A decision has been made!

I know it's been 7 months since the last entry, but I am challenging myself to make at least 1 entry per week on this blog! There, I've said it. Now maybe I'll commit to it too! I'm going to try to go through pictures from the last few months and document our activities. Wish me luck : )

It's been a long time.

I haven't written an entry in so long, that I don't know where to begin! Soccer season is almost over-just a few more playoff games for each child. Danielle and Matthew leave for Sargent's Camp on Monday and I haven't even started to pack their stuff. I am in SO much trouble! I'll have to leave another update when things have calmed down!

Molly was lost, but now she's home!

What a night! Tony and Katie took Molly for a walk around the circle last night and when Molly spotted a rabbit, Katie was dragged to the ground. The beast took off into the woods behind the Quiry's house, but Tony couldn't leave Katie alone, so he went to find Danielle and Matt to bring Katie home. By the time he went back into the woods, the dog was long gone. Poor Katie felt terrible and was feeling like it was all her fault. She couldn't go to search for the dog, so she made a "Lost dog" poster. After hours of searching on foot and by car, we decided to call it a night. The mood in the house was very somber. Well, this morning at 7:30, Mr. Quiry rang the doorbell and told us he heard barking in the woods when he had his dog out. Tony, being the wonderful husband and Dad that he is, changed out of his work clothes and went in search of Molly. Twenty minutes later, he returned with scraped and bleeding arms, but he had the dog! The leash was caught around some branches and had to be cut loose. Do you think that dog looked one bit remorseful?? Absolutely not! Needless to say, the kids won't be holding the leash any time soon!

Sophia's first day of preschool.

Things went really well for Sophia today. We drove to school after the other kids got on the bus, walked inside, and put the backpack in the cubby. That was all I saw of Sophia until pickup time! At 11:20, I arrived back at school and the kids were playing on the playground. Sophia wouldn't leave and proceeded to cry. I guess she had a lot of fun!

The First Day of School!

Lizzy started 7th grade, Matt and Danielle 5th, Katie 1st, and Sophia went to the open house at preschool. They all seemed to have a good time and came home with lots of stories. Everything from "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." to "The bus driver yelled an awful lot.". The bottom line is "We made it through the summer"! Yeah!

Vacation week.

Things started off slowly in Jefferson due the fact the campers needed to recover a bit from their trip. On Wednesday, we went to Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester for the day. What a great time we had! The sand is really soft and the beach goes out for a long way without hitting deep water. The ocean was calm, so there wasn't a lot of playing in the waves, but the kids still had a lot of fun swimming and playing in the sand. We went shopping on Thursday and bought many things we didn't really need, but wanted anyway! Dinner at Barber's Crossing ended the day. Friday, Tony took Liz, Danielle and Matthew deep sea fishing. They left the house at 5:30am to get to the boat by 7:30 for the half-day trip. After fishing, they went to Rockport and looked around the art gallery and ate snacks. I received a phone call on their way home and asked if we were having fish for dinner. I was told to cook the chicken I had defrosted! It wasn't a good fishing day at all. Only 1 person on the entire boat caught a haddock that they could take home. The rest of the bunch ended up catching "dog fish" which look like sand sharks and have to be thrown back. Oh well, at least they tried!

The NH camping trip.

This was the first week of the summer that we didn't have lots of rain! Tony was on vacation all week and his time began with the NH camping trip. He and the 3 big kids came home on Monday pretty tired, but full of stories. It turns out our friends the Dionnes, decided to camp at Lost River too and ended up at the campsite right next to Tony's. Saturday the kids went fishing and hung out in preparation for the big hike. The actual hike up Mount Lafayette on Sunday was great! They started with a big diner breakfast and got to the trail head at 9:30. They reached the AMC hut (Greenleaf) at lunchtime and had their sandwiches and soup (followed by Skittles!). They continued the hike to the summit where it was really windy, but the view was incredible! By the time they hiked back down it was around 3:30, so they had a very busy and tiring day. Oh but there was a bit more drama to be had! When they retired to the tent Sunday night, all was calm for a little while. Then they heard rustling across the stream and splashing water followed by loud "snuffling" right outside the tent! Apparently a black bear came to visit and was looking for food right outside the tent near Matt's head! They tried to get pictures of the bear's footprints the next morning and if you look really hard, you can see the nail marks and paw prints. Scary stuff!