Visitors from Long Island

 

I am working on a new blog name. I feel like it I am back to coming up with a name for our dental office. That was brutal. I love to write, but I really hate to title. It's kind of the same problem I have with facebook and twitter. Too short and sweet for this girl. For now we are - In the woods by the sea. I  wouldn’t be surprised if my readers read that and decide that this blog just ain't what it used to be.  Something about being the biggest family in the neighborHOOD lent for some great writing. I read the buffalo blogs of friends since I have left and just laugh and laugh and really miss it all. It seems like nothing insane happens outside of Buffalo.  But who would go back? Not me. I am enjoying our life in the woods.

The thing is we don't have to go camping anymore for ambience. This is Friday night at our place. These woods surround the back of our house. The word is that they are full of ticks so we mostly stay out of them. I don't know how long this will last with Marcus. He is always right on the edge. Barefoot and usually barebottomed since his bottoms are often cast off because he wet them.  He's pretty easy to find though. He answers to "Marco" with a  "Polo". Everytime. Don't forget and call him Marcus or he won't say a thing though and you could be right on top of him and not know it.

I refuse to have any of us join the large population of people suffering from lime disease around here. Google it sometime. It is scary stuff. And all it takes is a couple days of an undiscovered tick and you've got it. 

So our paradise does have it's one big problem. But it's a great excuse to bathe your kids right.  I used to get notes from the school about head lice. Now the notes say,  "We went into the woods today. Check your kids for ticks."  

We are so happy with our schools here. They have 2 recesses a day! That's two more than we had in Buffalo.  And they have a pumpkin patch, woods to explore, and even have a slop box for leftovers at lunch to feed the local pigs. Caroline is purposely packing extra every day so she has plenty for pig slop.

 Camille competed in a small county fair and took second place. We drove into town and were looking for the fair that I saw advertised. I saw a small gathering in a park and asked some leaving if this was part of the fair. She said, "No, this IS the fair." 

This was my kind of fair. No carnies, large crowds or worries of losing your children, no overpriced ride passes to be begged for. Just a small town of 4 thousand enjoying the day together. Very quaint and very wonderful. They had an egg and spoon race also. All the kids ate their hard boiled eggs after. They were brown eggs so I figured some chicken farmer in the county raised them.

Kennon joined cross country and is living up to her roots. Not mine. No, No definitely not mine. My side is not known for speed.  But the other side is a different story and I have really hoped that I might be raising some runners to keep up with their cousins.  She insisted that this first meet was not a race.  Though it clearly was since she placed.  She wasn't nervous, lined up at the back at the pack, then talked much of way with a friend running next to her, and didn't even sprint at the end since she says she didn't even know it was over till it was. But even taking it all in stride she finished the 2.5 mile in 17:10 which I was thought was amazing since I am still trying to beat my best mile time set in 8th grade - 8:01.

Now she understands the whole racing aspect I am really excited to see her next meet.

The trampoline continues to be the best thing to ever happen to this family. And it is a bit of a novelty around the neighborhood. We may be the only one's with one and I guess that's why when I met a lady from a few streets away at the cross country meet she said, "Oh, yeah, I know that street. That's where the trampoline house is". The fame spread all the way to Long Island and our nearest kin came for a visit. Actually Alainna came to avoid paying to visit a dentist, and her husband Stephen came along to compete with Peter for favorite uncle. He jumped with them for hours and easily won the new title. 

 He even let them carry him off to the dress up room, where they worked hard to find something for a 6 footer. I think he fit into almost everything in width but they were way too skimpy in length . . so I guess that's why I don't have a picture to share with you.

By the end of the visit, though wonderful as he was Caroline was still calling him Uncle Peter.

I just posted this one and asked Marcus who it was and he told me, "Uncle Peter" then started singing "little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his ear." Some thanks after all the books his Uncle Stephen read to him.

They are less than five hours away from us if they plan it right. That means driving through Manhattan between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. They arrived at 7 a.m on a Thursday and left at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday. Talk about being trapped on an island.

After completing his Phd we think he should apply to teach piano at UNH and live by us. We tried hard to show them how good life might if they should so chose . On Saturday we hiked around the bay a few minutes from our home. 

It was a gorgeous day and once again I myself was convinced that I have a found a little peace of heaven. Mom, I have come a long way from the days when I used to complain about your enthusiasm for hiking. I now am all about these kind of family activities.

It was pretty easy as hikes go but there was this one hill that we had to scale. 

 I even thought to bring trail snacks in my backpack and we found the perfect spot.

Several people have told me that though the wooded Northeast is truly beautiful they could never live there because they get claustrophobic surrounded by beauty on all sides.  Maybe in Altoona PA that is possible but not in seacoast NH. 

Okay, so you all know after recent blogs that I am thoroughly in love with our choice of locales. If you will all remember with me now though, it was such a hard decision to make and so doesn't it make sense that now I go on and on about how happy I am  and that it feels so good to be here? It's just so interesting how things work out after all the worries. I had a church leader tell me during an interview in February that we shouldn't rush into any decision if we didn't have an answer. We needed to wait upon the Lord until it felt right. That was not what I wanted to hear when we felt like we weren't getting any help at all with this decision. By the end of April his words were haunting me. How long were we going to have to wait?  Finally we announced the PA decision because we had been stewing over it forever and thought we would never feel sure so we just needed to jump in and do it. We would make it work. Almost immediately life got amazingly worrisome and stressful. 

And when you are in the thick of that it is so hard to see what seems so clear now. It wasn't a good decision. We felt so trapped and worried and we hadn't even made a commitment yet.

Now it's all so clear that we had to wait till this practice was available so we could come here. I think maybe there are multiple places we could've gone and fit in and and made contributions.  

But we had specific requests. We wanted to go somewhere where we wouldn't have regrets after all the choices before us. We wanted to live somewhere beautiful and exciting. I think it is so good to reflect and remember when the Lord gives you the exact thing that you asked for. And just to be clear I know that the there will be many trials ahead of us.  And though life is good it's definitely not easy now nor do I think it's all downhill from here. But I am so grateful that he has  provided us with peace in our lives, especially since that is specifically what we were asking for above all else. 

I had a good weekend. Looking forward to more visitors.