Fall Fun in the Bailey House - 2024 Edition - Part 1

 Fall was... not super fun. In fact, most of the second half of 2024 was not fun.

I mean, don't get me wrong, we did some fun things! Like for instance, my kiddos started 9th and 12th grade! This is it! The last "first day" photo on the front steps where both kids will be in the picture. I'm so sad!!!

AND my friend Sara took Natalie's senior photos! I still can't believe this is real. She is literally so beautiful.

Over Labor Day weekend, Grant went on a retreat to Vermont with the cross country team. He didn't want to go (too much time away from his beloved computer), but he actually had a good time.  Here, he was impressing everyone with his knowledge of world flags! 

Todd and I went to the Sherborn Inn (aka: The Heritage; aka: The Fireside Tavern) for Brewfest. The food was really good, and although those little mugs were small, the beer was plentiful!

At my age, having a birthday is never fun!  We ate half this cake at Todd's parents house, and then ate the rest of it on my actual birthday.

But for my birthday, I got tickets to see Shaboozey! So Todd and I went out for some dinner in Boston before the show.

I'm so excited to see Shaboozey!  A little background... I am a Maker's Mark Ambassador for Life (!!) and they send me occasional emails. Well, they sent one over the summer with a "summer Spotify playlist."  TOTALLY random. On it, was Shaboozey's song, "Let It Burn." I was immediately hooked!

The man takes his whiskey VERY seriously. And no, his drink DON'T need no mix! Minus the super drunk 20 somethings around us who were at times, very obnoxious... this was a fantastic show!

We also had a partial lunar eclipse in September - which we were able to capture a bit of when Todd put his camera up to Grant's telescope and took a picture!

Me and my girlies from work took a field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston, which I had never been to!

And then there was Moo Deng, the absolute sensation of 2024. She was memed into EVERYTHING. Including weather maps.

Todd also had his big Cape Cod golf and Brewfest weekend in September. Cooch, Kern and Mike came to our house on the way down there and we went to Ashland Ale House for some dinner.

But then they went down to the Cape for some golfing and beer - and Rybo and Rob joined them!

Grant ran his first ever cross country meet that same weekend. It was in Wrentham and it was POURING rain. Totally miserable. He was very grumpy that he had to get up early to go and run in the rain but he did agree it was a great experience.

Meanwhile, it also rained on the Cape. I think it rains EVERY year that they go to the Cape Cod Brewfest!

Total shenanigans.

I'm so glad they do this to him... it's a little taste of his own medicine! HA!

While the boys were away, the girls got to play! After Grant's cross country meet, I went to the Seaport district to meet up with Dorothy, Michelle and Karen for a fun night out! We went to 75 on Liberty Wharf and it was AMAZING! One of the best meals I've had out in a while.

After dinner, we went to The Sporting Club for some after dinner drinks.

And we had LEGIT the best espresso martinis ever. They even had a little clipped on cone with chocolate covered espresso beans in it. YUM.

And then this happened. Todd had a funny looking mole on his right forearm that he initially noticed in July. He had a standing appointment with the dermatologist in September, so he decided to ask about it. They were like, "Oh yeah, totally basal cell skin cancer."  So they removed it. And they biopsied it. And whoops, it wasn't basal cell - it was melanoma!

Grant had his first home cross country meet at Ashland State Park. He generally came in middle of the pack! I was really proud of him for running cross country this year. He didn't really want to do it (he prefers track to the longer distances). But he did and I think he really improved throughout the season!

Natalie and I saw Jungkook's I Am Still documentary in the theater. That's my bias!!!

AND... Todd had the melanoma removed. Along with about half of his forearm. I won't show you THOSE pictures! Poor guy!  Thankfully, they didn't need to do any radiation or chemo, but he does have to go back to the dermatologist every 3 months for a while. This was NOT a fun time for us.

I know. A cancer diagnosis is tough. You definitely needed another picture of Moo Deng, didn't you? She is just the cutest!

Ok, well, maybe Moo Deng isn't as cute as my boy... here he was racing at Hopkinton State Park. This one was taken by their photographer - she always captured good moments!

Sigh. Unfortunately, this was true. 

We had our annual block party here in town and like every year, the Alpaca's were a huge hit! I think it's funny that these are the only pictures I took of the entire party!

Grant also raced against Dedham (in Dedham) and he had a PR at 23:00.0 for 5,000 meters.

Go Grant, go!

Also unfortunately this fall, Florida got hit pretty bad by two hurricanes. The first was Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the big bend area, but was big enough and strong enough and close enough to push a TON of water into the Tampa Bay area. Indian Rocks Beach was pretty devastated, including the house I grew up in.  They had about a foot and a half of water in our house. Which is actually kind of crazy, considering my parents lived there for 45 years and never once had any water in the house. Some residents of IRB even had up to four feet of water in their homes.

The second storm was Hurricane Milton which made landfall near Siesta Key only two weeks later. My brother and his family went to Brie's parents house (where he took this classic photo long before landfall). I'm just glad to see he has his priorities straight with that bottle of Makers.

We didn't have any hurricanes up in New England this year (that's only because I put a force field over our area, duh). But we DID have the most AMAZING view of the northern lights! I mean, it was incredible! You can't really see any of this with the naked eye, but when you take pictures of the sky, they turn out like this!

I was monitoring social media for any kind of notification when one of my favorite local meteorologists had posted a picture from only a couple of minutes earlier. So I ran outside - and we saw this! It was so beautiful, and just kept evolving.

It didn't last very long but it was just so beautiful and surreal!

Grant really ran a lot this fall!  He even ran in the 2024 Twilight Invitational at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds. Because it wasn't too far from Grammi and Bean's house, we brought them and Aunt Betty with us! Grammi was just so excited to see Grant run!

Grant not only did well, he was actually the FIFTH MAN for his team! AND he was the only freshman in the top 5 of the novice division.

While Grant was busy running around this fall, Natalie was busy applying to college! (Sound of me passing out because I am totally not ready for this).

And she took her bestie, Kaavya to her senior homecoming!

That's all I've got for part one of the second half of 2024. Stay tuned for part 2 where it gets really crazy!

Trip to Oahu, Hawaii - Day 7 & 8

 We felt the effects of Hurricane Hone today, but that didn't dampen our spirits as much as our friends Kern and Dorothy flying back to California!

It wasn't even Aloha Friday! Bailey's and Corrigan's, together one more time! (Well, until we saw them again a few weeks later ha!)

Before Kern and Dorothy took off for the airport, we all walked a few blocks away from the hotel to get some breakfast. There is a section of our resort that has a lot of shops and restaurants, and we walked through it on our way to get some food.

Me and my love in front of the big Hilton Hawaiian Village fountain.

We tried to find a restaurant for breakfast, but many of them had a really long wait. So we walked around for a bit before we found one. I love this painting of the whales on the side of these condos! Look at the little sea turtle there!

We finally found a place that was open and didn't have a really long wait.  It was called Cream Pot, and although we had to sit outside in the very windy weather, at least there were umbrellas over our head and little lizards to keep me entertained! This was actually one of the cutest, most Instagram-able little restaurants I have ever been to. Sorry I didn't take any pictures!

Yes, this restaurant literally says do not take pictures, but I could NOT help it. I think this is one of the best breakfast's I have EVER had! This was the rum caramel French toast with candied lemon, strawberries and whipped cream. Like WHAT? I also really enjoyed the citrus spritzer, which isn't something I would normally order but it was fantastic!

The water was getting high as Hurricane Hone was already pushing surge into Oahu. Despite the fact that it was hundreds of miles away, too! I took this picture of the Ala Wai Canal from the restaurant.

Hurricane Hone. We will rebuild.

We walked back toward the hotel with our friends, who headed in another direction to pick up some cookies that we enjoyed at the luau earlier in the week for their dog sitter. We had one destination in mind: The ABC Store!

We had to hit up the ABC Store ONE MORE TIME for a hoodie for Natalie, and to cash in on our points for the week. You get one point for every dollar that you spend there, and if you save your receipts, at the end of the week, you can cash it in for cool things - we got two coffee mugs and a calendar!  Also, we saw so many people eating that thing above the Mai Tai and pina colada cans, which you can buy at the ABC Store.  It's called Spam Musabi, and it's just rice, spam, and some seasonings wrapped in seaweed.  Ew. Todd said it was really good though!

Meanwhile, I thought this Korean banana milk was AMAZING! And this particular brand just happens to be Jungkook of BTS's favorite drink!  

With the hurricane looming offshore, the skies were gray and with our friends now gone, we were all very sad.

We walked around for a bit before heading to the pool. We noticed they had put some sandbags out, although I'm not entirely sure this was because of the hurricane.

The final thing I needed to eat when I was in Hawaii (because I had been deprived of it back in 2007) was Shave Ice! These things were ginormous so Todd and I got one to split - yum!

By the afternoon, the kids were just done. They went upstairs to play on their phones. Meanwhile, Todd and I went to the Tapa Bar to try to find the Patriots football game. Unfortunately, the high winds meant the cable was out at the resort so we just hung out with the chickens (and drank mai tais!)

The storm wasn't stopping anyone from having fun, though. The place was packed and people were still swimming. We didn't get a lot of rain (if any?) but the winds had definitely gotten stronger.

This will probably always be a thing, won't it? (Notice I'm not even paying attention!)

Ok, that's a little nicer!

Sadly, much like those who had come before us, we had to leave our treasures by the elevator so they could be enjoyed by another family. We left the boogie board, the two floaties, the noodle, the hat (Grant later went back to retrieve that - he just couldn't give up Kern's hat!) and even some games!

For our last dinner in Oahu, we decided on Italian food over at Fresco Italian. It was really good!  We even got dessert (and we never do that!)

We also saw the winds started to settle down a bit in the evening, and you could see a few breaks in the clouds.

We weren't quite ready to be done with our trip, so we walked around some more and found this cool model of the resort! That's where we went to the beach everyday!

This picture was super funny - I took it coming off of the elevator after we stopped at the ABC store ONE MORE TIME.

Three out of four Bailey's just didn't want the last full day to end, so we went down to listen to some live music at the Tapa Bar. Grant had had enough of us, I think!  Todd also apparently wanted another chance to wear his Kukui Nut Lei!

Dorothy had left with Natalie the yellow rose that Shoot Ogawa gave her.  But we couldn't bring a flower back to the mainland, so we did a quick photo shoot (see what I did there?) with it.

Gosh, why is she so pretty?

And then... the next morning, it was time to head back home. I loved this hand heart painting on the side of the highway that we spotted on our way to HNL. We love you too, Oahu!

The airport is crazy weird- some of the terminal is actually open-air.  It's old and fully concrete but at least they have pretty palm trees and gardens.

Grumpy Bailey's at the airport do not want to leave Hawaii, especially on an overnight flight back to Boston. And grumpy Bailey children did not want to go back because school would be starting the following day! I never wanted to leave!!!

Thanks for nothing, Hurricane Hone! Thanks for a wonderful trip, Oahu!

Until next time, Hawaii!