We have had some beautiful weather the last few days, with highs in the 80's. The girls have been enjoying playing on their new swingset, but tonight after dinner we tried something new. Mom got out a couple of bats and balls and a tee to hit off of.
The girls haven't seen much baseball, so they were kind of confused at first. Mom did a lot of demonstrating, and pretty soon they were both hitting off the tee!
Kate's swing is actually more like a bunt.Emily was more comfortable swinging from the left side, even though she prefers to throw with her right hand--maybe she'll be a switch hitter!
Today we had a nice treat--a visit from Chris's Aunt Rheda and Uncle Erich! They came all the way from New Jersey to visit, and to see our house for the first time. They couldn't believe how much the girls have grown over the last year.
Last night they had dinner at Nana's with Uncle Seth's family, and tonight they came over to our house for dinner.
They brought lots of presents--the girls were thrilled!They even brought us a Christmas decoration that plays music. Kate was a little confused....Christmas already?But she was really excited by the little blonde doll, and right away named her, yep, "Dolly".
Thank you for the generous gifts Rheda and Erich!Rheda is Sharon's older sister....can you see the resemblance?For dinner, Chris made her famous pulled pork in the slow cooker. Delicious!After dinner the kids had a wrestling match on their new gift blanket (note that Kate is still gripping Dolly).Even though the kids were pretty rambunctious, we had a great visit with Rheda and Erich.
Saturday we treated ourselves to a trip to Boston while the grandparents watched the kids. It was finally time to go to Fenway to celebrate Chris's birthday (back in March) and watch the Red Sox play the Yankees!
It was a huge day...let's start at the beginning. We left Maine early and hit Storrow Drive (one of Chris' favs) by 9:30.
Chris was pretty excited to do a little bike shopping. She talked gear, gearing, and componentry. Wicked fun! Chris test rode a few bikes but the Pinarello FP3 won out. Here she is getting fitted on the Pinarello. Next on to the big event: The Red Sox/Yankees game! Fenway is a great stadium with really fun, slightly rowdy fans. Our seats were great--between home and third with a great view of the plate! For the two people that missed the game, it was looking like a bust in the first few innings as the Red Sox were down 6-0. Beckett was struggling... Then it all turned around! Bases loaded and Varitek hits a grand slam! This game was a classic Red Sox/Yankees duel. Huge home runs and the lead changing many times. Before the bottom of the 8th inning an odd Fenway tradition:
In the 9th, closer Jonathan Papelbon came in, which is an event unto itself. Music and fans roaring. He has a very intense and intimidating stare in to home plate.
No one left until the very last out. You just don't know what will happen with these two teams. Yes, that's the final score: 16-11. Awesome game! We then met up with some very close friends. Kristen and Chris go way back to the UMass days. Kristen lives in Alberta Canada and just happening to be in town visiting family. Sheila, Adrianne, and Adrianne's brother Troy drove up from Virginia. Both Brenda and Chris worked with Sheila on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge project. It was so much fun catching up with our close friends... Whew! Quite the day!
On Thursday, Emily and Mama headed to Boston to go to the New England Aquarium. We got up very early and drove to Portland to catch the Downeaster to North Station. Emily was SO excited to ride a "choo-choo". From Augusta to Portland she said "Mama choo-choo" over and over.
In Portland, we joined Nana, Grandpa, and the cousins, Lili, Alana, and Sebastian. We all found seats...
with Alana and Lili across the aisle from us.
The peanut butter cookies were broke out (thanks Nana!).
Stickers were entertaining...
and the view was excellent as we chugged down the coast. We then took the T over to the New England Aquarium. Yes, we're from Maine and the subway is a huge novelty! Thankfully, Grandpa got tickets in advance so we got to avoid the huge line. It's April vacation, so half of all New England kids were at the aquarium also. The large circular tank was great. The divers were feeding the fish when we were there. Mama has a soft spot for the turtles.
And it was very sweet when the big, tattooed guy gently drew out this puffer and proceeded to shelter him from the other fish and tried to feed him a bit of food.
We then headed out on the street to check out the vendors and go to Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall.
The street performers outside Faneuil Hall were excellent and the kids loved it. Emily tried on Lili's new baseball cap on the train ride home. We were all pretty happy to get back to Portland. Emily loved that train!
Today Mama and Emily went on a big adventure to Boston (blog post coming soon!), so Kate got to spend the day with her Grandma L. while Mom was at work. Grandpa came over to see how they were doing, and he brought a surprise: A kite! Kate was extra excited when she saw that the kite had Thomas the Train on it.
Grandpa got the kite way up in the air, and then he asked Kate if she wanted to hold the string. But she was a little bit scared of the whole setup. She decided she would rather watch Grandpa fly it.She felt a little safer when the kite was back on the ground!
Today was the day of the legislative hearing on the Maine Marriage Equality Law. It was the day when Maine citizens could explain to their legislators why they either do or don't support the proposed law, so people on both sides of the issue were planning to attend. Brenda took the day off work and we brought the family down to Augusta for the hearing. Grandma L. also came with us to show her support for marriage equality. We were instructed to wear red, so we could be identified as supporters.
We were a little nervous to bring our children to the event, and debated it a lot beforehand, since we knew emotions would run high on both sides. Above all, we didn't want to compromise their safety in case anyone got out of hand. In the end we decided to bring them because our desire to have a legal marriage is mostly because of the effect it will have on their lives.
We were very happy to see many of our friends at the hearing, and especially happy to see that they had brought their kids as well.The hearing was at the Civic Center, and the mood seemed pretty respectful. There were no big protests or shouting, just lots of people who felt strongly for one side or the other. There were also lots of TV cameras rolling.
There were comment cards to fill out, so we all recorded our comments on the proposed law (even Kate!).When we got inside, we were very happily surprised to see an ocean of red filling the seats. Just based on that, our side seemed to outnumber the opposition by about 10:1!The hearing was supposed to start at 9:00 but it got going late because of the big crowd. The girls were getting very restless.It was neat to see all the legislators on the committee and hear them introduce themselves. Besides voting, we are not particularly politically active, so it was interesting to see how things are done.There were big lines of people waiting to testify at the open microphones. We wanted to hear some of the testimony, but the girls had had enough of the sitting.We moved to the back of the arena (where lots of other little kids were playing too) and listened from there for awhile.Finally the girls' time was up (they are just 2 and 3 after all), so we got our traditional Civic Center snack (orange drink and popcorn) and hit the road.Polls show that Mainers are split about 50/50 on this issue, and the legislators have said that they will listen to their constituents before they vote, so we have no idea if this law will pass. All we can do is hope for the best, and think about where we would take our honeymoon!
The girls haven't seen much baseball, so they were kind of confused at first. Mom did a lot of demonstrating, and pretty soon they were both hitting off the tee!
Emily was more comfortable swinging from the left side, even though she prefers to throw with her right hand--maybe she'll be a switch hitter!
Emily was more comfortable swinging from the left side, even though she prefers to throw with her right hand--maybe she'll be a switch hitter!
