East or West, Home Is Best

Amazing how one acquisition can change your view of a place – this week we became the proud owners of a basketball hoop, and it’s like ours is now the party place. When Chad started talking about installing a hoop over the garage my first thought was how it would affect the aesthetics of our house. But once we tightened the last bolt on Saturday and started passing the ball around court, all I could think about was how much fun this is going to be.

You have to understand that I didn’t play a single sport growing up – ever. But I was known to get season basketball tickets once or twice while at BYU and have been amazed both at how much of the game I remember and how much I enjoy playing. Chad has enjoyed shooting hoops as well.

But it’s Gavin who’s the most ecstatic about our new purchase. He’ll be out there working on his shot before breakfast, after school, anytime he has a spare moment. He loves basketball. So it was especially fun last week when one of his teachers sponsored a third grade game against a team from another local school. The kids, having had just a couple of practices, displayed a wide variety of skill with the game, but the laid back reffing was perfect for a first game. They played two 8-minute quarters between the quarters of the fifth grade teams, and that was enough to put Gavin on cloud nine. We’re so grateful to Jeremy for giving the kids this great opportunity.

Changing gears – for all you hoopla types out there, do you ever feel caught between wanting to celebrate your birthday and feeling self-conscious about throwing yourself a party focused on YOU? My friend Jessica came up with the perfect solution. Inspired by a Time Out for Women talk by a woman whose hygiene kit helped pull her through times of political upheaval in Sierra Leone, Jessica solicited donations and organized a hygiene kit assembly party supporting the LDS Humanitarian effort to commemorate her birthday. The volume of donations so far exceeded her expectations that she wound up contributing 213 rather than the anticipated 34 kits. I was honored to participate on the assembly line and enjoy some birthday hoopla at the same time. What a great idea!

Another celebratory moment of the past week was being at the Rivergods CD release party Saturday night. Ben, Nancy, and the band have been working so hard for so long – what a memorable time being in the audience as they performed some old favorites alongside all the songs from their new CD Signs (check out Nancy’s blog for pics as well as two great reviews of the CD). Boston’s Black Marmot delivered a fantastic opener, and we came away with both a Rivergods t-shirt and a copy of the CD. One of my favorite moments was when Black Marmot's Linde Clark pulled out her ukulele for one of their songs. A great night!

After some insights shared by friends in response to my Valentine’s Day post, I took a bit of a different approach to St. Patrick’s Day this year. Some low-level planning came together with sheer serendipity, yielding satisfactory results all around. The day started out with green puffed oven-baked pancake and smoothie which elicited just the response I’d hoped for from Gavin and Arwen.

On my way to pick the kids up from school, the radio announced that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was about to start. The kids were ecstatic at the prospect of a spontaneous outing. Remembering the Christmas parade we’d missed by showing up 10 minutes late a few years ago, I tried to set their expectations for a low-level production. What a pleasant surprise to see such an array of parade participants! Among their favorite acquisitions were green gecko heads featured on mardi gras handed out by none other than the Geico gecko guy. Both kids enjoyed an impromptu toss with a member of the rugby team, and we saw dinosaurs, men on stilts, army tanks, fire engines, high school bands, the Statue of Liberty, and many others. I couldn’t have planned anything better.

Before dinner we threw together a quick leprechaun hunt leading to green goodie bags. Then I was off to a Relief Society meeting while Chad cooked up shamrock pancakes. Where, you might ask, was the corned beef and cabbage? As part of my new holiday sanity strategy, that was the subject of our Sunday dinner. While the kids liked it (corned beef is now Arwen’s “favorite kind of chicken”), they definitely get more of a kick out of the easier-to-prepare novelty foods on the actual holiday. Lesson learned!

A week ago Saturday we decided to make another go at the Hebron Maple Festival. You may recall our failed attempt last year when the event was postponed due to rain. This time all the festivities were up and running, as evidenced by the traffic. Our first official stop was the Wenzel Sugarhouse. With friends Sarah and Claudia who joined us for the day, we watched the sap bubbling and boiling over a wood fire. While it was fun seeing the place in action, I realized what a sweet deal we’d had the year before when we were the only visitors - it was a busy place this time! The kids petted the Farmer’s Cow, then we were on our way to the next sugar house.

The next place had the same basic equipment as the Wenzels’ but came with an elaborate chain saw art display out front. We even caught sight of the artist at work. Inside we heard the spiel again about how it takes 40-50 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. No wonder the stuff is so spendy ($30-32 per half gallon at the places where we stopped, which is still better than at our local grocery store). Incidentally, I got to hear the spiel all over the next Monday morning when who but Ron Wenzel was featured on WNPR. Apparently our wonderful weather has created ideal sugaring conditions, and they’d made more syrup the weekend of the festival than in the entire previous season.

One of the fun elements of the Maple Festival is seeing how much free stuff you can come away with. One our way in we stopped for free Dunkin Donuts. After the sugar shack tours we happened upon a place with kids’ crafts and period demonstrations. Arwen and Sarah made colonial-era pegboards, and Gavin put together a toolbox (I’m not so sure how the cordless drill fit into the period experience). Next Gavin got to hand-dip candles, then we stopped for a blacksmith demonstration. As lunchtime came around we traipsed down to the basement of a local church that was offering a soup and bread lunch. Our last stop was the bouncy house.

After one successful go-round, we can definitely recommend the Hebron Maple Festival – always the second weekend in March.

I’ll just start this post off by saying - if you want to get away from snow, DON’T HEAD NORTH.

Chad and I were overdue for an overnighter so decided to take a couple of days off last week while the kids were in school and with some friends to visit a new state for us: Maine. This was a bit of an ambitious trip, I have to admit. We started out with a wonderful two hours of conversation in the car, followed by a visit to the Boston Temple. Next stop was Pottery Barn (none of those in our area, thank you) where we picked up a piece of furniture for the previously mentioned home improvement project. Thank goodness it fit in the car!

After another 90 minutes of uninterrupted car time we arrived in York Harbor, Maine where we stayed at Chapman Cottage. (Kind of reminded me of the 'cottage' from Sense and Sensibility.) This was the summer residence of swinging single Fannie Chapman, who with her sisters spent 6-8 weeks here each year. Being the off season, we had the luxury of being the only guests, which left us free to take the best room in the house at a very reasonable rate. We arrived to find our room stocked with a fruit and cheese plate as well as hand-dipped chocolates. That’s my kind of place.

While it was still light we took a drive around York Beach, home of hundreds of tightly packed summer homes fronting a nice stretch of beach. We stopped at the lighthouse just long enough to shoot a few pictures – cold wind!! Everywhere we spotted lobster traps, one display of which was particularly elegant and seasonal. We saw many beautiful old homes and blustery ocean views. And of course, there was SNOW, so much more than the bits we’d left behind at home. I guess it would have been smarter to head south had we wanted to avoid that . . . .On our way back we stopped for clam chowder and blueberry pie.

Back at the B&B we stayed toasty with remote control fireplaces in both bedroom and bathroom. The breakfast was exquisite, and we ended our stay chatting with the owner, a computer programmer-turned-gourmet chef. After checking out we took a short beach walk and hiked (through snow) on a little island accessed by a footbridge. While we’ll be more likely to venture farther north on our next trip to Maine, it was a fantastic getaway, and the accommodations couldn’t have been better.

On the way home we took a short detour through Worcester to visit the Church cannery where we replenished some staples for our home storage. After the tight fit after our Pottery Barn visit, I wasn’t sure we could squeeze thirteen 25-pound bags of oats, wheat, and sugar into the car, but Chad worked his magic and we were set.

That’s what I call one successful getaway. Definitely fun, but next time maybe we’ll shoot for something slightly more akin to lolling on a tropical beach . . .

Epilogue: Gavin and Arwen managed to get in on some of the 'romantic' fun Monday as we celebrated Pi Day - the 12th anniversary of our engagement. More on the traditional cocoa pie here.

After our constant state of winter wonderland the past two months, it was a bit of a shock a couple of weeks ago to start to see the lawn again. Every day the snow banks shrunk a little, one day the garden beds reemerged, and eventually all we could see was grass. It has been incredible to feel somewhat back to normal.