Went to Maine...

We took a trip up to Maine yesterday to do some shopping in the Kittery outlet complex and add a state to our list of states we've been to. It wasn't great weather, but we decided to go anyway. In fact, it ended up snowing. This is the first snow we've seen since last spring. It was actually kind of depressing and very cold last night.
The shopping complex was too huge to do it all, so we just hit a few stores. Then, we drove to Kittery point to see the harbor and some views. Maine used to sound so far away, but it turns out, it's only an hour from our house now. We must live very far away! ---I forgot to add this photo - here's our first snowfall in our yard!!!

Aunt Emmie is here!

My sister Emily came to stay with us for the week-end. She mostly came to see Grace in her Halloween costume. We are trying to make the most of the 4 days she is here so we've really been packing in the activities. We picked her up from the Manchester, NH airport last night and took her to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Scupper Jack's. This morning we went to Shelburne Farm and picked out 3 pumpkins to carve. Grace had a very hard time deciding which pumpkin she wanted, but finally decided on a little one. I got a tall skinny one and decided to carve it into "bampa Lyle" with a mustache. Emily carved hers into "mo Debbie" and Grace made hers into a cute face for all of her aunts. Grace also thinks that the big pumpkins look a little like "bampa Earl" and "mo Grandma."

This afternoon, we went to the barn and Grace was able to show aunt Emmie how she rides Tinkerbell. We were worried that she wouldn't get to do it with her arm, but it is healing really well and she is using it more now. It's also finally to the point that we can put some warm clothes on her to go outside.

After going to the barn, we came home and got ready for the ward Trunk or Treat. Grace went as Eeyore. The rest of us went as ourselves. This week has just been too crazy to come up with adult costumes. David had one ready to go, but I was too slow to get something together for Emily and me. Grace wasn't very happy that we weren't dressed up though. The party turned out to be really fun. Grace had a blast at the cake-walk and had lots of fun playing with her friends. She didn't get into trick-or-treating as much as she did last year. Towards the end, she warmed up to it, but it wasn't her favorite thing. We took our jack-0-lanterns and lit them outside our trunk and took some southwest white bean chili (recipe courtesy of the Covili's) to the chili cook-off. Apparently, our local New Englander's didn't like it as much as we do, so we didn't win.

Gracie's first ER visit...

I wasn't too sure that we should make this post. Normally you should make record of the first word, step, day of school, etc. David wanted to, so I guess I will do it. Well, you never want to go to the ER with your kid, but most people end up there at some point. We ended up there last night. I was at a fireside, Grace was staying home with her daddy because she had a bad cold. I got a message during the fireside after hearing the phone ring in the church hallway to "call David on his cell phone." I didn't think too much of it - maybe he had to take her to the doctor for her cold? That would be weird, but maybe? Then I couldn't get a phone signal in the church, so another member of our ward walked outside with me and we both kept trying until he finally got David on the phone. The signal was so patchy, all I heard was "Grace", "boiling water", and "ambulance." I officially started freaking out. Brother Gentile was extremely nice and offered to drive me to the hospital and help David give her a blessing. It turns out, that Grace had been helping David in the kitchen and grabbed a pot off of the stove to hang up on the rack. (She loves to hang up the pots after we do dishes.) She didn't know it had boiling ramen noodles in it. David half-caught her and at least knocked the pot out of the way of her face. They called 911 and rode in the ambulance to the hospital. She ended up with many 2nd degree burns and maybe one 3rd degree burn on her arm and small burn on her chest. She is supposed to heal well and she's been an awesome patient. She is now over her cold (in miraculous time) so she can just focus on getting her arm better. She was very happy to get bandaged last night and says "my arm ok" and "it feel better now." She was also very proud of her bracelet with her name and age on it. We are so lucky to have so many people around here who have offered to help us and who have checked up on us. It's rough to have something like this happen when you don't have family around, but we have unbelievable friends and they have all been in contact many times today asking what they can do. There really isn't much to do now except keep Grace's arm covered and clean for a couple of weeks, but it's nice to know that we have people we can ask if we need help.

Another One!

We've been hinting around about it on our blog and some people have been told, but I guess we should officially say that we are adding to our pack. Gracie will be a big sister sometime next May. The due date is May 16th, but everyone knows that is just a suggestion to the baby and they have their own plans. I went today to have an ultrasound to figure out the due date for sure since we weren't too clear on it. It's what we thought it should be, but it was nice to make it more certain and also to get a sneak peak at the little alien I'm growing. David and Grace came too and Grace was pretty excited to see the "baby in my belly" that is making me "not feel so good." Since we don't have a scanner anymore, this is a photo of a photo. Ultrasound photos are hard to see anyway, so this will be even worse. But, here he/she is. Can't wait to find out which one! I've been having a dreading feeling that I was having twins, so it was also relieving to see only one little body in there!

Saying Goodbye

Well it finally came time for my parents to say goodbye. While I know that they won't miss the New England weather, small winding roads, traffic, and rarely knowing which way is north, I know that they will miss Gracie. They may even miss Michelle and Me. I won't go so far as to say that my mother will miss Velvet and Shadow, but my dogs will miss my dad.

It is sad living so far away from family. Phone calls help, but it is sad that Grace doesn't get more interaction with her Grandparents. She especially adores her grandpas. Hopefully, despite the distance, she will maintain a strong bond with her grandparents and other family members, and maybe some day her Daddy can get a job closer to them.


Of course with all the rain this last week Grace spent plenty of time in her room playing with Bampa Earl and Mo Grandma. It will be tough for Mom and Dad to keep up with the spoiling she got from her grandparents.

The rain also allowed the Chapman's to pursue the intellectual side. A few rousing games of Scrabble got the blood flowing and and in the end we all won so nobody went home feeling sub-par. Even Grace got in the action, spelling her name and reading the dictionary getting ready for the next game.

Rain, rain, go away...

Well we are now on our seventh day of rain. We haven't seen the sun since last Thursday (8 days). What a great week for vacation and my parents to be out here visiting. While we have still done things we had planned, we have been thankful for our gore-tex jackets and warm cars and house. Grace has had a lot of inside time with Grandpa and Grandma and she is going to miss them when they fly back to SLC tomorrow.

I'm almost wondering if we are having a second flood. The Assabet has been going up and is much swifter now after a week of rain. It is almost as if God is punishing our fine city of Boston. The Red Sox get swept, the Patriots are decimated by injury and not looking very good right now, and the rain just keeps coming.

Michelle has had the worst of the weather has she has had to still teach riding lessons in the rain. Along with the nausea and lack of energy she is just hoping to make it through next week. Hopefully she will start feeling better soon. As for me, it is back to work on Monday and the daily grind. Vacation has been nice, even with the New England rain, but it will be nice to get back to work.

Finally made it to Boston...

We've lived here for 7 months and have never been to Boston other than to go to the airport and to a Red Sox game. Having company who wants to sight see has finally gotten us out of the house and downtown. Today, we rode the subway into town and went on a "duck boat" tour of the city. The duck boats are World War II amphibious vehicles. Some are replicas and some never went to war, but the one we rode in was a 63 year old tried and true war vehicle. It had been in the invasions of Sicily and Italy and a few other places in Europe. The driver drove us all over downtown Boston and pointed out all of the major sights and then took us right into the Charles river to see some more. Grace got to drive the "duck" in the river and was way excited about that. We feel better that we've finally seen some of the important places from the settling of our country and the start of the Revolutionary war (seeing as we live here and all!) We saw the Old North Church steeple (where the 2 lantern signal was hung - one if by land, two if by sea), Bunker Hill, and the areas first settled in Boston to name just a few. We even drove by the bar that the show "Cheers" was based on. We also spent some time in Lexington and Concord yesterday learning about the battles there and the people who lived there. I have never had a good U.S. history class in my school life, so it's really good for me to learn about it and even better to learn right on the spot where things happened. I feel very un-educated at times when things are new to me that should not be new at all. I guess I'm in a great spot to catch up on my American history. I don't have any excuses anymore, that's for sure.After the tour, we spent some time today at the aquarium downtown. Their big tank is really amazing as are their small exhibits. Of course, Grace loved it as she loves anything to do with creature life. I loved it too. It reminded me that I used to really love studying biology. I forget about my biology background and training and when I see something like the aquarium it brings back all of my college courses and subjects that I really used to think about a lot.

We Match!

Grandma and Grace must have called each other Saturday night because they both showed up on Sunday morning wearing Scottie dog outfits. They were pretty cute!

Will the rain ever end?

It has rained every single day that David's parents have been here (except of course, the day they spent working inside the garage.) Grace decided to be a die hard rider and ride Tinkerbell in a downpour. They had the most fun splashing through puddles and trotting over trot poles as they both got soaking wet. Poor Tink though; she didn't want to go back out to the pasture when we were done. She desperately tried to dive for her stall on our way out of the barn. That was Saturday. She's probably turned into a seahorse by now with the water that just won't quit.

Moving on up!

Well the Chapman's finally have a power garage door opener up and running. That was the one thing I told my Dad he had to help me with while he was here. This is the first house we have had we a power garage door opener and I know Michelle will greatly appreciate it come this winter. The job took about 7-8 hours total and it went fairly smoothly. We had to get creative to shore up the support for the motor mount, but once that was done it was fairly easy. Now if only we had a 2 car garage.

The garage project was about the only thing that has been good this weekend. The weather has not cooperated and it has rained all weekend. The Red Sox played poorly and got swept by the White Sox and the Utes had some questionable play calling in the end to to not be able to score on two different drives inside the 5. I guess the Utes are inexperienced this year, but I am worried that they have reverted back to the McBride era of lax attitudes and discipline.

I will have to update tomorrow about the great fun Grace is having with her grandparents. She sure is loving the additional people to play with.

The Chapmans have arrived!

My parents have just arrived for a 10 day visit so see the sights of Boston and hopefully take in some of the wonderful New England colors. Grace sure is happy to have "Mo Grandma" and "Bampa Earl" here.

FHE

Tonight we were invited over to the Doty's along with several other couples for Family Home Evening. It was a lot of fun to have dinner and talk with everyone and then discuss ways to get going on our food storage. Certainly the biggest problem Michelle and I have had is just knowing where to start and then finding the room for it and rotating through the stock regularly. I think that this group will be a lot of fun as we plan to meet once a month and cover various subjects. It was also fun for Grace as she now adores older girls and had plenty of kids to choose from. Michelle and I have been doing a better job of building of our food storage since moving to Stow, but we can do better. One thing we really need to do is get some water stored. We have a well on our property and if the power goes out we would be without water. We will have to get that done this weekend.

Beautiful Fall Afternoon

Everyone around here has told us that the autumn season is incredible. While the leaves have yet to start changing colors, the weather has been very nice with it cooling off substantially at night and high's in the low 70s. We took advantage of the nice weather yesterday in between sessions of LDS General Conference to walk down along the Assabet river by our house. While our dogs are under quarantine the Animal Control Officer said we could take our dogs for walks if they stayed on leash and we kept them away from other people and dogs. Luckily it is fairly quiet around our house so we didn't run into any other dogs. As we got to the bridge we saw two couples putting in with their canoes and it made me think that we need a canoe. I am sure the river is absolutely beautiful when the leaves change. Grace enjoyed our walk so much that she found herself a walking stick to use. She also wanted to walk Velvet (who is currently her favorite dog). Hopefully we can get a few more walks in before the cold weather really hits.

Sleep? Who needs sleep?

Yesterday was a difficult and depressing day for all of us. While trying to listen to LDS General Conference I was being worldly and watching/listening to the Red Sox and Utah Utes games. Both ended with the wrong team winning. The Utes have no offense this year and I have to wonder if the Yankees symbolize all that is wrong with America. I know my friend Jared would agree. Worse yet, Grace fell asleep at 7:45 PM last night but instead of sleeping through the night, she was up and ready to go at 11:00 PM last night. Since Michelle is having a tough time dealing with the pregnancy that meant it was "Daddy Time". After spending 90 minutes trying to get her to go back to sleep I gave in and we went downstairs to watch Grace's new favorite adult movie, Spiderman. Finally at about 2:30 AM Grace fell asleep and dad got a couple of hours of sleep before Grace was up and at it again. At least I was able to make Michelle breakfast in bed this morning to try and make her feel a little bit better.