Moving–New Adventures

Well, it’s been a tumultuous and stressful few months. In November, I decided to start applying for jobs. By January, I had decided that I would definitely be leaving my job. I had several interviews (on Zoom, but for jobs all over the country), and I decided to accept an offer from Western Kentucky University.…

Summer So Far

We spent a week in Cape Cod, and gosh, it went by fast! We got up super early on Saturday to avoid traffic. We stopped for Sandwiches in Sandwich, and it was delicious! The week passed in a blur of baseball clinics in the mornings for the kids, sailing on the pond in the afternoons,…

Memorial Day Fun

Memorial Day is the most fun community holiday in our town. There’s a 3K fun run at 9:00, carnival festivities at the park, and a big parade at 2:00. Yesterday, we all wanted to go to the fun run, but Patrick had to get his pedicab for the parade, and Gilbert had committed to playing…

More Fun

Porter, Harlan, and I went to the tree lighting ceremony on campus. They had cookies and hot cocoa afterwards, but their favorite part was rolling down the big, steep hill on campus! I took the younger boys to Scottish Walk. Definitely festive to see the bagpipers and the kennel clubs with the different dogs–corgis, Westies,…

Halloween and a Strange Week

Last week was weird. We lost a lot of momentum but are getting it back this week. Halloween was a blast. The boys loved their costumes and trick-or-treating with friends. Because it wasn’t a school night, they were able to hang out later than normal. Seamus spent a good chunk of the evening with his…

Fairy Stone State Park

Over the kids’ long weekend, we drove south to Fairy Stone State Park in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. We had a cabin to stay in, which was good, because the 4 hour drive took seven and a half hours (we did stop for a great dinner in Woodstock), and it was raining when we…

Harlan’s Fifth Birthday

A milestone has been reached. Our youngest child is now five years old. I’ve been thinking how nuts it is that 20% of his life has been lived in pandemic times. His birthday last year is what the kids refer to as “The Last Fun Day.” However, he has had a lot of fun between…

Protest, Talk to Kids, Donate, Keep Going

When you think things can’t get worse. It’s been a difficult (what an understatement) spring. Those of us in my generation were largely spared Cold War fears, and things looked good. Then 9/11 changed our views of war and showed how racial profiling would dominate and create divisions among people for the next 20 years.…

Quick Updates and then tomorrow, maybe something longer

It’s been a wild few days. I would like to chronicle it, but I’m going to do a few bullet points just to bring us up to speed. The Coronavirus COVID-19 has upended a lot of what we would call normal life, but before it did so, we had a lot of normal life. So…

Birthday Week

I had a rather momentous birthday (well, according to all the media, a birthday I should fear and disappear after). Rather than be daunted by the milestone and spend it clawing at my wrinkles and grey hair, we ended up reliving our youths (not really). The week was bookended by skiing. First as I already…