August and September Happenings

The first day of school finally happened!  They actually went back to IN PERSON learning in late August, not long after we got back from Iceland, and I have to admit, I was a little bit sad.  I weirdly kind of liked having them around.

Obligatory first day of school picture.  Natalie started 9th grade and Grant started 6th grade.  Everyone said, "Awww it's so sweet they are holding hands!"  Do not be fooled.  Natalie is most assuredly squeezing Grant's hand with every bit of strength she has in an attempt to torture her brother.

Everyone on Facebook was taking pictures of kids in their masks, so of course, we did too.

Both kids took the bus - Grant was able to take it with his friends Aidan and Kelsie.  Neighborhood friends are the BEST!

Of course, having NOT been around other humans for a year and a half (other than the four neighborhood kids he hangs out with), Grant was in school a whopping TWO DAYS when he got sick.  He had a fever and was very tired, and was alternating between being hot and cold but otherwise had no other symptoms.  We thankfully have a bunch of at home tests (plus he went and took a real one) and he was negative for Covid.  His birthday in October can't get here soon enough!

It was a very weird bug that lasted maybe 36 hours, and none of the rest of us got it, so although it was postponed, we did eventually get to go down to Plymouth for Labor Day weekend.  We went to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and it was AWESOME.  Best Marvel movie yet.  Well, the most action packed, anyway.

My sweet in laws and sister-in-law Kathleen had a little birthday party for me!  The lemon Bundt cake with a limoncello icing made by KK was AWESOME.  If you celebrate a birthday at their house, it's guaranteed you must wear a funny hat!

We also played a lot of games - including Acey Deucey, in which I lost to my dear mother-in-law.  Warren is the champ here, though.  The younger Baileys need to up their game!

In September, the supply chain issues continued.  Here, Shaws was out of Hot Cheetos - and I think months later, they still haven't restocked them.  Grant was very disappointed.

Football season started and of course, we had to celebrate our Super Bowl win from last February in Tampa. Go Bucs!

Natalie started work on the Prana production of Annie (she's on the FAR right in the back).  She was (shockingly to her) cast as the star of the show - Annie! She actually auditioned to be Miss Hannigan which is my favorite role EVER, but the director Roberta chose her to be Annie. There were a billion kids in this production.  So many orphans!

When the Pats had their first home game, everyone was freaking out because there was what appeared to be a commercial jet accompanied by two fighter jets flying SUPER low around Metrowest.  I knew immediately what was going on but a lot of people were worried!  The big plane wasn't a commercial jet, but rather a Boeing KC-46A Pegasus that belonged to the Air Force.

Eventually it was my real birthday and Todd made me my favorite meal - chicken piccata! He really makes the BEST!

After cake and ice cream, I opened some awesome presents.  The kids made THE funniest cards for me.

I was ROLLING!

This old lady got a little garden chair so I can pull weeds without my breaking my (already poor) back.  This is 45, people!

I'm not too old and uncool though because I got a Butter box by BTS!  Natalie and I did a whole unboxing. I have no idea if she put it up on social media because I haven't seen the video since, ha.  I'm smooth like butter!

Alas, my big birthday present was getting to go down to Florida to see my LBPs, who I hadn't seen in literally, YEARS.  My flight took me through Miami on the way to Pensacola.  Miami is a bright city!

When I arrived, I had a beautiful and fun birthday table all set up!  Complete with my favorite beverage!

We stayed up ENTIRELY too late the first night I arrived (I arrived so late anyway) but thankfully Auburn wasn't playing Penn State until the evening game, so we got to enjoy a beautiful midday from the balcony of Lisa's family's apartment. Because Tropical Storm Nicholas had hit nearby Louisiana only a few days before and was taking her sweet time departing, our weather wasn't GREAT all weekend.  We didn't really mind though because of Covid.  I only left the apartment twice all weekend - once to go to Publix and once when Lisa and I went to the beach at sunset after everyone had left. We even ordered-in food all weekend!

The apartment has a lazy river! My kids would go bonkers for this place.

This is why I love my LBPs.  Bama was playing the Gators, and Lisa was screaming at the TV, much like I do. People just don't understand our passion for college football!

Ok this was my absolute favorite sign from College Gameday.  Auburn claps when the plane lands.  In Germany, that is totally NOT even an insult!

Ok people, the party has already started for me and Ayala!

The only this missing on this beautiful weekend was the 4th LBP, Hope! STUPID COVID.

My girlies got me an AMAZING cake from Publix.  Honestly, if you've never had a Publix bakery cake, you MUST.  They really make the BEST.  Both of my wedding cakes were made by Publix, not even kidding... they are THAT good.  I wish we had Publix in New England!

No one gave me an unsportsman like conduct call for this.  

Now THIS should get a 15 year penalty - being 45 years old!

This might be my most favorite picture from the weekend.  Lisa was making a drink over by the bar, and Ayala was taking some pictures over by the window, but she could see Lisa in the reflection, so Lisa decided she would hide behind the tree so maybe she wouldn't be seen in the pictures!

Finally the game started and Auburn was playing like... well, they were playing like Auburn! This is me demonstrating (errrr... exaggerating!) how down Shedrick Jackson was when he lost the ball and Penn State ran it back for a touchdown, which was ultimately overturned, thankfully. HE WAS THIS DOWN!

Awww. Love my LBPs!  Auburn didn't win - we lost 28-20 to number 10 ranked Penn State but at least I got to see my besties.  I hate preseason rankings.  They mean nothing and they need to go.  

The next morning, we were treated to a crazy dolphin show!  They were literally leaping out of the water, and swimming (at times) super close to the shoreline.  You can see one here in the distance, midway to the horizon.

Hey, how about a little hair of the dog!?

We spent the entire day in our pajamas, having a spa day and looking utterly ridiculous!

And of course, we had another beautiful sunset.

Alas, Ayala had to leave and head back to Fort Lauderdale, but in the evening, when it was finally less crowded, Lisa and I went down to the beach to enjoy the sunset and moonrise.  This is the building her family has a condo in!  It's so beautiful!

Ahhhh. The water was SO warm. I was so mad I didn't get to swim in it!  Too many people and too many showers from the nearby tropical storm.

Well that is SOME sunset!  There were a few guys out in the water doing some fishing and although the water looked a bit rough, it seemed so peaceful.  This was the view if you looked to the west down the beach.

And this was the view to the east with the harvest moon rising! Stunning!

While we were at the beach, the kids were looking at the moon through Grant's telescope back in Massachusetts.

Natalie got a peek at the moon, too.

I didn't want to say goodbye - Orange Beach is just so beautiful!

But alas, I had to get home to my babies.  My flight from Pensacola to Reagan National took us on a north to south approach, and I was on the left side of the plane so I got a great view of DC, and here, the Lincoln Memorial.

And there's the Washington Monument and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial (or as we used to call him when we lived here, TJ) at the Tidal Basin.

We had just pulled back from our gate when we got told there was a ground stop for a VIP in the neighborhood.  Everyone knew that President Biden was on his way back from the UN Summit in NYC, and here he was, flying past us on Marine One (with it's extra decoys) from Andrews AFB to the White House!  The delay only lasted maybe 5 minutes. They're very efficient about that in DC.

Meanwhile, Grant had his first cross country meet, coming in middle of the pack, which is pretty good considering he's a 6th grader running against 7th and 8th graders!

And we started to get our first signs of fall.....

One day, I was walking around my neighborhood when I saw a flying tree!  What?  Hilarious!  My neighbor Jeff just happened to drive by and he rolled down the window and said, "I don't think I've ever seen a flying tree before!"

Meanwhile, when I was gone on my trip to Orange Beach, my kids thought it would be funny to surprise me upon my return and put Pennywise in my silverware drawer.  Why are my kids so mean to me???? I hate clowns!!!

The weekend after I was in Orange Beach, Todd went down to the Cape for a golf and beer fest weekend with his friends.  They rented a house and there was foosball and a pool table in the basement!

They played some golf, they drank some beer.  Here he is with Cooch, OB, Mike and Rob at the Cape Cod Brewfest. 

Todd said they only gave out these super tiny little beers (samplings) and he needed to drink about 40 of them.

They played a LOT of golf.  Joe joined them this day - he errr, wasn't feeling so well the day before! It's good to see the Wilmington crew (mostly) together again!

Todd did THE funniest thing for his guys weekend - he got a Cameo from Shooter McGavin himself, Christopher McDonald!  Although he totally did the entire Cameo as Shooter, of course.  Todd's friends thought this was HYSTERICAL.  He was apparently in Italy filming a movie! Todd - you're the man!

Also in late September, the Tally family went up to Honey Pot orchards in Stow and took Grant with them. I doubt he remembers going apple picking there when he was little! He brought back a big bag of apples - stay tuned for another post which features what I did with them!

OMG look how little they were way back in 2012!  Now he's a giant and climbing the trees at the same orchard!

In our yard after what felt like the rainiest summer EVER, Todd dug up this massive mushroom.  I texted him and told him to take a picture of him trying to eat it, but make sure I was in the background!

Grant is progressing nicely on his immunotherapy treatments for his peanut allergy!  He takes his homework with him when he goes to Newton Wellesley every two weeks to up his dosage. 

Grant had yet another cross country meet in Medfield that we went to after work one day.  3-2-1 GO!  Girls and boys raced together here.

And they're off!

Here he comes after about the first half of the race.  They only race about 2 miles or so in middle school.

And here he is, getting his popsicle stick at the end of the race from the guy in the yellow jacket.  I'm so proud of him - he didn't want to do cross country at all, but he did better than he thought he would do at every race.  I told him Pop Pop would be so proud of him!

And we're on to October!

Reykjavik, Iceland (Day 2)

Our flight back to Boston didn't leave until 5 pm, so we had the morning to stroll around Iceland, grab some lunch and then head to the airport.  We had to be out of our AirBnB before that, so we tossed the suitcases in the car and decided to finally take that Free Reykjavik Walking Tour!

I know I've said this before about so many places we have visited, but you MUST take these free walking tours because they're chock-full of history and interesting facts, and never more than 2 hours long.  We met up with the tour in Austurvöllur, which is a pretty square that is surrounded by the new Parliament building and the Cathedral.

Our friendly guide was Eric - not his real name.  Actually it WAS his name, but it was short for a MUCH longer Icelandic name that he declared would be on the test at the end of the tour (Eiríkur Viljar Hallgrímsson Kúld - phew!)

Our first stop was the location of the original church (Víkurkirkja), which had been located on the Aðalstræti since the beginning of Christianity (or so it's thought - the first record of it was around 1200).  There had also been a cemetery here, but when the church was heavily damaged in a big earthquake in 1784, the re-construction of the church led to the discovery of more graves.  So it was decided that they would move the new Cathedral down the street a few blocks.  This picture is where the original altar of the church had been.

You will find colorful, corrugated iron buildings all over Reykjavik.  This material arrived in Iceland sometime in the mid 1800s and it was placed over existing homes as an added layer of protection from the harsh Icelandic elements. Look at those doors!

There's a little area around Mjóstræti (street) that has a lot of examples of structures that were built before the Great Fire of 1915.  The Great Fire destroyed much of the city center, but this area was spared, including the home in the picture above this one.

If I lived in Reykjavik, I would definitely have blue corrugated iron on my house!  The building on the left is actually a super cool B&B.  Next time!

Hey, there's a little Viking boat on top of that building! Our next stop was Ingólfur Square, which is named after Iceland's' first settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, who settled here in Reykjavik back in the late 800s.  More on him in a bit!

Ingólfur Square is the home of the city's Christmas market (although obviously not in August) in which they set up a big ice skating rink.  Maybe Grant is pretending to ice skate here!  All measurements and building numbers around Reykjavik are measured from this square.

Austurstræti is the "main street" of Reykjavik and it extends out from Ingólfur Square.  This is where you'll find most of the shops and restaurants.

Including the American Bar.  What???  The best part is that they consider themselves a sports bar and then basically just show a lot of premier league soccer games ha ha.  Their website says, "American Bar captures the American spirit; land of the free -, home of the brave" (Queue eye roll!)

Moving on.... we made our way toward Arnarhóll, which is across the street from the Prime Minister's office.  The current Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir lives in her own home, but she works in this unassuming building.  The office of Prime Minister is the most powerful in all of Iceland (above the President, which is largely ceremonial.)  Interestingly, they also do not have term limits as long as their party has majority support in Parliament.

Over on Arnarhóll, there is a statue of Iceland's first settler and favorite son, Ingólfr Arnarson.  Eric was funny - he said the people who made this statue ensured that Arnarson was shown as an incredibly handsome Viking - even though there are no pictures or drawings of him!

Arnarson was the first European settler, but it's believed that Irish monks seeking solitude had already been on the island of Iceland (which they called Thule) - and they promptly fled the island when the Pagans arrived.  He named the city Reykjavik, which means, "Smoke Cove."

The National Theater (the gray building on the right) and the Culture House Museum are two really unique looking buildings.  The National Theater was designed to look like it had volcanic basalt columns on the façade.

Polar bears aren't even native to Iceland and they don't actually have any in the entire country although sometimes they show up on the northern shoreline. But I'm glad this guy has his mask on!

I needed to see my favorite statue EVER one more time, the Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat. Being a civil servant is a thankless job.

Eric ended our tour down at Tjörnin Pond and pointed us toward the Reykjavik City Hall so we could use the public bathrooms and check out the REALLY big relief map of Iceland!

The topographic map of Iceland is over 75 square feet!  

From the Reykjavik city website (and the placard on the wall in the room), "The model is in the scale of 1: 50,000 but the elevation is double so that the height scale is 1: 25,000."  I found that VERY interesting!  The contour intervals are 20 feet.

The model took over 17 "man" years to make - four men took more than four years to make this.  It's also mounted on mobile frames so it can be moved out of the room if the city needs the space for meetings.  Above is the area near Vik and the Dyrhólaey Peninsula that we were at only a few days before this!

After our city hall bathroom and map break, we walked by the Cathedral one more time.  I wanted to go in, but we were on a tight schedule as we needed to get some lunch before we drove to the airport.

And where did we go for lunch?  Well naturally, we hit up the Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur for some traditional Icelandic hot dogs!  This little stand has been around since 1937!

They're quite proud that former President Clinton made a visit here - and I thought that was super funny.  

The term "Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur" means "The Best Hot Dog in Town."  You can get it with ketchup, sweet mustard, fried onion, raw onion and remolaði, a mayonnaise-based sauce with sweet relish.

It's a popular little stand, but the kids did NOT want hot dogs.  What makes these dogs so special?  They're made of (errr, mostly) lamb!  I didn't notice an overly lamby taste... I thought it was really good!

Grant wanted no part of it... he just wanted to get Subway.

So of course, we had to go get Subway for the kids.  As we walked up toward Hallgrimskirkja, we passed this store which was across the street from the Prime Minister's house.  More corrugated metal and I just love that little balcony up top!

These crazy kids chose Subway for lunch.  Of ALL the things they could eat in Iceland, including hot dogs!  Natalie was reminded that European Subway shops do not have ranch dressing!

I didn't want to wait inside of Subway as I was not paying, and I had already eaten, so I waited outside and captured this really cool photo of one of the flower planters with Hallgrimskirkja in the distance!

Alas, it was time to head toward Keflavik to return our rental car and get to the airport.  Here we are entering Reykjanesbaer, an area made up of three towns -  Keflavík, Njarðvík and the village of Hafnir.

And we had to stop and get gas in the rental car.  The kids wanted me to take a pic of the Bonus pig, which they enjoyed and laughed at the entire week.  Is that pig drunk???

We returned the rental car and made it through the check in line and security before getting into the terminal.  Exit to Iceland... does this mean I can stay?  Do I have to go home???

The flooring in the spot where we stopped to wait until they announced our gate had some kind of tiles designed to look like faux pebbles and I thought that was pretty cool.

I... don't have a lot of words for this one. But thanks?

I ran back to grab some Coke Zero for the flight (ugh, Iceland Air has Pepsi products!) and I grabbed a Gull while I was at it.  I miss this about Europe.  They just cracked it open for me at the convenience store and I walked away with it!  Also, I've been to all of the destinations above my head, and I would not have minded hopping on LH2469 at this point.

We camped out here before they announced our gate...

...which turned out to be 12 miles away from where we were waiting, and the line was a mile long, no exaggeration!

The airport workers PROMISED all of us that they would hold all flights (it didn't matter for us because our flight hadn't started boarding when we got through passport control.)  Meanwhile, they also had to remind us of what we were leaving behind (Seljalandsfoss!)

Bailey's boarding the flight home to Boston.

Iceland Air isn't serving meals right now, except for small boxes for kids like, 10 and under, which somehow Grant qualified for.  He actually ate it all up!  It was a crustless turkey and cheese, a Babybel and an orange carrot juice!

Todd ALWAYS winds up sitting behind someone who wants to put their seat all the way back.  Well after ALL these years of traveling together, we finally got smart and had me sit in front of him because I NEVER put my seat back.  Of course, the guy in front of me did and it left me with NO space. I don't know how normal sized people travel.

I had purchased some cinnamon rolls in the airport for the kids - "Grant, smile!"  (He was making this face on purpose. I'm not sure what he was even looking at!)

There were no Northern Lights on the way home, but the clouds sure were pretty.

After we landed, I took this picture of the route we flew from my PlaneFinder app!  

And after we landed, we entered the 3rd dimension of hell - passport control at Logan Airport.  There were a number of international flights that landed roughly at the same time and they crammed us all in this windowless, stuffy, hot room.  During a pandemic.  We spent the entire trip avoiding humans only to come back to THIS.  We were so mad.  If we were gonna get Covid (we didn't, yay!) it would have definitely been from this place.

We finally got through passport control (which was weird not having to show two passports or explain how we were Americans living in Germany!) and headed for the car.  The trip was officially over, and we were THRILLED to take off our masks!

Until next time, Iceland!