SO Close to the Record

As of this morning in Lowell MA there were 111.3 inches of snow for the season (though it fell once in November, and the rest since Jan 20). The record is 111.5 inches. I assume that in Chelmsford (where we are, next town over) the amounts and records are similar.  I want everyone to read that number again. One hundred and eleven. Of course, that much snow is not on the ground. However, my shovel has touched that much and much of it is piled around my house (and intersections and parking lots, and, and and...). The thing about this much snow is that pictures are so hard to give perspective.  I'm going to try to post "before" and "after" pictures of sorts this time to try to give you an idea of what we are dealing with. It's been a crazy ride.  But, I do have to say- it damn well better snow another inch. If we are going to be this close, we better beat that damn record!!

Finn's school (before this storm). Those are swings

Finn's school playground. 

View from my bathroom wndow. The snow is obviously as tall as the window. This is from piling it there. To the left is my fence. You can barely see the top of it (it's a 4ft fence)

Another view from my bathroom. That is my enclosed patio

View from my kitchen window. Again, included sill so you could see how tall it is.

Look at the top of the umbrella. Again, from piling it up- moving it away from house

This is to the right of my back door. There is a fence over there. You can see the path towards the fence. We have started stepping over it.

From our main entrance looking out.

Not the same exact angle, but same spot in driveway.

Before we cleared the driveway. You can see how deep todays and how tall the pile already is.

I am standing on the ground (cleared off driveway). They are standing on the pile that is on ground the same height as the ground I was standing on.

One Year

Holy Crap- we have lived here for a year! It is so hard to believe and still seems so surreal at times.
I want to start by thanking all of the people in our lives who have made this transition easier for us. From the awesome going away party to family and friends visiting, notes and texts (I LOVE getting random texts) to new friends who have showed us around, showed us the ropes and given us oodles of great advice.

I can't exactly say that we are becoming New Englanders, but we are becoming comfortable.  As much as we've had issues with this house (and believe me, we've had issues galore!) we still love it and it feels like home. For those of you who have seen it, I'm sure you will agree it's very "us".

We really miss our friends and family back in the mid-west- and it is very challenging living so far away- however, we really are enjoying our time here and trying to make the most of it.  We've added some more sight-seeing to our list like taking the train to NYC,  Portsmouth, NH (a true gem) a pizza tour of the North End, a Red Sox game, some local college sports and more.  I've found an exercise class that I love (Go Jazzercise!) and have become involved in PTO and the local mother's club.

The kids are well into their spring/summer sports now. Finn is playing instructional t-ball (which is as adorable as it sounds), Declan is finding his niche and doing track and field (he's a 400 and long jump guy- jumped 8'10 last week) and Amelia is coming off of a very interesting season of rec softball. Luckily for all of us she's starting her new season of summer ball this week (the same league that we started with last year).

We are looking forward to exploring more of New England this summer- on our list for day trips are coastal Maine, Vermont and Providence, RI.  We will also be meeting some friends at Niagara Falls, Canada, and making the trip back "home".

Much love to everyone and keep looking on the blog for exciting adventures!!

Fall is in the air

 Everyone promised that the Fall would be beautiful here in New England. And although it has only technically been fall for a few days, so far I couldn't agree more! There are lots of apple orchards here and plenty of trees and already they are slowly starting to change color- and sometimes even smile at me!

School is in full swing now and all three kids are totally loving it. They are making friends and seem to be caught up academically so we are so happy for that.  Declan has started practicing (5 hours a week!) for a theater production. It's a Christmas show called "Dobb's Diner". It seems really fun and he loves it. He's also taking piano and so far, so good with that.  Amelia has had 2 Field Hockey games and while she's still learning, really enjoys it.  And Finn will start swimming in October. Busy and fun!

I have been busy trying to get involved with PTO, exercise class, and the local mother's club; basically ways to  try to keep busy and meet some people. As much as I love Finn, he's not exactly giving me adult conversation (though sometimes the stuff he says is amazing).  We spent a lovely day Sunday with some new friends and it was so good for us to feel "social". We are planning to host a Halloween party. It might be small, but it will be a fun way to get to know some people better.

The other thing that I've been doing is slowly work on house projects.  We lived in our house in Westerville for 8 years. Everyone knows I pretty much did not like the house from the day I moved in. However, there were several projects I wanted to do that would have really improved the house. The biggest project we wanted done was to have a patio put in.  Matt drug his feet about every house project, including that one. Finally we had it put in, and had landscaping done, last fall. We loved it. We had about 2 weeks to enjoy it.  I think that really kind of hit home with Matt that why wait to do some of the "fun" projects? Do them while WE get to enjoy them. So he's been on board with some of my craziness.  
Below are some pictures that show the "after" of the dining room as well as my new TV console. It was quite a find!! Once we paint the wall behind it I will do some after pictures of that room as well.

TV Console. Was to be sold as a sideboard, but I loved it for this!

New table, painted the built in hutch grey, removed the bookshelves, new hardware.

The "new" columns. Don't they look a million times better than the weird Roman ones?

The light is really bad in this picture, but on the right is my grandma's old curio. I did a shabby chic paint on it of grey and white.

You can see the curio better in this picture.
We even took the baby blue carpet off of the stairs! They really really need painted, but it's still a major improvement!

Celebrating our Independence... where it all began

Happy 4th Everyone- on the 5th.  I've been busy this week; actually not all on house stuff.  The week started with our usual barrage of contractors. We have a problem with our roof/gutters that is causing one of our plumbing problems- so I had gutter people here. Also had the irrigation company come and check all of their lines. The GC was here again measuring to see what we can do with our kitchen sink. The saga of this house continues- starting to verge on Money Pit.  But- we love the house- we truly do. So, hopefully we'll spend some money up front and give her love and she'll pay us back. 

Amelia had another softball game and we've been fortunate enough to hit it off with a couple of the families from softball. One was gracious enough to offer to meet up with us during the annual Fourth of July town fair.  They also invited Declan to their son's birthday party (which is going on right now). That made Declan more than thrilled. My little social butterfly was starting to get antsy with no friends.  

So- Wednesday night Matt actually snuck out of work early and we headed down to the "Common" (I have now lived in towns with Town Square, Uptown and Center or Common- but never a Downtown. Weird.).  It started out not so crazy busy- but as the night wore on- it definitely became more packed.  It felt a little like we were in the movie "Groundhog Day"; it was a very quintessential affair. Booths of food and games run by the local civic organizations, the band's majorettes performing on the Common- you get the idea.  Luckily our new friends met up with us and showed us around and introduced us to a few more people.  It was a nice evening.  

On our way home we noticed that the chairs were really starting to crowd the sidewalks.  As early as Saturday we started noticing people marking their parade spots with chairs.  As we got closer to home (and also the start of the parade) there were less chairs but the spot we were hoping for was getting crowded. So, in the spirit of the town we put down our chairs as well.

Now, understand that probably the first 5 people we met here asked us if we had heard about the parade. I guess it's one of the top ten longest continuous running parades in the country (the town is well over 300 years old) and it's a huge draw from communities around it.  Everyone raved about how wonderful it is.  Let me say- it was a very nice parade. It was a very long parade.  There were great handouts (not just candy) and several bands.  However it was also about 200 degrees street level and did I mention, it was a very long parade?  All kidding aside, it was great. Was it worth people putting their chairs out Saturday? Not sure- but glad we experienced it. Super fun!!  We also went to the pool and watched a movie. Today, we went blueberry picking. It's nice to just put chores aside for a few days and really just enjoy being a family.  More exploring to come- but for now, enjoy some parade pictures!

For the record, I did try to stick my foot out and trip "Pat". haha