Early Summer 2025 Happenings

 The late spring/early summer was VERY busy in our house!

In April, we lost my mother-in-law Carole, which was a devastating loss to the family. The cousins all got to be together though, which was a bit of light in a dark time. 

I can't even look at this picture without tearing up. They love their Grammi so much.

We enjoyed track season this year. Grant really worked on finishing each 100 strong, rather than slowing down at the end. I think it made a difference because with each race, he got faster and set a PR!

Mom and Cory came up for Grant's confirmation, and we went down to Clover Road for some beers and some games.

I got to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom and my babies! So special!

We had a little pre-party before Grant's confirmation at our house. His girlfriend Taisiya celebrated with us!

Grant: Almost taller than the Bishop in his hat.

We took some pics in the church after his confirmation. Poor me and Nat. Never going to be tall!

Grant William Jerome Bailey with his godparents, Nauni and Uncle Coco.

Three generations of confirmed Bailey men!

After Grant's confirmation, we all went out to eat at Burton's in Framingham.

Nana and her oldest grandbaby.

Natalie also had her last spring concert ever! I will miss hearing her pretty voice. Look at that baby girl up there! She was the flower girl in my brother's and Brie's wedding back in 2010.

Ashland doesn't have a senior prom, so Natalie went to Holliston's senior prom with her bestie Kaavya.

Although Grant still had a few weeks of school left, seniors get out much earlier because some kids go to college over the summer, and those schools usually start in mid June. So graduation for the seniors happens a few weeks before the rest of the school gets released for the summer. This was my babies last last day of school together! Nooooo! This can't be real!

Our friends Kern and Dorothy came down for a visit and we went to Clover Road for a bit. I've said this a thousand times, but no one makes Todd laugh like Kern does. Brothers from another mother!

The week of Natalie's graduation was so much fun. Cory, Brie and the kids came in early to do a little vacationing around New England and their first stop was a Red Sox game at Fenway! 

Swales cousins in a hat golf cart! Who let Hattie drive??? 

Funny story- my bestie Sara and her fiancé Meg were at the game (unbeknownst to me!) and suddenly I get a text from her that said, "Is Natalie at the Red Sox game tonight?" I'm like... we all are!  So we met up for a drink!

Ahhh, there's nothing better than a beautiful evening at the ballpark.

Nope. No. No. No. No. No.

I'm just not ready. I thought I had more time!

How were we so blessed with this incredibly beautiful creature?

Oh my heart. All of my babies.

Nat and her bestie, Kaavya. Kaavya is going to UMaine!

Coco Brie and all of Nat's cousins - that's a good lookin' crew!

Last but not least, her favorite (ok, her only!) Nana!

The day after Natalie's graduation, we had a party at our house. Of course, it absolutely POURED the entire day. But that didn't stop Nat from having a great time with her aunt and great aunt, Nauni and Aunt Betty!

For some reason, we didn't take a lot of pictures all day! Too busy talking and opening presents!

But of course, later in the evening, there was a dance off. Boys, vs...

GIRLS! Girls rule, boys drool!  (Just kidding, I love my boys!)

In the end, it was a tie, and everyone got Bomb Pops because they were all such good dancers!

And then, the song of the night... Nana lip synched One Moment in Time by Whitney Houston. It was met with thunderous applause!

Before the Swales family left, we had some girl cousin snuggles on the back porch.

And then we had THIS! These guys are so funny!

Normally, Father's Day is at our house but since we just had the graduation party, and Anna and GoGo had a newborn, they decided to have a Father's Day party at their house! It was so sweet to see Bean meeting his first great-grandson for the first time!

Four generations of Bailey/Fitch's. Ya did good, Grammi and Bean!

Upon holding Henry, Todd said, "I don't think I've held a baby since Grant was a baby!"

It ALSO just so happened to be Bean's 89th birthday! So he gathered with 4 of his 9 grandkiddos for some cake and presents.

We love you, Bean!

Natalie finally got to have some baby Henry time, too!

Bean wasn't done - he needed some more Henry time. He read a really sweet letter to Henry from him and Grammi that had everyone in tears.

Three generations of Baileys looking so cute.

Additionally, someone celebrated another very important birthday!

He was hugging her in the previous photo but what you didn't see was that he was leaning his whole body weight on her in an attempt to annoy her. Siblings!

Happy birthday, baby girl.

Todd and I had some tickets to visit the mansions of Newport that we never used a couple of years ago, and thankfully, they never expire. So one Saturday, he and I went to Newport to visit the Breakers, which is the most famous of all of the Newport mansions.

The Breakers was originally the summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, and they purchased this home (although it was a bit smaller than this back then) back in 1885, but a fire in the boiler room destroyed it in 1892.

Richard Morris Hunt designed the current house which was built between 1893 and 1895. The Great Hall has 50 foot ceilings and the painting in the center mimics the sky above (without being an actual skylight!) and gives you the feeling of being outdoors.

This new house was very carefully thought out with 70 rooms and 138,300 square feet!  Because of the boiler fire to the original house, Hunt designed the new structure to be made of of steel, brick and limestone which were more fire resistant; utilities such as the boilers were smartly placed underground and therefore farther away from the house itself.

I absolutely LOVE the mosaic tile work on the ceiling here. You can see this area outside of the Billiards room.

The Music Room is one of the most impressive with it's blue-gray marbled walls from France. Many scenes from the HBO TV show "The Gilded Age" were filmed in this room!

While this room, known as the Upper Loggia has amazing views of the Atlantic, it does need a little touch up work as you can see above. The mosaic tile work on the floor is beautiful though.

One of my favorite things to see was the safe. I mean, isn't everyone's safe this big??? This safe is located in the Butler's Pantry - and the family's 1,000 piece monogramed Tiffany & Co. silver was kept here.  They also have a call box in this room - which in this day and age, isn't that impressive given we can just call or text someone upstairs on our cell phones. But "when one of the buttons in the house was pressed for service, a white disk would show which room the request came from." Then one of the staff of 40 could take care of the Vanderbilt's needs!

Believe it or not, this house, which is probably similar in size to my own house, is the Children's Playhouse Cottage.  It was built in 1886 to match the original Breakers that stood on this site from 1877-1892. 

The gardens at the Breakers are really very pretty and well manicured. Ernest Bowditch, a landscape designer and civil engineering designed this more than 13 acre landscape over the course of 20 years. 

And you can go out and sit on the grass for a bit to enjoy the beautiful day!

We hung out for a bit and soaked up the sun. You only get to see two floors of the Breakers, but you can see there are more floors above it. There are 8 family and guest bedrooms up there, and 33 (!!) servant bedrooms. But they're not for public viewing.

All this history made us hungry! So we went to the Black Pearl on Bannister's Wharf for some lunch and a drink.

Well, that's appropriate, as usual.

Oh my goodness, the hydrangea down by the ocean are just incredible! I've never seen anything like this!

While Natalie opened up presents on her birthday, we were too full for cake and ice cream. So we had cake and ice cream the following day. She wanted an angel food cake with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. Ok, this looks kind of sad but it was yummy!

Make a wish, baby girl! Grant is like "good grief, go ahead and blow those candles out already!"

We also went to Che's to grab some scratchies cause she's 18 now and she could buy them. I gave her $30 for her birthday specifically for this. She bought a few, and only won $10 total. She said, "Well now I know why we don't ever buy these!  You'll never win!"

We are allowed to work out of our Maynard office on Friday's now, and that office is near the Assabet National Wildlife Refuge so it's fun to go on walks during our lunch break. My co-worker John told me there was a pub in the woods... what? Here you can see the basement/foundation of Rice Tavern!

This tavern was building 1700 and stood here for 115 years! It was apparently a muster site in the War of 1812 and even pre-dates the Wayside Inn (which is a fantastic restaurant). It eventually became a farmhouse, but was torn down in 1942.

This beautiful girl and her dad also flew to Mizzou for orientation this summer, and she brought the cute backpack that Bean got her for graduation!

I did not go on this trip - it was just Natalie and Todd. But Natalie had the BEST time and it really solidified her decision to go to Mizzou! She made a lot of new friends, got to meet her roommate Lillie for the first time, and got to spend more time learning about Mizzou and the campus.

This will be her dorm!

It's so hard to believe she is going to live here and not at home with me.

"Mom, I wanted to show you this wall with Auburn and Mississippi State on it!" Go SEC!

Of course, these two had to hit up the Awful Waffle while they were there! They came home with these cool hats.

And then they sent me a selfie as they were about to take off from St. Louis and fly home to me!

In early July, I also lost my oldest cousin, Mike. My mom is one of 7 - and she falls right in the middle so half of my cousins are much older than me, and a few are much younger.  Mike is my Aunt Sara's son, and he was so cute. I'm gonna miss this face. 

Just about every year for the 4th of July, we go to Plymouth - and this year, Natalie had a special gift for Bean - a Mizzou grandparent shirt!

We spent some time at White Horse Beach which was infinitely less foggy and smoky (smoggy?) than when we went two years ago!

We also spent some time at the Great Island pond. Somehow, we had two giant floaties - a swan and a flamingo that made their way down to the pond with us.

Aunt Betty got us all some Independence Day lobsters! What a treat!

Bean says on Independence Day, nothing goes better together than some lobbies and a beer!

Hello from the Bailey's celebrating the big day in Plymouth!

KK said to Natalie - "You won't be able to get THAT in Missouri!" (And lobster is her favorite food on the planet!)

When you get a good grab of the lobster, you have to celebrate with a picture. Nicely done, Todd!

Grant, who isn't a fan of lobster had a hot dog instead. But he was super excited about the s'mores that everyone made after dinner!

KK was showing off her beautiful s'more! She and Todd had a "s'more off" where they each made s'mores and made Bean and I eat them. I'm pretty sure Bean at like, 5 s'mores!  But KK, that's pretty much a perfect looking creation! KK for the win!

We also went to Mousam Lake for our favorite weekend of the summer! Natalie had gone to the Dominican Republic with her friends and I picked her up from the airport on a Friday afternoon, but Todd and Grant went up ahead of us and enjoyed a nice day of boating with Nauni and Uncle Gordie.

But eventually, Nat and I made it and we enjoyed a nice evening by the fire!

Ahhhh, so relaxing at the Blue Moose!

There's always gonna be a good game of giant Jenga at the Blue Moose!

These two were talking so much smack but clearly Todd won here!

We went out on the pontoon boat on Saturday and we got to see a bald eagle flying overhead!

I mean. I just love Maine.

So do these two. We always have so much fun cooling down out on the lake!

The big Four giving peace signs while floating around Mousam Lake.

He didn't get enough of a cool down, so Grant jumped in the lake when we got back to the house!

After a day on the lake, everyone got cleaned up and Todd and Nat played some corn hole! Todd always wins!

And of course, more s'mores. The summer is all about s'mores!

Uncle Gordie took the kids out tubing on Sunday - which is something they had been talking about for weeks leading up to this!

Nothing but blue skies and a flat lake ahead.

The kids had a BLAST! Nat flew off twice and was super sore the next day but they just love tubing!

I love the pained faces ha ha.

After their arms simply could not hold on anymore, we went back to the house where Todd and Natalie floated in the lake for a bit.

Gordie, meanwhile, was sitting up on the stairs to the dock. I walked back from the house to the lake to see what everyone was doing, and sat down next to Gordie who asked me, "Are you a screamer?" Ummm, no what? He said, "Cause there's a snake over there!" Oh! There he is! I love snakes!

A game of giant Jenga between Natalie (5'5" tall) and Todd isn't the same as a game between Grant (almost 6 feet tall) and Todd. The rules allow Natalie to use the chair!

And there was another night of s'mores and conversation by the fire!

It's really the best weekend of the summer!

To round out the first half of our summer, Natalie went to Children's Hospital to finally have an ablation on her heart to hopefully end her Supraventricular Tachycardia, or SVT, which causes her heart rate to suddenly jump up to around 260 beats per minute for no particular reason.

The surgery was VERY successful! Her doctor sent her into SVT while she was on the table and they burned off the flap of cartilage a bit at a time until the SVT stopped. Isn't that incredible? Natalie said the hardest part about waking up from it all was the fact that she was intubated, so her throat hurt! But that was gone before they released her at the end of the day. She did so well, she didn't even have to spend the night!

On my way out of the parking garage at Newton Wellesley Hospital, there was mango on the ground next to my car. I didn't even know this but apparently, finding a mango can mean prosperity, luck and happiness! Well it was definitely fortuitous that Natalie had a successful surgery and didn't have to spend the night and had zero setbacks in the days following. Thank you, mango!

Last but not least, this summer was also about backgammon - specifically, Acey Doocey. This is a SERIOUS business in the Bailey house, and Todd, KK and Bean have been playing ALL summer. Don't be fooled by that cute, innocent face that Bean has. He's RUTHLESS. The man will cut you. He is a smack talker who learned from the best (Grammi) and he will not stop until he has achieved total world domination. 

Until next time, first half of the summer!