October 2020 Fun

I promise you with every ounce of me, that as soon as we are able, we are going to take off running (maybe literally) to our next travel destination!! But until then, we have spent a lot more time doing a whole lot of nothing, probably like many of you out there.

This actually happened at the end of September, but we had three large trees removed from our yard.  Two of them hung out over our neighbors house and they were very happy to see them go.   

I had to take a walk around the neighborhood while they were working on trimming the trees back because I just couldn't look!  We had a bunch of projects we are working on here at home in October including getting measurements for 8 new windows on our house that will be installed in December.

To start the month off, Grant had to have blood drawn so they could find out if he was still allergic to peanuts (spoiler: he still is.)  We spoke to his allergist about getting him into an immunotherapy program, but he's still on the fence about whether he wants to do it or not.

Oh my goodness, this boy is so funny.  "Turn this around, Grant. (Meal idea)"

Hmmm, okay, this actually sounds really good!  (Grant: "Oops, I spelled bread wrong!")  You'll be surprised to know this because he's a boy and he's second born, but Grant is actually a very good speller.  Despite the fact that he also spelled raisins wrong, ha!

This is the most colorful meal we have had in a long time!

Throw some grilled chicken on top and that's a decadent meal!  Thanks, Grant!

We had to move the kid's swing from the back yard to the front yard because the branch it was on in the back yard was removed. Todd spent several hours trying to throw the rope up with various heavy objects.  Good news, it was eventually a success!

After the swing was up and secure, our neighbor Brendan came over and was really swinging the kids all over the place - they were having a blast!

Y'all.  I am NOT artistic at all.  Like not even remotely good.  But my dear sorority sister Michelle is an artist and we all got together via Zoom to do a little Auburn door hanger project!  (This is not mine, this is Michelle's.  Mine wasn't bad, but certainly not blog worthy!)

I was so happy to see some faces that I hadn't seen in a very long time!

We did some yard work and set up some silly Halloween decorations!  Look at the big spider on the tree, ew!

The people who live behind us and through the woods had a really pretty tree in their yard.  I love it when the leaves are changing, but there's still some green on the trees.

Oh my word, we laughed so hard at this.  The vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence (above) was totally overshadowed by a fly that landed on Mike Pence's perfectly coiffed hair.  At first, I thought he was stuck there because Pence uses so much hair product.  Then Todd said, "Did the fly land there and die?"  He eventually flew away but man it was funny!

Your mid October coronavirus statistics for the US.

Look at this cute kid with this hilarious Tyrannasaurus Rex taco holder his Nana got him!  A few seconds later, he stuck his nose in the the T-Rex's mouth and said, "It's eating my nose!"

Fall has definitely arrived.  I'm holding on to any little piece of summer that I can.

In October, Natalie did ONE more theater production before she decided to take a bit of time off to focus on school.  This time, she played Martha, the house maid with a thick Yorkshire accent in The Secret Garden.  She was so funny- she actually watched YouTube videos of people with a Yorkshire accent, just so she could stay true to the character.  It was really awesome- her accent was great! As you can see, everyone had masks on.

When they were in a scene, they could drop the masks, but as you can see, the girls here are spaced far apart. It was a really great play!  The Prana pulled it off once again. 

The cast of The Secret Garden.

We have never been Booed before, so we were very excited to have that happen for the first time!  We really have the nicest neighbors!  They even remembered that Grant has a peanut allergy and didn't include anything that he couldn't eat. So sweet!

We did this, too!  

At one point this month, I remembered that I could go to World Market in Framingham and grab some our favorite German treats!  They have our favorite curry ketchup, Milka chocolate, Leibniz and even European Kit Kats!

I took this picture of the fire hydrant that sits between my neighbors house and mine because the tree in the background was the same color, but I think the best part was the little Lego (?) person that's laying on the fire hydrant!

Here's another thing I did in October... I got a mammogram, which turned into a biopsy because they found some calcifications on my right side.  I've had some issues with my right side for several years and had to have things checked out back in Germany but I never picked up my results when we left in January (just forgot that I even had it done at the Klinikum in Amberg.) Since Newton Wellesley Hospital didn't have a baseline to go on, they decided to do a biopsy just to be on the safe side.  Good news, I don't have cancer!  That was not a fun experience though. Although I always say that labor is the one true pain I measure all pain against and I'd rate this biopsy WELL below that experience!

I swear it snows EVERY October here in Massachusetts.  We got about 5 inches of snow on Grant's birthday!  What???  Meanwhile, we won't get any snow again until January.  

Grantie had a birthday at the end of October!  Hard to believe my little buddy is 11!  We had both families call in so we could sing him happy birthday and open some gifts with him. 

How is this little stinker already 11?  His request was chocolate cake with chocolate icing and cookie dough ice cream.

Opening presents on his birthday - what could it be?

When he opens presents, he jumps around A LOT.  It's hard to catch him in a halfway decent picture because this kid is always moving.

He wanted some gaming glasses to help with the headaches he sometimes gets because he sits at a computer all day (not really his fault as he does the full-time-at-home schooling this year.)

Speaking of the reason he does full time at home school... here is your late October Covd 19 statistics.

Thankfully MOST of the snow melted and the kids were allowed to go out trick or treating with the neighborhood kids.  It was cold though.  Here we have Natalie who is a zombie wooly mammouth and Grant, who went with the neighborhood theme of the wild, wild west.

Here we have Grant, AT, Natalie, AB and little Ava in the front.

Hilariously, Todd and I were sitting outside (10 feet away from the table that had candy on it) and suddenly I heard a "PLOP!"  A big hunk of snow fell out of the trees and RIGHT INTO MY DRINK.  

Todd was conveniently the plague doctor this year.

Brendan gave us some lights to light up our table because we have no street lights (or very, very few that don't shine very brightly) so no one knew we were sitting there in the dark!

We put a bunch of candy in bowls and people would grab a bowl, drop the candy in their bag, and then throw the paper bowls in the trash can.  Not eco friendly, but at least it was safe.

At one point, we could see Todd's breath through his creepy plague doctor mask - and when he shone the light on his face, it made it even creepier!  Later Grant said, "Are you smoking?"

Todd had a blast scaring the neighborhood kids from the lawn.

The kids disappeared and hit up the entire neighborhood before going to the neighborhood one street over to get even more candy.  I think they did ok!

This zombie wooly mammouth wrangler had a good night, too!  

And we're on to November!

September 2020 Fun

 What the heck. September is done already?  You mean it's fall?  That means winter is right around the corner! NOOOOO!

We kicked off September with a visit to Stone's Public House in Ashland for some lunch.  It was a nice warm day, and I'm hanging on to the warm days for as long as I can. I had a nice chicken, cheddar and chutney sandwich!  Can anyone hear the word Chutney and NOT think about the movie Legally Blonde???

After lunch, we went to do a little mini golf in Holliston.  There weren't many people there, so it was easy to socially distance.  They cleaned everything well (we always bring our own wipes anyway) and we wore masks anytime anyone came within 20 feet of us.  I know my Mom will ask- Natalie had some pain in her knee and it cracks all the time so she had a brace on.  We joke with her that she has arthritis!

The kids got a big kick out of the jumpy thing that's in the background here.  They had one of those at Playmobil in Nuremberg and they always used to have a blast jumping on it when we went there. No jumping for them today, though! 

Natalie working on her mini golf form.  In the end, Todd won, I came in second and the kids weirdly both tied for third!

The Kentucky Derby was postponed from May to Labor Day weekend this year... because, 2020.  I don't know if they always do this, or if because no one was allowed to go to the actual Derby, but they had an online app where you could place bets on the horses as if you were there in person.  Well, Todd and I have some experience with betting on horses at the Belmont Stakes, so we made a few bets.  This wasn't all of my winnings, but you can see I won more than I lost!  We HAD to place a bet on the WINNING horse, Authentic, because my mom's cousin Mike and his wife Janie own a small portion of the horse!  He wasn't favored to win (although he was high up there) especially because he came out of gate 16 - but he DID win!

After the Derby, we made some dinner... which was gonna be pickies.  You can see the leftover pizza in the pan on the right.  Todd had bought some popcorn for he and the kids (ewww... my Dad must be so disappointed that I never liked popcorn!)  But the Jiffy Pop aluminum cover broke open, so the popcorn was just flying everywhere.  Natalie knows her parents too well, so she grabbed a cup of water just in case there was a fire as Todd started trying to scoop up popcorn with a paper plate, declaring there would be no fire.  But of course, there was a little fire! No worries, we didn't require water to put it out.

Todd was just showing off to Brian and Mikey as we all watched (virtually together) the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins play in the second round of the playoffs  - two delicious German fest beers!  This time last year, the four of us were drinking many Maß of bier and dancing on tables with Hungarian Gronk and his crazy Hungarian friends!  Now, we are relegated to Total Wine's finest imports.

Hello busy, buzzy, bumble bee! I love these fall flowers!

We finally decided to go see Todd's parents, very reluctantly.  We decided to sit outside, play games and wear masks inside or when near other people.  This was SUCH a disaster and a serious hassle.  Here, Grant was playing a crazy game of cornhole!

Grant and Aunt Betty having deep discussions about geography.  (I'm not kidding!)

In September, we also had a couple of companies come out to give us an estimate to have a few trees removed.  You can see here that this one leans out over our neighbors house quite a bit.  Todd seems to think he can push it straight back up like it's the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Of course, some basketball was played in September. SWISH! He even painted lines on the driveway.  You'll have to stay tuned to October to see the line painting saga! 

Natalie had a lot of rehearsals and ultimately, a live performance of the classic 12 Angry Men, where she played Juror Number 1.  Notice her manly way of sitting.  She said she looked at her dad in the audience and did whatever he was doing! HA!  Naturally, she was great!

These kids did a great job, and unfortunately had to contend with the fact that the neighboring property decided to do their lawn work at the same time as the performance.  So they really had to project - I was proud of them for overcoming the noise!

The kids also FINALLY started school!  Ashland schools were delayed by two weeks so the teachers could have more time to work on planning for the school year. We opted for full remote learning this year, knowing that even in a hybrid model, the kids were likely going to have to go to full remote learning at some point anyway.  I work from home full time regardless of Covid, so it's not a huge deal for us. We are lucky that we have that option! 

Working at our own desks in our own quiet rooms is MUCH better than all four of us trying to work from home in a three room AirBnB.  We are thankful to be in our own home!

Hey guess what else happened in September??  The Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup! The playoffs were entirely played in Edmonton, Alberta.  It started with the Lightning beating Columbus in a FIVE OVERTIME GAME, before we plowed through several overtime games vs. the Bruins and the Islanders. It ended with the Lightning beating Dallas in 6 games.  The Lightning had a total of 8 overtime games in the playoffs and three of them were double overtime (plus the one 5 OT game!)  I was exhausted!  The Bolts winning the Cup was a bright spot in an otherwise yucky year.

Oh and I had a birthday but we don't have to talk about that.

Actually, there is a HILARIOUS story about my birthday this year.  When you get to your mid 40s, you just buy your own gifts, for the most part.  I usually buy things, then tell Todd to wrap them (I'm not wrapping my own gifts- I'm not a savage!)  So I bought myself some underwear this year.  Because... mid 40s.  I received the package in the mail, but I didn't open it - I just gave it to Todd to wrap.  So imagine my surprise when I pulled THESE out of the bag!  I promise you, I did NOT order these.  I was laughing so hard, I was crying!  I thought Todd got them as a joke and he said, "No! I just wrapped what you gave me!" 

The Bailey's of Towson visited in September, and we really wanted to go see them.  But we were just very nervous about it, so EVERYONE who visited went and got a Covid test.  Everyone was negative, thankfully which put our minds at ease (just a bit.) Grammi was happy to have four out of five of her granddaughters with her! And I'm sure by now you're starting to wonder if my oldest child has any other clothes.  (Eye roll.)  I promise she does, we just only happened to do things on the days when she wore this ONE particular outfit.  

I captured Lovey loving on his Lovey! Awwwww!!!!

Most of Grammi's boys are in this picture, except for the newlywed, Ryan and the SOON TO BE newlywed (okay, maybe not so soon) Gordon, who was proposing to his girlfriend Anna just around the time we took this picture!  We were so excited!

Helen brought the JUMBO JENGA and of course, there were a few rousing games played on the back deck.

Megan was intense- she means business playing with one hand behind her back!

We also had the cornhole set up on the right and you can see Grant digging into some snacks on the left!  

Jeanne says, "Watch the master at work!"  Hannah and Piper are trying to give her some tips!

That is ONE TALL TOWER!

I can't tell if Seth is having a snack here or laughing behind his hand at whatever move Natalie is making.

Me with my oldest niece, Megan. She's about a quarter of a century older than my youngest niece, Hattie.

Three generations of Bailey boys.

Three beautiful Bailey ladies - Kathleen, Aunt Betty and Helen.

Not to be out done by the beautiful Jeanne and Hannah, of course!

Natalie and her great Aunt Betty, who is not only her great aunt, but who is also a GREAT aunt!

Aunt Betty with her nephews, Steve and Todd.

Grant and Natalie in front of the fireplace at Warren and Carole's.  I have to give credit to Kathleen - she took almost all of these family group pictures!

And of course, the big four.  I always thought Helen and Steve looked alike, and Kathleen and Todd look alike!  (Minus the fact that she has blue eyes and Todd has brown!)

A Bailey kids on the stairs picture is a MUST for any family reunion!

Don't worry - Natalie brought the entertainment for the evening by singing Hamilton tunes!  There should be no video evidence of me, Natalie and Todd singing the Schuyler Sisters. NONE. ("And Peggy!")

Of course, I need to put in some current coronavirus figures.  This was as of September 23.

Projections by the beginning of the year.  That is terrifying.  Wear your masks!

This is kind of a throw back picture.  Todd had ordered me some Milka chocolate for my birthday, but since it was shipped from Germany, it took a while.  Imagine my surprise when I got FIVE candy bars!  Milka is by FAR the best chocolate in the world!

In the age of Covid, sometimes this happens and you don't really know why.  I went to Shaw's grocery store one day, and I saw this! I suspect it was because something happened to the freezer, but at the same time, if that was the case, then why is the meat all still there behind the curtains?

One weekend in late September, I let Natalie go to the movies with a friend of hers.  I wouldn't probably normally do that in this day and age, but there was a BTS movie playing and the band doesn't send their movies to any streaming service after a theatrical release.  So if you're going to see it, you have to see it in the theater.  So we purchased tickets ahead of time, and the theater was only at 40% capacity.  They don't serve or allow food or drink in the theater and you have to keep your mask on at all times.  I also told her she couldn't use the bathroom. Thankfully it was only an hour and a half long!  Anyway, there she is, waiting for her friend to show up.  I remember my own mom dropping me and my friends off at the Largo Mall theater to see movies when I was her age!  When did she get so big?

Last but not least... DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!!!  Nooooo!  Go away!  I know the evil Massachusetts winters are right around the corner!!!!

And we're on to October!