Late August Weekending

Celebrating 

Scott's birthday was on Saturday. All he wanted was a hike and go to Doro for tea and a mid morning treat. So we did. 

This walk around the resivour is 4 miles. It's flat but not paved so we put on our hiking shoes and loved this cool, crisp morning in the woods! 

And then to Doro. We sat outside and I had my favorite tea in the world, London Fog with steamed whole milk along with a mid morning treat : pistachio chia seed pudding.... yumm! 

Finding 

I found the most amazing find at a thrift store on the way home when I just 'ran in for a quick minute!  

The afternoon was filled with a bunch of things I wanted to get off my list and was so glad I did: 

~ food prep / my snacks for the 5 day school week coming

~ all of the laundry and ironing

~ a heavy lifting workout

~ picked up a huge stack of books at the library I had on 'hold' for my week at school 

~ wrapped his present 

~ visited my parents (and came away with an armful of hydrangia to dry for the fall mantle) 

~ annnnnnd... baking Scott something yummy and homemade for his birthday that we'd have later after dinner: 

Baking

{more} Celebrating 

Blessing

I'll share more just as soon as I can in an upcoming post but we had our Back to School Blessing. 

Things not pictured this weekend: 

 

~ our last time at church with all 4 of us (Abigail is going back to college next weekend) 

~ sunday afternoon was school work, school work, school work (I fogot how much it takes to get it all up and running during back to school) 

~ a quick pop in my classroom with Scott to hang some things and organize some things 

 

Let's Do Fall!

I am basically now running on creative energy. Even though it's hard to be back, I feel so good thinking about school, beginning to figure out the needs of my students, and beginning planning again. It's a creative joy! 

Oh sure, I will get tired of it eventually but that back to school -ness is real and I love coming up with things, thinking quick on my feet all day long, making adjustments as I teach, and just being back in the classroom. 

I've even had more energy at home. Tonight after dinner I asked Anna and Abigail to help me gather anything with strawberries on it and bring it to be packed away until next July. On a school night! I'll be starting to think about fall decor around here this weekend. I'm using all of my antiques and as much nature as I can use. I guess all of that back to school creative juice is also got me motivated at home. 

I love this time of year. There is so much to look forward to! All of that autumn weather in New England. I can hardly wait! And I'm not going to waste one minute of it! Starting Friday evening... let's do fall! 

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school and 

I

Am

Tired! 

and a bit overwhelmed getting used to the new schedule. It'll take a few weeks. And all will be fine again. But I can't wait for it to be the weekend! 

Oh!

But my fourth graders are the most darling and we had the best day! I'm going to love them!  

This is me about 5 minutes before the start of school bell rang. And this is my team: Amy and Brian. 

Meanwhile... (and Anna's Adoption Day)

Oh goodness. I feel like I haven't blogged 'regular' things in so long! Thank you for sticking with me for all of those 30th Anniversary posts and all of that Hawaii. I always want to get all of our memories on here so that we can go back and look at them. 

But I am also glad that we are 'back to normal'. 

We came home from Hawaii and I jumped right back into my classroom set up. Not full days. I like to work and set it up in little bits. Really little bits. I get an idea and then I go make that idea happen. And them I'm back home. 

So yes, all of that has been going on. 

In all of that we celebrated Anna's adoption day. 

It's a really big deal in our family. It's almost like a childs birthday feeling as a Mama. It's the day we held her for the first time. It's her 'gotya day'. 

Here are some past posts on her Adoption Day: 

Adoption Day Videos 

Dear Chinese Birth Mother 

Chosen

Adoption Day 

10 Years of Forever 

(there are so many more - if you go to the subjects below you can read "The Story of Anna" - just click there) 

I made a suggestion to Anna that we might want to go to a museum. She loved the idea and we had the most lovely afternoon at the Wadsworth Atheneum. We saw painting by artists such as: 

~ Claude Monet

~ Pierre Renoir

~ Georgia O'Keeffe

Years ago I took the girls and they were so adorable! 

2015

2011

It was a rainy cool day, perfect for a museum. 

Monet... oh my! 

Silly girls acting this one out! 

This was by far my favorite this time: 

And then we had an early dinner at a Chinese Restaurant. 

Dear Anna, 

Words can not explain how much you mean to us. We are so very blessed to be your parents and are grateful for the miracle of adoption. You are our. We are yours. Forever and Forever. 

Myths of Maui Luau