Only two people on the street recognized my MinION costume, but they were two very excited people.
I don't know what game this was supposed to be, but I suspect this wasn't it
Chronological
New Years' breakfast, post-sleepover. Anna: "that kind of looks like Felix is trying to play charades and put an absurd amount of maple syrup on her waffle"
The new kittens arrive
Waiting for them to come out
The crazy Nixy picture. Nora: "Ooh, that's a really silly one! Nix is like, 'ooh, I'm a wolf'" Anna: "Nix looks like he's screaming"
Sledding with Peter. Barely enough, but still more snow than you get in Ireland.
You can't tell in this picture, but the water is in a cup holder
Lily likes kitten cuddles
Nora: "Clementine is on Mama's shoulders!"
Guessing chocolate peanut butter sauce from the viscosity. Nora: "I'm all covered in chocolate"
Ready to run. We've since had to disallow running in this part of the apartment because I haven't done any sound isolation
Nora really likes that my electric mandolin is the right size for her
The green line is screechy
Government center is loads better with a playground. It's funny how many tourists you see here, all experiencing the universal pattern where you travel with your kids to show them a wide range of new and different experiences but they mostly just want to see new and different playgrounds.
Newly resurfaced Brown School schoolyard, with interesting markings for playing on
Lily: "We brought the purple unicorn to Marlboro from Olivia and Felix's, because it was a purple unicorn and Muddy River is purple with uncorns. So I ended up wearing it for a while, and then after it was forgotten at Marlboro we drove it to Olivia and Felix's house."
Nora has a DIY 'veggie dog'.
Nora: "I think I didn't want to go downstairs. That's really sad."
Strawberry picking
Strawberry eating
Making flyers for the BIDA family dance
Note the cow ridey toy
Lifting the trunk of Elly the Elephant
Lily: "Nora looks really strong in that picture"
Nora: "I'm way up in that tree, the mulberry tree"
Anna: "Nora has given herself a leaf hat, and dad a blindfold"
Cherry picking
I was on track to beat Lee with two handicaps, but got cocky and decided to play 7x7 with Lily at the same time
It's fun that Lily can now play tunes with Grandpa
Lily made a chocolate cherry cake, and is very proud
Celebrating our summiting
Anna: "why am I eating mac and cheese out of the pot?"
I really like my wetsuit pants. I get cold in water, so clearly I should be wearing warm clothes.
Very helpful Nora
Group fiddle lesson
My aunt is severly immunocompromised, and then Lily tested positive for covid partway through the family vacation. Lots of tests, isolation, and masking.
Really hard rain!
Both people stand on a balance beam and try to knock each other off, but only with pushing so size doesn't give much of an advantage
Socially distanced musicmaking
Lily: "I got a signed copy of Whatever After book one, signed by both the author and the audiobook narrator"
Nora loves her octopus costume and wants to wear it everywhere
Spark in the Dark
The green line is still loud
Singing party at David and Al's
A coworker's thesis defense reception had a mouse theme, and she suggested I take some toys home after, which the kids loved. We have not talked about why the thesis defence had a mouse theme.
Rumble seat in a Model A. I got to drive it, and was surprised that a nearly hundred year old car had the standard controls I already knew how to use.
After we stayed at a Vrbo that had a bouncy castle, Ricci decided to get one for when grandkids are around. The two youngest having some time without the boisterous olders.
Lily taking big risks while apple picking
Ajeya likes escape rooms, and was excited to try Red Fox. We had so much fun we did another two days later.
Anna and I got pastries in Brooklyn between dance sessions.
Brooklyn Contra brought in Ismael Fernandez to take some nice photos
I'm not a huge fan of playing recorded music at the break at dances, but I do really like that it means I can do some dancing with my kids
The nap gave Anna just enough to make it through the trip back to Joe's apartment
At Castle Craig, which is more impressive than this photo shows. Anna ate roast beef sandwiches continuously all trip
After busking with Lily and Anna at Davis. Lily is saving for ear piercing.
Teaching baby doll to play piano
Nora has fallen back in love with the octopus costume
Ernesto's is my favorite place to take kids for lunch when we go on an adventure into Boston: the pizza is very good and reasonably priced, and there's a bathroom. We usually combine this with visiting Government Center playground, Haymarket, and sometimes Bova's
My first time trying to decorate a pumpkin by scraping partway through to get gradations of light and dark.
The kids hosted a halloween party, which was really very loud.
I made a bunch of food for it. Lily: "I also made food for it. I made the chocolate squares. But either Peter or Andrew, I think it was Andrew, helped with the knife."
Sledding at Tufts. We aren't college students, so we can use real sleds.
Enough people wanted to play Scrabble (why?) that we had two simultaneous games
Felix is getting good at steering
Making giaotze
When I was little the kids were narrower than a chair, so we'd set up 'benches' by putting boards across the chairs to get everyone fitting at the same table. As people got larger we kept doing this, well into clown car territory. A few years ago we realized this was silly, and started splitting up into multiple tables for dinner.
Julia sings No One Is Alone. Nora heard her practicing and said that this was not true: "someone is alone!".
