SURPRISE Trip to Florida!

 Because I had BOTH of my vaccine shots AND it was 3 weeks AFTER my second shot, I decided to surprise my Mom for Mother's Day and fly down to Tampa!

I can't tell you how much anxiety I had over flying.  I already hate flying, and now you're gonna throw Covid into it... eeek.  But the airport wasn't too crowded.

In Massachusetts, you cannot go to a restaurant and just get a drink. You have to order food.  Give me a double with those French fries I just ordered.

I sat next to a nice lady who was visiting her new grand niece here in Winthrop, so I was showing her that we fly right over Winthrop on our way out - and right over Uncle Billy's house! (You can't see his house because it was to the right of this picture.)

One other thing you can see quite well when you take off in a certain direction from Logan is the entirety of Cape Cod!

I was super excited to land in Tampa!  I liked this pretty work of art made out of signs you might see around an airport.

I met my brother at the Feather Sound Publix and we (he) made a plan to surprise our mom. She was surprised to see him on this side of the bay, especially at night, so he told her he had just had dinner with an old friend who was in town. "You might know her. She says she remembers you!"

Surprise!  It's ME!  And boy was she surprised!

After a late night catching up on the couch, Mom and I went for a drive around midday.  This is just a picture of Aunt Sara's house.  My mom bought one down the road, is tearing it down, and is putting in a brand NEW house sometime in the next few months.

First, we stopped by and said hello to Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dan (who knew the big secret!)  Everyone was so impressed that Aunt Sara kept it a secret ha ha. Then we swung by my mom's old condo, which I never went to because we lived in Germany and then...Covid.  The place has the most amazing views of Sand Key and Clearwater Beach though!

THEN, we were going to check out the mad destruction of 540 20th Avenue, but there was beach traffic like I've never seen before. Of course, I haven't lived there in 26 years, but I have never seen the Belleair bridge backed up past the light at Indian Rocks Road - and the bridge is no longer a drawbridge so we can't use that excuse! Oh well, I guess we should swing by Bonefish and grab some cocktails!

Pineapple martini in the sun under a palm tree? Yes, please.

We went back to Aunt Sara's place only to find this guy across the street from her house!

And THEN, it was time for the BIG SURPRISE, PART 2!  Cory and Brie stopped by with the kiddos and they did NOT know I was going to be there!  I have never gotten such a massive hug as I did from Greta!  And look at my big dude James!  He might be the smartest (almost) 6-year-old EVER!

And look at my niece Greta!  She is so grown up! I feel like she was just born yesterday!

We piled into two cars and drove to Safety Harbor to get some dinner.  On my way out of Aunt Sara's (and now my mom's!) neighborhood, I spotted THIS. And this isn't even the only one I saw!  This is probably a common sight for the rest of my family but we certainly didn't see any of those in Germany and don't see any of those in Massachusetts.

We got to sit outside and enjoy a really nice meal at Gigglewaters in Safety Harbor.  The weather was actually nice - it was warm, but the humidity wasn't very high.  Cheers to the Swales family!

I probably should have used the panorama feature for this picture ha ha.

EEEK look at my baby Hattie!  I still can't believe this is the first time I met her. Natalie is absolutely dying to see these kids and she was really mad at me for going without her!  I want to eat this baby for a snack!

The bigger kids like to do selfies though, and we took a few when we got back to Aunt Sara's house.  I'm anticipating the day when they both ARE actually taller than me.

These are my other boys! I have two Massachusetts boys and two Florida boys!

I love my Florida family.

My brother and Brie had to get the kiddos home, but I promised to swing by the next day before my flight to say goodbye.  Mother Nature treated us to a really pretty sunset that evening!

Meanwhile, Aunt Sara, Mom and I sat on the couch and chatted all evening!

The next day, as I was about to leave to head over to Cory's house before my flight, Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dan stopped by. It was good to see at least two of my aunts!

Once I got to Cory and Brie's house, the kiddos wanted to play a little basketball with their new hoop that they got their mom for Mother's Day.  Meanwhile, I was in linen pants and wedges so you're not gonna get a good game out of Aunt Colleen!

While we ordered some Indian food for dinner, my furry nephew Einstein ate his dinner and promptly laid down.  Poor old man!

Chicken Tikka Masala!  YUM!  One of my favorites!

Finally it was time to go and head out to the airport.  On my way, I passed my mom's old office.  At the nearby intersection, there was a random grill sitting in the median.  Because, Florida!

It's a strange new world we live in when the Delta safety video shows people in masks!

Up, up and away!  It's hard to see in the middle of this picture (directly behind the well lit spot in the center which is Tampa International Airport) but that's Raymond James Stadium! Home of the Super Bowl Champion Bucs!

Until next time, Tampa!

April 2021 - We are almost there!

 APRIL!  Spring!  Vaccines!  Making travel plans for the summer!  It's happening!

These guys don't seem too sure of it all.

We celebrated Easter in April with lots of candy.  Grant has new orthodontic appliances in his mouth and he can only eat chocolate (no gummies or anything like that) so you know he was really disappointed.  I kid!  He loves chocolate!

It was a really nice spring day on Easter, so we annoyed the kids by making them go on a local trail hike with us.  Naturally, they were slow to get ready, so I went outside and played on the swing for a while.

The Easter day hike took us through the trails that run through our neighborhood.  We started out on the Pelican trail down by the pond.  Here, I'm making everyone check out this culvert and assess whether it needs to be replaced.

Our neighborhoods are a part of the Great Bend Farm Trust and we pay for the maintenance of all of these trails. We did the Way-to-Bay trail and the Southwest Ridge Loop.

It was a straight, maybe 20-foot drop down from these rocks!

Me and Todd at the top of the big cliff.

Grant decided to bring his bike along which was of course, challenging to say the least. Here, Todd is riding it down the hill.

They looked deep in conversation back by the pond in our neighborhood.

Me and my girl after an Easter day hike.

Easter dinner selfie!

I included this one because Grant was a little hard to see in the first one!

After dinner, it was time to dive into more chocolate - these were sent by Nana from the Vermont Nut Free chocolate shop!

Todd was full after a big Easter dinner, so Grant stole his phone and took a selfie with Daddy napping on the couch!

This is life with teenagers/pre teens.  THE TOILET PAPER IS RIGHT THERE.

More signs of spring!  

We also bought a new gas firepit for the back deck which Todd had to put together. Doesn't everyone wear knee sleeves when putting together furniture?

Well that purchase was certainly worth it!  It uses lava rock instead of wood in the fire and a propane tank for the fuel.

A tale of two kids. One is in a tank top and the other is in a winter coat.  We enjoyed some s'mores on the back deck the first night we used our new firepit.

Grant had to write a little "upside" of Covid for school and it was really cute so I took a picture of it.

To go along with our new firepit, we also got some outdoor furniture!

AND Natalie and I got haircuts for the first time since last fall!

Natalie decided to finally get bangs, despite having a super strong cowlick on the front of her head that she was born with.  Tracy (our stylist) tried to gently talk her out of it, but Natalie wasn't having any of it!

I also got my second vaccine on Todd's birthday! 

And I had to drive through a crazy slushy snowstorm on my way to Marlborough.  The parking lot wasn't plowed and it was a mess.  But NOTHING could stop me from getting my second vaccine!

I'm KILLING IT this year.  My best effort yet.

Daddy got some online Dungeons and Dragons books for his birthday, which the kids play with him.  "Go give Daddy a kiss!"  (Aaaand this is what they did!)

My face pretty much says it all.  Sorry babe, my arm was really hurting at this point.

Making wishes for his 50th year on the planet Earth.

By about 9 pm, I was going downhill pretty fast from my second vaccine.  Oooo, that's a baby fever. No worries though because I'm not contagious so who cares! Someone take care of me!

I just wanted to sleep for a couple of days.  Napping is kind of my hobby anyway. When you're a mom, you don't often get a reason to just nap on the couch so I took FULL advantage of this.

Well, now that I'm double vaccinated, hopefully I won't become one of these US statistics!

Also in April, we had a little visitor in our backyard.  He was kind of cute ha ha.

This picture is just so we have something to compare to when he surpasses me in a few months.

One lovely weekend day in late April, Natalie and I went to Wellesley to see some friends from Cambridge that we hadn't seen in YEARS.  So Todd decided this was a good time to start refinishing the deck.

Krissy, Lillianna, Natalie and I went for a hike along the Sudbury Path on Fuller Brook, which drains into the Charles River.

Here I am on the Waban Arches Aqueduct with Natalie and Lillianna WAY behind us (not the people right behind me... but the girls behind them!)  This aqueduct was built in the late 1870s and used gravity to get water from Framingham into Newton.

We walked from the Wellesley High football stadium down to the aqueduct before turning around (don't get me started on how the signage wasn't very good and we wound up on Wellesley College property and got yelled at by some lady ha ha.)  Krissy managed to get one picture of the girls together!

Because Wellesley is fairly built out, much of Fuller Brook is funneled through concrete walls.

Who wants ice cream? Ok we all want ice cream!  We stopped by Truly's for a treat with the girls.

This is going to seem kind of weird, but I really, really, really can't wait to go back to a restaurant and have someone serve me a drink.  Like an ice cold beer.  Since I wasn't able to do that, I just poured myself one and went to sit on our new deck furniture.

My own garden is also starting to bloom!  What I love most about my garden is that there are new things popping up from now until the end of the summer.  It's full of surprises.

The nights were getting warmer, although not warm enough so we had to work on breaking in the firepit.

Well, at least she put on a sweater for this evening.

Their expressions were SO funny!  I also liked the green flames that appear between them.

Eeek, so pretty!  I love the pink!

At the end of the month, we had some really blustery days.  I had gone downstairs to refill my water bottle when I noticed the wind was really howling so I stopped at the back slider to have a look when BAM... the whole top part of one of our trees came crashing down!  Natalie happened to be looking out of her window at the same time and we both saw it happen.  Crazy!

And we're on to May!