3rd Grade Fun

Mary had a few fun happenings at school this past month.

First there was her "Music Times Three" concert.  She misses a recess once every 6 days to attend a music class.  They performed the songs they've been working on this year.  She did a nice job.  (front row and orange dress).

She also got to attend Tolland Green Day.  3rd graders have spent all year learning Connecticut and specifically Tolland history.  It helps that our town was named in 1715--it's been here a while.  Each student was assigned to be a specific child from Tolland in the 1800s.  They dressed in traditional clothes and spent all day on the green touring the old jail museum, the Hicks museum, learning traditional dances, sketching houses, attending a one room school house, etc, etc.  Mary was Lily Crandall.  Her father owned the cider mill and Crandall Park where we always play and swim was named after her family.  She even helped dig the pond.  

Looking cute.  Her pioneer costume that Grandma sewed has come in handy.

Mary with our neighbor Sammy

The life of Andy

Andrew, aka Andy has been up to some fun lately.  I still call him Andrew but find myself occasionally calling him Andy or calling him Andy as I correspond with people from school.  Still doesn't feel totally normal.

He's been playing baseball this spring and loving it.  We've definitely seen skill improvement this year and a lot less dancing in the field.  Good times. :)

Matt and Andrew went camping a few weekends back and had super amounts of fun.  Get this boy outside and he's one happy kid.

Go Mary!

Mary's hard work has been paying off lately.  Two 'big news' things in the past week.

Saturday we attended a local art show where Mary had a piece of art on display.  Her art teacher at school selected it for the show.  Mary was quite the proud girl and super excited to see a ribbon hanging from it when we arrived (all the student art displayed had a ribbon).

The assignment was something about displaying your family and one of your favorite things.  The fam is depicted along with Hershey bars.  Don't be fooled, the "H's" have nothing to do with our family--it's all about the HERSHEY. :)

Then yesterday we got a call from the town celebration committee letting us know that Mary had won the Memorial Day writing contest for the 3rd and 4th grade age group.  She won a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble.  Her essay, which had to be about "why I love the American flag and how do I show it", will be posted in the online town newspaper and she will be recognized at the town Memorial Day parade (which of course is on a Sunday).  The lady was super understanding of why Mary wouldn't be at the parade and said that her gift card is in the mail.

Happy Day Mary!  We're all proud of you!!!

Letterboxing

Mary's Girl Scout troop learned about Letterboxing a few weeks back and Mary has gotten our family hooked.  I didn't even know what it was so I was very surprised that our town had about 50 letterboxes hidden all over.  Basically, you follow clues to find a 'letterbox' which is hidden in a public place, often a trail, cemetary, park, school, etc.  Inside the box, the creator has placed a stamp and a notepad.  You stamp their stamp in your notepad and leave a stamp of your own in their pad.

www.atlasquest.com is a great website to tell you the location for letterboxes as well as the clues to find them.

We've found 6 in town so far.  Here are a few shots on one of our excursions.

FUN!

Where the Green Grass Grows

I planted grass seed a few weeks back to put an end to our neverending trench work.  It was a long job that left me paranoid that none would grow.  Halleluia that it worked!

Before:

After:

 Before:

After:

 I am loving having grass and a yard again instead of dirt and rocks everywhere.  Now except for the large pile of rocks at the top of our hill in the back and the pile of gravel out front, we're done.  Sigh....

In a New York Minute

Picture overload.  We didn't do New York in a minute, but our one day flew by about just as fast.

Here's a quick recap...

left our house at 7:20am and headed to New Haven.

We took the train from New Haven.  The kids enjoyed switching seats to sit by the window each time the train stopped

We even made some cool friendship bracelets to pass the time.

 Singers in Times Square.  I think Annie walked with her neck cocked all the way back for the first 3 minutes just saying "Whoa, those are tall buildings."

 Our wonderful Aunt Megan tour guide and hand holder of Whit and Annie

 Of course we hit M&M world (and poor Matt spent our time there at Walgreens buying bandaids while Meg dropped her girl scout cookies and our jackets off at Nate's office)

 We went to the Hershey Store and by this point the kids were in that "I want to buy everything in site mode" thus ending our time in Times Square.

 Shake Shack for lunch.  Delicious.  Plus we even managed a miracle table for 8 open up in the heart of lunch time.

 Staten Island Ferry--I think it was all of the kids favorite part.  Perfect weather, a perfect view.

 Lounging on the ferry boat

 Subway riding was another favorite--Annie, Whit and Andrew loved to try and balance and stand without holding on.  Fortunately we planned our subway rides at low peak travel times.  

 Even enjoyed some of the subway art

 Andrew was dying to eat something from a street vendor and was amazed at how many there are EVERYWHERE.  We settled for a pretzel in the afternoon.

 We took about an hour in the afternoon to hit the Museum of Natural History--Matt's plea.  He's dreamed of going there for forever.  I didn't' even have to feel guilty giving them hardly any money b/c when I got to the ticket counter the woman told me that the museum would be free in 15 minutes so we could either wait or just pay a few bucks for all of us.   SOLD!

 After the museum, we met up with working man Nate and went to Patsy's Pizzeria for dinner.  Delicious.

 Once dinner was done, we had less than an hour to be to our train...just enough time to go back and get some souvenirs.

Our kids, who NEVER (and I mean NEVER) sleep in the car were all asleep within 10 minutes of getting in the car back in New Haven.  I think they earned their exhaustion.  We arrived home right at 11pm.  Mary slept in til 11am the next day. :)

Whitney, Whitney...

Happy Birthday Whitney--the big number 5!!!!

Matt was in Chicago for her birthday so she got an extended celebration.

Her pre-birthday celebration was on Tuesday at Chilis!  She was loving it.

They even sang to her and brought her a big hot fudge sundae with 4 spoons--it was a shy girl getting sung to, that's for sure.

Then to open a few presents from mom and dad.

And eat some yummy ice cream cake

Then Friday, her real birthday she got her Ariel cake.  She was happy with how it turned out and so was I.  I think it was my fastest cake to date.

Happiness all around with presents from everyone but mom and dad.

We love our Whitney girl!

5 great things about Whitney--- 

a great sister, 

a friend to everyone, 

lover of her Twinkle Toes dance class, 

funny lady, 

dress-up queen