June at last!

June!  June at last!!  June means the end of school.  Oh, wait a minute.  That means no school for 3 months!! Suddenly I am not really sure why I have been looking forward to June.  Oh yeah, now I remember Jim has the summer off to assist me in wrangling the kids.  WHAT, the whole summer off?!  Well that can't be right?  But it is!!  Don't tell anyone, but he, who took only 2 days off when Ben was born, gets the ENTIRE SUMMER OFF!!  Shhhhhh.... Thank Heavens for June!


If you are reading this blog you already know that we really enjoy packing a month FULL (and I do mean absolutely full) of events, trips, visits, etc... So I will skip with all the build up and just jump right in. 


First up was a long weekend visit with two of Jim's nephews, William and Tom.  We were fortunate to have good weather and basically showed them around our island of Jamestown as well as many of the "sights" in Newport.  We hit up some of our favorite eateries as well as an arcade the kids had spotted in downtown Newport.  Will and Tom had a blast as did we. They also were a huge help in managing the kids which I will admit was seriously a life saver.  William exhibited impressive skills in getting all the kids to actually eat everything on their plate.  Good Job William! We also were able to turn story time over to them.  That alone gained an extra 10 minutes of precious "me" time at the end of the day. 

Lunch at Ben's Chili Dogs!

   

All too soon the weekend was over and we dropped the boys off at the airport and picked Nanny up!  Nanny decided she wanted to come back up to see Lucy graduate from Kindergarten.  So who were we to say no! 

The Graduate

 After the ceremony, we had a class picnic at a local park.  Unfortunately when William and Tom left earlier in the week, they took the warm weather with them.  The picnic, while well attended, was not as much fun because we were freezing!?

Well the adults were freezing!  Nanny is convinced that we live in the Arctic!

June also means that Baseball is coming to an end.  While the sport has provided us with many hours of comedy (and pain alike), I think all in all the kids were happy with their experience.  Of course the best part of the season is getting the trophies!!  As you can see a little bit of plastic with your name on it can pay big BIG dividends.

 

Ben's trophy lasted approximately 5 days before the bat got "removed" from his players hand.  He assured me that I could easily tape or glue it back and therefore was "no problem".  I haven't broken the bad news to him yet.  I did make an attempt at re-attaching it with less then stellar results.  I have since purchased some different epoxy.  We shall see.  Lilly's team had a bit of a miscommunication with the trophy shop and therefore will have to wait a bit longer to receive them.  She wasn't happy about it and it "isn't fair", but oh well what is in life, right?

That brings us to the end of week two which is also Father's Day!  Since Jim had just purchased a kayak for his birthday he thought it would be best to have a low key Father's day.  The children had other ideas!  We ended up purchasing several gifts that would benefit all of us in one way or another.  Mostly in the form of "grill" items, and various baking and pancake mixes!  Got to love Father's day!

 

We dropped Nanny off and headed up to Boston for the week.  Even though we had just been to Boston in April we thought we needed to really get familiar with the city and what better way to do that then to embark on the Freedom Trail!

For those uninitiated readers, the Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile walk through the heart of Boston visiting historically significant sites that helped shape the American Revolution (16 in all).  Some of the sites include the Old North Church, Paul Revere's home, and the USS Constitution.  Jim was determined to visit all of them, but the children won out.  We did hit the majority though.

USS Constitution

Outside Faneuil Hall with our guide the "Great Patriot" James Otis

Of course we also saw some sites that weren't on the Freedom Trail. Like this ode to Macaroni and Cheese!

And what is a trip to the city without finding the "real deal" when it comes to sweets! After interviewing several people, in addition to consulting the rapidly dog-eared Frommer's guide, Jim settled on a coffee shop near our hotel.  Best Doughnuts EVER!

If you ask the kids what was their favorite thing we did while in Boston they will say, hands down, the Duck tour of Boston!  They thought it was the coolest thing they had EVER done.  Basically you get a driving tour of Boston but instead of a bus it is on a W.W. II style amphibious landing vehicle!! So not only do you cruise the streets, you also get to "splash down" into the Charles River and see another side of Boston. The kids even got to steer while we were exploring the river.

Beside the Boston Red Sox Duck

We also got to walk the warning track at Fenway Park during their annual Father's Walk the Park Day.  This was particularly a big deal for Jim because the last time we were in Boston we missed the 100th year anniversary tour.  It took him several weeks to let that one go.  So he was on a mission this time!

Lastly, we drove up to Concord and spent several hours cruising the historical sites there and the kids were sworn in as honorary Park Rangers complete with certificates, badges and patches! 

After almost a full week in Boston, we thought we would mix it up a bit and head on over to Nantucket for night to visit Jim's cousin Chris and his family.  We liked it so much, we stayed a second night!  Thanks Chris!

I know what you are thinking there can't be much left in June.  Surely they have done enough in one month that a few days off won't kill them.  But you would be WRONG!!  June means the America's Cup in Newport.  So we grabbed another child (don't you just love play dates) and headed on over to check out some races.

In front of the Red Bull Boat

Last, but not least, (I promise) was a quick camping trip with Cousin Patty and her family.  It was seriously a quick trip because they were only staying one night!  I tried to persuade Jim to just set up the tent in the back yard, but he had his mind set on checking out a camp ground just a mile from our house.  Patty and I had decided we were going to go out for a glass of wine, so we didn't really try very hard to talk him out of it when a few of the kids started to get cold feet.  We decided to eat, bathe and dress the kids for bed before shuttling them over to the already set up camp site.  Here they are enjoying making some s'mores.

Shortly after this photo was taken, Patty and I gleefully said our goodbyes and headed home.  By this time we ditched the going out idea and settled into a glass of wine in the kitchen.  I think we had about 45 minutes before the phone started buzzing.  A few text exchanges later, we drove back over and extracted one child with bloody nasty knuckle gash (that probably needs stitches, but we all know that isn't going to happen) along with two freaked out children.  It is amazing how badly it can all go wrong so fast.  Lilly and Abbey were the only ones to stick it out.  Sigh, oh well at least we had one glass of wine in relative peace.

July is JAMMED PACKED.  I mean what else would you expect from us?