4 And 1/2 Hours....

That's how much time I have had yesterday and today, with only 1 child to take care of.  Now granted, Luca is worth 2 kids in terms of work, but he still naps a good 2hrs in the morning.....  so combine Vince and Zoë's summer camp, with Luca's nap, and holy crap I am a free woman for 2hrs!!  I'm sitting here staring at the clock, feeling heart flutters over the tough choice of what to do with the precious time.  So I come to the blog, and then get anxiety over trying to choose which blog post to work on: Vince's birthday.... oh wait, maybe my mom's final departure from California(complete with pictures of the dog rug)... or maybe Father's Day, or our anniversary.... shit! I'm so behind!  I can't be normal, I have to be messed up in the head that having total free time from any kids just makes me start breaking a sweat while I frantically try and figure out what the best use of my time is!!!

I'll start with my little girl, here's Zoë yesterday morning just before leaving for summer camp. She was so excited when she woke up!!  She wants to carry her own lunch bag; and I better help her get her backpack on or boy she gets mad!

Vince was a bit more reserved, looking at us through glaring eyes, not sure if he really wanted his lil sister tagging along to his school.  He did reluctantly grumble to agree to watch over her.... and he behaved enough for one good photo 

We got to the playground and Zoë ran for the swingset, not even looking back.  So much for my anticipated(or maybe slightly hoped for) emotional goodbye.... although I did sit in the car and watch her for little bit, feeling a pang of nostalgia for my little baby girl.  

Well, that pang of nostalgia came to (literally) a screeching halt with Luca's angry cries from the backseat..... demanding I pay attention to him. Yes buddy, time for some water and pretzels.  Life goes on.  I backed up, and drove away not to return until 1:30.

On to catching up on life.  I've been wanting to put out a little update on each kid, here's one I started on Vince a few months ago:

This is Vince, May 2013:

favorite book: One Morning in Maine
favorite food: mint chocolate chip ice cream (or any green colored ice cream)
favorite toy: anything lego, or part of lego city, or trains
favorite song: This Little Light of Mine
favorite musician: Willie Nelson when he sings Whiskey River
favorite activity: going to my friend Max's house
what I want to be when I grow up: a construction worker, working with bulldozers

Vince, right before going to his first sleep over at his buddy Max's house 

Circa April 2013

We dropped him off at Max's, and it was another story of "he ran in and never looked back to even say goodbye or goodnight"..... we had a moment of nostalgia, and then headed out to our kid free date night.

We celebrated his 5th birthday on Saturday June 15th, with about 40 kids and just as many adults.  We were incredibly lucky in that it rained all week before, and was cloudy the day after... but on Vince's party day it happened to be sunny and warm; good for the pool/piñata/pizza triple combo that happens to be the only birthday party we know how to throw.  I'm still asking around for anyone who took any pictures whatsoever, because Mike and I didn't.

We did remember to take a photo of Vince in his yearly t shirt, he's getting there!

One friend did send us a short video that he had (thanks Chris!), of both Vince and Zoë getting a shot at the piñata.  So at least we have this.  You can tell Mike is ready to be done, he's trying hard to move the kids along quickly

We've spent the last few days out in the pool, and Vince just started swimming under water himself yesterday! He just dunked his head, and stayed down for a while.... I thought for sure he didn't mean to do that, but it turns out he did! 

And let me just take care of our anniversary post while I'm at it.  It's been 7 years of amazing, difficult, happy, and really rough times.... all rolled up together, and there's no one else I'd rather be with on this roller coaster! 

Here we are enjoying dinner at the Scarlet Oak Tavern, the waitress brought us free champagne and put some candles in our dessert after she found out it was our anniversary

Here's to 7 years, and many more!!

Public Transport, with 3

For the AIDS walk in June, we decided to take the train into Boston.  We forgot to look up the schedule, so we missed the fact that half the train was down for the weekend.  This made it so we had to get on the train for part of the ride, then get off and take a bus for 3 stops, then get back on the train again, then get back off at our destination.  Try that.... while toting 3 kids, a double stroller, a diaper bag, a day pack, water, etc.  Then take the temperature up to a humid sticky 90 degree feel, and you get 5 cranky people! 

By the time we actually got to the start of the walk, we felt like we did it already..... and were ready to just lay in the grass and go to sleep! We walked about half the walk and called it quits. 

 Here's me and Vince, trying to make the best of it, still relatively happy

 Vince and Zoë always love train rides

This was the aftermath of the day.  Zoë had enough and fell asleep, Mike was DONE.  

At Least It Didn't Rain All Day on Mother's Day

For the past few years we've been going to the Arnold Arboretum to spend Mother's Day there for Lilac Sunday.  Mike goes out and buys fun things for a picnic, and we spend the day strolling around in the beautiful gardens while smelling the fragrant lilacs everywhere(and always running into friends!).  This year we had rain in the morning and into lunch time, so we changed our plans and had our picnic in the backyard ;)  It was a relaxing morning, no stress... and some good food.  

SAY CHEESE!

My morning started out with being able to sleep all the way to 8am... it was bliss (lol!).  Then I woke up to the smell of hot coffee on my nightstand, and the kids snuck in to get in bed with me and give me this super cute card which I love!  Daddy helped make the flowers into their little portraits.

Me and my 'tallest flower'

my 'middle flower'

Me with my 'shortest flower'.... anyone recognize his suit? 

from when this other little guy wore it?.... my little Vince!

Now all grown up.... here he is picking me one very large dandelion flower at the Arboretum

We were able to enjoy the afternoon at the gardens, and it cleared up perfectly!  Zoë and Vince had fun picking all the dandelion flowers and blowing their seeds.

After a few tries, we actually snapped a decent photo of me with all the kids smiling

 Then things quickly turned sour.....

 but after a little bit of fun rolling down a hill....

and a little tasty treat, everything was good again

My favorite preschool Mother's Day project from Vince! 

Here's to another great Mother's Day, next year I can't wait to get more school made gifts as Zoë will be starting preschool in the fall!

MOVING 40 YEARS OF MEMORIES....

I moved to Boston in July 2004, which, at the time did not seem like a far away move from California.  After all, my prior move was to Africa for 3 years.  At least Boston was on the same continent, and still in the USA.  No, not far at all.

Fast forward almost 10 years, 3 kids, a graduation, a career, and one house later.... that distance has become increasingly far, and harder to endure.... especially as the kids grow up.  I had begun advising my mom to think about moving out here, but she would always throw me a vague answer of "sometime soon", most likely just to shut me up.

Well I almost dropped the phone in March when my mom phoned to tell me, "Lisa, guess what.  I called the realtor".  I couldn't believe it, I was totally shocked.  Both Mike and I had already assumed she'd never come out here... too far... and she has too many years and memories in California.  Not to mention it's a big job to clean out a house that you've been in for 40 years.

Anyway, I was barely over the shock of just hearing my mom had called the realtor, and then she proceeds to tell me that a couple have already come to see the house, twice, and they love it.  To make a short story even shorter, she sold the house and will be on a flight to Boston June 10th!

I flew out to LA a few weekends ago to help her out on the moving process, but she has done an amazing job packing up so far.  40 years of collected stuff.  I was pulling out boxes from cupboards of which I'd never even seen before.  Unfolding and opening things I could not identify.  My favorite "don't bring that" item came from one of my mom's Christmas boxes. Amongst other stuff I've never seen, there was a rug of some sort that had red felt edging (hence the Christmas box?).  As I unfolded the 'rug'... I realized it was some sort of skin of an animal.

Now before I go on to describe the story that I received from my mom, I have to warn you that folks from the Alps of Switzerland often times (or used to) save the skins of animals to make rugs.  I remember growing up and we'd take trips to Davos, and my Aunts houses would have rows of goat skulls and horns up and down the hallways and stairwells. Mainly things that were sport hunted.  A few cow skins here and there.  Well it turns out that my family was also into making rugs out of the family dogs once they passed away.  A nice way to remember the family friend perhaps?  So anyway, as it goes, I was holding the red felt fringed skin of Bella - the family dog when my mom was 10.  As I held her fur up, my mom told me how Bella came to end up as a dog rug.  She said when she was 10, the family had a house keeper who never liked Bella and always threatened to take her to the butcher.  This was apparently because Bella kept having too many puppies.  Then I got the side note story that the family always secretly thought this housekeeper, who came from Vienna, had the personality of a Nazi and had at some point worked in the prison/concentration camps during WW2.  So the family goes away for a couple days on vacation, and when they got back, Bella had been 'taken care of' by the Nazi house keeper!  So my Nana fired her, and went and had Bella immortalized in rug form.  My mom tells me just wait for this summer, she'll have a chance to show us the Gino rug when we all visit Davos!

After realizing I was not much help with packing (she couldn't handle not knowing what was packed in which box-as if she'd even remember), I spent the rest of the weekend mostly on the phone trying to organize movers, moving dates, car moving dates, services to discontinue... etc. It was a bittersweet visit, and as much as I am happy that my mother will be so close to us, I am just as sad at the feeling of losing my childhood home.  I haven't actually lived in that house for several years, but thinking of strangers living in it, trampling over all our memories, changing things from the way my mom had it. Taking away the dozens of garden gnomes that my mother has collected over the years....

-I'll miss my neighborhood so much, with all the families around us that I grew up with.  I really have several families that helped raise me.

all my moms from Sheridan Rd. 

-I'll miss the crazy cement mushroom outside the front of our house, so glad I snapped a picture of Vince and Zoë sitting on it the last time we were there.

 Gina and I wanted one last picture on the mushroom. We used to sit together on the sidewalk into the long hours of warm summer nights, chatting about all the things we thought we knew about life...... sometimes interrupted by my Godfather Jim, who'd yell over at us asking if we were watching the side walk grow.  Oh if that sidewalk could talk..... it would unlock all the secrets it has, and stories of how it watched all of us grow up.  

 Then we tried to get my mom to take a photo on the mushroom, but she did what she usually does for photos, grumbled about not wanting to be in it.... so I ended up snapping her picture just as she turned her back on our address inscribed mushroom, showing her just walking away.  Sort of appropriate for my last visit to that house....while it's still hers.

So bring on the van full of fake plants, complete with inches thick dust from years of neglect, it's time for a new chapter of memories to begin... ones that my kids will be able to create and remember, with their grandma. 

Easter??.... That Was Years Ago!

Um, hello dear diary of mine.... I do so very strongly wish I could keep you up to date with stories and adventures in my life, but there's always so much happening.... that before I've begun to process my day, or my week.... it's full speed into the next set of tasks on the list.  I came to the blog today and got depressed about how I hadn't posted anything since before Easter!  It seems like that was last year now.

Here's a quick overview way back from Easter.  The short story goes like this: all the kids loved their candy-ALOT

And Zoë starred in her first dance video, The Easter Shake

She's the little one in the yellow dress and Fedora hat that doesn't really know what's going on or

what she's supposed to be doing..... but at least she falls down at the end with everyone else!

If you can't see the video below, click HERE

And now that it's 10:30 at night and I'm totally exhausted, I still can't even finish updating my life past Easter.  Good night....