Test Trip

We have a developing tradition of a leafing trip in autumn, so this weekend we took a quick day up to New Hampshire. We drove out Friday night and stayed in a hotel. Crossed fingers here how Jed would react to a hotel. Fine! We put up Gus's tent, and he bounced around in it, so we set up his and put him in it. He played for a while and went to sleep, no problem. Hooray, the boy is portable!

On Saturday we went for a hike to a waterfall in Crawford's Notch (thank you, Seema!). It was a real hike, for 0.6 miles, and Gus hiked the whole way in. He was portaged out. We've discovered the keys to a good hike are 1) have something interesting at the end and 2) have really good snacks once you get there. Then we went to a farm for apple picking and fresh cider donuts. Jed was sitting on the wagon behind the tractor with the "What's coming next? What could be better than THIS?" look on his face. He did think that he was at an apple bar, though--he would eat half of one apple and then throw it away and grab another. Put a stop to that and have made two vats of applesauce today.

We went to another farm with friends on Sunday and discovered the successor to the moonbounce, a big jumping pillow. Lots of fun with the boys. More cider donuts.

Today we went to parts of the Open Our Doors festival around the Fenway. We made kits and flew them in the gym at the Y, played with different instruments and watched glassblowing in the morning, and then went for music, face painting, chalk drawing, and more kite flying in the park.

Some of our dreams are coming true. The boys played together on the playground today, and on the way home they laughed the whole way. Yeah, they were making fun of Jim's sneeze, but they were laughing!

Two great quotes from the weekend: 1) There was a lot of car time, and during one of them Jed was pretty crabby. Gus said to him, "What are you gritching about?" Now my 3-year-old sounds like my mother. 2) At breakfast on Saturday we talked about what we were thankful for before we gave thanks for our pancakes. Gus said, "I'm STILL thankful for my brother!"

Awwww.


A postscript for those of you who will not be surprised: maternity leave has got me completely addicted to the PBS kids show "Dinosaur Train." Enjoy.