, camellias, and drift roses sprinkled throughout. Our neighbor directly behind us saw what was happening on our side of the fence, and it lit some kind of fire under him. He cut down all the wild vines and stuff that were on his side. We see a whole lot more of each other now.😃

The patio and fire pit are new. You can see how new and still small all those new plants are against the fence. I'm really going to enjoy watching them grow in the next couple years.

There are a couple patches of sod, one of which you can see behind the dark blue chair on the right. That was the site of one of the big old trees. In the picture below, the sod had just been put down, and it still looked brown. Tim has big dreams for the lawn, though. Big northern dreams of velvety green golf course grass. He's not sure how he's going to get there. Honestly, I'm just happy to see it all being green, even if I wouldn't want to run barefoot through it.

And this porch, which I am constantly taking pictures of, is my haven. We gave it a refresh a month or two ago, just in time for spring. It has all new cushions, a new ceiling fan and light fixture, and string lights, which make any other lighting unnecessary as far as I'm concerned. They're the best. You'll find me on that porch every night at sunset, watching the kids and dog run around, and the sky change colors. You'll find me there when it rains, especially when it storms. You'll find me there whenever there's time to spare -- reading, praying, trying to take the PERFECT picture of my view.😆

I found it comical as I was looking through photos for this post, how many frames I found Willow posing proudly in. "Everything the light touches" is her kingdom. 🤣

We found the right house in the right neighborhood in the right town. It's a dream come true.