Photo Catch-up - May

It is August and not a rain cloud in sight. However, back in May...

We donned our rain jackets and headed into Boston to meet our friend Maria H and Audrey. Not that I have any pictures of Maria and I together... oops :(

Before we met our friends the girls and I snuck down to the public garden to visit the "Make way for the duckling" sculpture.


Daddy caught up to us just a bit later. He dropped us off then went to find a parking spot.*
This is the only picture I have of the friends we met...just the kiddos.


I guess in this case the lack of pictures indicates I was just too busy having fun.

*Aaron is a Westerner at heart and HATES paying to park. So, even though he had to leave in the middle of dinner to go move the car he counted this day as an immense success because it only cost $1.86 to park in Boston for 6 hours. Boo-YAH!

December Visitors

In late November Aaron was asked to be a Stake High Councilor so his Mom and Dad flew out here the first weekend in December so that Grandpa U could ordain Aaron. Because our plan was to stay in MA for the holidays it was especially nice for us to have some family visit during the season. Their trip also coincided with the Christmas in Salem Holiday House Tour that I the non-profit that I work for hosts each year (this year was the 30th annual tour) so they got to see some of the really cool historic homes in Salem.

A hottie keeping my cutie warm.

Does it look cold? Oddly enough two days before this picture we all went to the park and enjoyed 70 degree weather (yes, in December).

What a pretty dress! Tessa was going through a "not looking at the camera" phase.

Cute pic headed into the Aquarium

A-DOR-ABLE candid shot. I turned around and she was sitting patting this penguin.

Okay - and now, some of you may not like this but I'm going to post a bunch more pictures of the trip on facebook - see you there.

Hannah

I'm skipping over all Christmas good times for the moment to post pictures of Baby Hannah's visit to MA.

Laura and Connel are crazy. They took at 10+ hour drive with a newborn. Laura asked (via txt) if they could come for New Years only 5 days before them came. I thought about it for about .217 seconds. YES!

This kiddo grew up over the weekend while we had a baby in the house.

Tessa got older as well - holding, talking to and helping Baby Hannah.

She even helped her find some friends.

Auntie brought these matching shirts.

As you can see, Tessa made good friends with Uncle Connel.

A nice family snapshot taken at the JFK Library/Museum.

This is after we told Tessa to look at the camera.

Classic self timed photo with camera perched on the stroller...everybody squeeze in!

Thanks for coming...I hope the drive home wasn't too bad. (See that stormy weather behind them? That is what they are driving home in as I type.)

Brewster Beach

Day two of our annual Cape trip (2008, 2007)we decided to check out the beach on the inside of the Cape. We've always gone to the National Seashore which has great waves that crash into the beach. Its fun, but not exactly kid-friendly.


Truth be told, Tessa doesn't like the beach. It might be the waves, Daddy swimming in the waves, the hard-to-walk-on sand, or the bright sun. I say that because this none of those things were at this beach and she had a blast. At low tide the wet, firm sand stretched out as far as the eye could see, which wasn't far with the cloud cover.

Second truth be told, people as white as we are shouldn't be seen in full sunlight. Go ahead and agree, we aren't offended. (Unless the fear of seeing one of us in a bikini is the real reason our friends all decided not to join us on our camping weekend...hum?)

(Its a good thing I have Aaron around to do the really tough things, like ask the locals tending their oyster beds to take our picture - locals love that)

The video below makes me laugh so much. But you really may have needed to be there. Daddy and Momma had great plans for the architectural wonder they were going to construct. Tessa had a great time smashing any attempt (just like a little planning and zoning board). Aaron challenged me to stack the small bucket on top of the large bucket. At 0:10 seconds notice my attempt to distract Godzilla/Tessa.

Family Fun

I'd love to post about the fun time the family had at the Museum of Science on Saturday...but I didn't get to go. So... read about it on Alicia's Blog.

Good times.

October Fun - Part 4

The next visitor to stop by was a good friend from high school (pause for dramatic effect)

Christin! (Applause....)

The really great thing about having friends from the distant past (10+ years...geez!) is that you can just jump right into activities and conversations without that whole "So where did you grow up?" and "What did you major in at college" conversation. I was immediately able to ask her about...well...stuff...you know - gossipy girl stuff.

We had a lot of fun. This was her first visit to New England so I got to go back to the old-school tourist stops.

We had some fun times in Concord, MA.

Christin was such a fun playmate for Tessa! She was like a completely overqualified yet still amazing nanny! The three girls had a good time.

And the next day we traipsed around Boston.

Daddy bought this rose for Tessa...he haggled the seller down by 50% and the seller sealed the deal by "recognizing she was a girl..." as in "for this beautiful girl, half price..."

This is when Christin and I were papparazzied by Aaron - I feel violated.

You'll be surprised to find out that we went to Marblehead on Sunday (perhaps old age is making us predictable?)

Tessa has become incredibly fond of doing her own walking, particularly if she is holding the hands of people prone to swinging her on the count of three. While we were walking around Marblehead she was just tromping along and would not let me pick her up. When we got back to the car we discovered that she had been walking for who knows how long with her hat like this...can anyone see a trust metaphor in the making?

The big deal of the trip was HaLloWeEn (same day we went to Concord)...and we had so much fun.

Christin made a rocking Goldilocks costume...Aaron teased me for checking the stitching on the sleeves but they seriously looked 100% store bought!

Our pieced together bear costumes were a bit shabby in comparison but still super fun.

I know this post is about Chrisin's visit but I have to do a Tessa side note:
While we were getting dressed Tessa was cruising around the house laughing and chattering. She obviously had no idea what was going on but still got all caught up in the excitement. We trick or treated down the fancy street a few blocks from our house. Tessa and her entourage.

I am not kidding - this was one of the funnest nights I've had in a long time. Tessa got a LOT of candy for someone who weighs 22 lbs...but since we all helped we didn't feel guilty eating as much as we wanted.

Christin and I headed back out to walk around Salem (sans wallets unfortunately...with no abandoned cottages with porridge to be found). While Daddy was putting Tessa to bed she remembered the candy and be-bopped out to have a snack.

This is a picture of Mommy letting Tessa break the pretty strict family rule that "pretzels are NOT a snack!" Poor kid, I'm pretty sure all the adults were sneaking Snickers behind her back...wait, was it only me?

Hum...what other highlights of the trip might be of interest...

Oh yes - Christin got roped into making us dinner. I had meant for it to be a "cooking together" experience but she did all of it. However, it did fulfill one of my fantasies about participating in one of Christin's fabled dinner parties. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of the 3 game hen roasting, bum up, in our oven. It was delish!

October Fun - Part 3

The NEXT fun weekend quickly followed when Aaron's parents (hereby to be referred to as Grandma and Grandpa) flew in two days later.

Here is the run down from their trip.

Wednesday I picked them up and then picked Aaron up from work and we ate burritos from Anna's Taqueria on the way home.

Thursday: Grandma and I hit the fabric store in the am to prep for Halloween costumes, then they watched Tessa while Aaron accompanied me to a doctor's appointment*, then Aaron, G-ma, G-pa and Tessa hit the Saugus Iron Works again (luckliy Tessa is a good sport about seeing things 2x in one month!) while I did some work.

Friday: Everyone but me went and looked at pretty fall leaves while I got started on Halloween costumes for that night's Trunk-or-Treat party at our church. When they got home the prep continued. That night, obviously, we went to the party.

...three drivers?!

My entry in the "Scary Cake" contest...I was assured by the organizers that if there had been a 2nd prize I would have won it...
Check out the winning cake here...silly Mormon jokes ;)

The Three Bears

Saturday: Train show in Hingham, caught a view of the City from Hull (and ate yummy pizza at random sandwich shop), and tried to take the tour of the Adam's National Historic Park - unfortunately their website wasn't lying when they said "because of the recent release of the documentary, weekend tours sell out fast." We did get to take a tour of the Presidential crypt though (a very reverent experience I think) and then look around the grounds of the Adam's "big" house. Well, Aaron and his folks did. Poor Tessa fell asleep 3.5 minutes before we got there so I sat with her, I've already seen the John Adam's site (and in case I haven't recommended it to you - GO!)

Sunday: Church, lunch and a tour of Marblehead...sound familiar?

I love love love this picture!

Monday: Our original Monday plans were either too far afeild or closed so we headed to Ikea. We got some GREAT deals in the "as-is" department. Hopefully I actually use the stuff we bought and can post about it later. Then we killed just a bit of time by walking around the lake in Wakefield. By this time Tessa was completely into the "having four adults pay complete attention to her" vibe and loved loved loved the park there. We were killing time before going to Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner...oh...I ate SO much that I could only manage a bite or two of chocolate cake dessert. Can you believe it?

Tuesday: Aaron had to head back to work but Grandma, Grandpa, Tessa and I drove to Lowell to see the National Park site there as well as the New England Quilt Museum. We had originally also planned to see the Trolley Museum but it was only open on Thursday through Saturday...darn. We made up for it by going to Subway for lunch.

Wednesday was get up early and go to the airport day.

Another whirlwind of a week!

*Third clue here people!

October Fun - Part 2

The second fun weekend in October quickly followed Columbus day weekend.

My old roomate/college buddy Jen came for her annual New England Fall Getaway. The original plan was that she and I would run the "Witch City 5k" together...but I bailed out.* But we still did a lot of stuff. Hum...lets see if I can remember...

Thursday: Saugus Iron Works and PEM.

Friday: USS Constitution, lunch with Aaron at Wagamama, Museum of Fine Arts

Saturday: Boston Harbor Islands, the tail end of the South End Historical Society House Tour, dinner at Salem Beer Works (complete with an hour wait for a table and some baseball watching time).

Sunday: Jen ran the 5k...Tessa and I were in charge of pictures. These included me forgetting to turn the "record" function off after the beginning of the race, a few blurry "action" shots, and then a nearly perfect "finish line" shot of the timing clock...would have been more perfect if another runner hadn't moved into the line of sight. So...apparently I am not the professional photographer I thought I was. We made homemade Indian food (some sort of curry) that afternoon (picture of all our yummy ingredients below) and then went to Marblehead and found a Fort that I've never seen before. Having Jen visit is good for that.



Monday: House of Seven Gables, hotdogs from Boston Hot Dog company and then to the airport for Jen's trip home.

I'm sort of freaking out because I took a bunch of photos that I can't find...where oh where could they be?

*Clue #2

Niagara Falls

Third in our series of "The Udy Family takes a long weekend."
(I mean really, you'd think we took a two-week African safari with how long it is taking me to finish posting about it!)

In front of Tessa's namesake
(no, not really)

Trash bag family

Where we were, from above.

Cute little Leshy.

In Canada

We decided to forgo watching the falls at night, with lights and fireworks. As Laura said "The falls are really neat, but I've seen enough." And as Alicia said "Lets get some ice cream."

So we headed to Fort Niagara on our way back to camp. But we got distracted by the cutest ice cream shop in the cutest town and spent the rest of the evening there.

Contemplating.




Tessa learned to crawl on the grass that evening, and now she realizes she can go anywhere she wants to!