First Day of School 2012

Ok, so really it was the first afternoon but who is keeping track?  We started with horse lessons at a new farm which took the entire morning, then we had lunch and then got down to business.  Spring Ridge Farm is a wonderful farm just north of Charlottesville.  I don't know what happy horses look like but I know what happy kids look like and I had 2 today.

(These are actually a couple years old but the smile hasn't changed.)

Maggie has been steady at school for a week!  Catie's response was I have 1 week left, I am living it up!  Kendall just wants to get through it so he can go play.  I snatched this great idea from a friend of mine, Julie ( she has a blog as well) to take a pic every year...so I bought the poster board and let them go to town.

(Genny is along for the ride)

Raise your glass to a great year.  I hope you have a great one, I know I will with God's grace raining down, no other way to get through.

Perfect Mornings

My perfect morning was getting up and running before the rest of the gang was awake. My sister's house is about 4 miles away, mostly dirt roads.  I would put on my shoes, start my running playlist on my iPhone and start my running app.  It was bliss to be out in the cool mornings with myself and the deer flies for company.  It was so nice I didn't mind giving the flies a lift until they started biting.

This tractor I saw on the side of the road.  I was tempted to start it and use to get to my destination but it looked like it hadn't been used in years.

This was the last few hills of my 4 mile jaunt, the first mile is downhill, then a mile of flat road then 2 miles uphill.  Boy was I was done after the last hill!

The best part was getting to have a cup of coffee and visit with my sister and her family. My dad goes to the Eaton Village Store every morning for a cup of coffee and to catch up on local gossip.  He then swings by my sister's house drops off the local paper and collects me and brings me back to the homestead.

Did I say it was perfect?  Here is the proof, the view out the back of my parents house with Mt Washington as the tallest mountain and Conway Lake below.

Happy Hour

Happy hour is the second best part of the day, after bedtime of course. A family tradition of meeting at various houses for libations, snacks and great conversations.  This afternoon was at the family homestead, a place I have travelled to every summer.  The adults sat on the screened porch as the kids ran through the fields and played in the barn.  Eventually their stomachs got the best of them and they were on the hunt for food.  They made short work of anything that the adults had left.

This barn holds so many wonderful memories.  I have journeyed here every summer for the last 44.  My grandfather bought this farm in 1929 and was a working farm before that.  Now it holds memories and treasures from the family over the years.  I love the the patina of the shingles, the iron door handle, the chopping block for splitting wood, the rope swing and all of the old license plates that grace the back wall.  Many an hour was spent whiling away the afternoon, trying to keep out of the way of mom and chores before cellphones and electronics.   Oh the good old days.

In the beginning....

Well I have thought about this day for years and now it is here.  On a lovely summer afternoon, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, before we head to happy hour at the big yellow house with my cousins, parents and my sister's family, I thought I would stop worrying about how I can do this and just start doing.  What is 'this' you ask?  A blog to capture life for my family and to feed my need to start designing, on-line anyway.  Hope you enjoy and keep coming back for more.