Shoulder update

Last Friday Kent hit his shoulder and went to urgent care.  After a long weekend in pain, today he had his appointment with the orthopedist.  The orthopedist confirmed that it was indeed fractured.  I highlighted in yellow where the doctor said the bone had fractured off.  The good news, no surgery.  The not so good news...6-8 weeks for the bone to mend, a couple more months after that for the muscle to heal, and a full year before he will stop hurting.  He has to ice, medicate, and live carefully but not immobilized.  He can't lift kids, mow lawns, snow blow driveways, or really any manual labor with that arm.  It is going to be a long year for both of us.

Vermont

On Friday night I decided I wanted to go to Vermont.  So Saturday after football and field hockey I packed the car and drove (Kent's arm still kills) the 5 hours.  We stayed overnight in Littleton, NH because it was one of the only vacancies in the whole region!  The next morning we drove through the White Mountains and over to Stowe, VT.  We took a beautiful scenic drive in the Green Mountains.  The colors were astonishing!  The pictures don't show up as vibrant on the blog as they really were.

For the kids, we stopped at the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory tour.

We visited the flavor graveyard.

And we got a free sample at the end of the tour...Maple Me Happy, which was a maple flavored ice cream with dark chocolate shavings.  It was scrumptious!

Up the road we stopped at the Cold Hollow Cider Mill.  It is a huge specialty store with a working cider mill.  We sampled some freshly pressed cider.  Then I got my authentic Vermont Maple syrup and some Apple Cider syrup.

Then I drove the 4 hours back home.

And now Vermont is checked off my list!

Indian Summer day

Today the temperature was in the mid 70's.  So when the kids all got home from school I packed them up in the car and headed out to Compo Beach in Westport for a little beach time.

Sawyer brought his football along.  I had to hold Josh a lot, so we only had a little makeshift football throwing.

McKinley finally got tough enough to go into the cold water.  She played in the sand for most of the time.

Hayden was back and forth between water and sand.

The three of them enjoying the ocean.

This little guy hung mostly on the blanket and grabbed fists full of sand and rocks to eat.

We stayed until the sun had almost set.

When it was time to go Hayden kept chasing the seagulls and had to be dragged (literally) back to the car.  We are going to miss the ocean very much.

Kent stayed home and nursed his shoulder, which the doctor said has a little fracture and perhaps some muscle separating from the bone.  He sees an orthopedist next week to determine the best course of recovery.

1 year olds

We are coming up on Josh's 1st birthday.

When we look at him at different times we see a bit of a different child each time.

These pictures are of each kid at their 1 year old mark.

I can see a bit of Josh in each of them.

McKinley...of course.

Sawyer

Hayden, who had a cold at the time.

Josh

Walking!

Yesterday Josh decided to go for it!  He's off!  We all clap for him every time.  I love how excited the big kids are for him.

Literary Littles

I took my "only child" to the library for the 1-2 year old class.  They sing a lot of songs, have puppets, read a story or two, then play games.  All in the matter of 30 minutes.  I did similar classes with McKinley and Hayden.  I remember taking Sawyer a few times, but we took a break after he started walking because that's when the trouble-gene activated and he wanted nothing to do with sitting still and listening to stories.  Oh boy!

30 minutes was a stretch for Josh's attention span, but I think it was good for us to get out and do something literary.  He is just starting to make tiny steps on his own, so we'll see if we can keep going once he's a confident walker.

Doesn't he look so smart reading a book at the library?

Dream Vacations

I asked the family yesterday where they would go on vacation if they could go anywhere in the world:

Kent: top of a mountain

Heather: England

McKinley: Hawaii

Sawyer: Utah (what?!)

Hayden:  the place with the sea glass (Prince Edward Island- that's my boy!)

Josh: no comment

Hayden came home today from school with a drawing he made of us on vacation at "the sea glass place."

I'm so glad everyone loved my "Anne" vacation as much as I did!