Happy Memorial Day!

We had a great weekend - lots of time off to do fun things :)

We spent several nights out at the lake. Getting to the lake house takes less than 30 minutes from our house now. It isn't far mileage wise, but in Vermont you inevitably end up behind something like this.



One night we finally enjoyed the bottle of champagne my parents gave us that we were saving until our house sold!



Our biggest adventure was our hike up Camel's Hump. We had great hiking weather, a little cloudy and cool.

On the drive up, we passed this driveway.



You can't tell from this angle, but it's a bridge that drops down to a river about 10 feet below. I can't imagine that the people live here in the winter - what happens when it snows and gets slippery?



At the start of the hike they have a nice bulletin board with announcements and a sign-in station. I guess they want to keep track of who goes up to make sure everyone comes down?







Most of the way up, the trail looked like this...



Towards the top, a little more scrambling was required.



I think the route we took was 6.8 miles round trip. The view from the top was totally worth it!







We tried to get some photos....Willow decided to cooperate for a few :)






Our flowers are all blooming...Check out this clematis (I think?) by our front door! The dreaded pollen has arrived. The flowers are beautiful, but my allergies are going crazy :( Note the swollen eyes in the pics above!



On another note, my cousin moved here today! Her move went smoothly and we're so excited to have her around for good :)

The Garden!

So my mom went all out on the garden this year. It's quite a fancy thing and I'm pretty proud of it! I'm excited to be the garden waterer because I get to watch everything grow :)

She had some pesky rabbits get in the garden last year and eat everything, so this year she had some raised beds built and a new rabbit-proof fence put in!

Here it is in progress...




Our lake house is in a community right on the water and there isn't much room in the yard for a garden plus it's pretty rocky along the shore. Therefore, the community picked one spot where everyone could plant a large garden and share water, etc. They couldn't have picked a prettier spot. It's so peaceful out there!

Can you tell those are garden plots at the end of the road?



You look out over this huge field with mountains in the distance.



Here is the finished product...



The raised beds are full now...



There are lots of things growing (don't mind the little weeds - I haven't had time to pull them all out)!

Tomatoes



Squash



Chives



Basil


Beans





Sunflowers



And much more that I didn't capture with the camera.

My grandparents also have a garden that I water...I figure they might share with me too :)

OH YEA!

So actually that sign should read "SOLD"!!! The house has been under contract for a while now, but I didn't want to put the picture up in case I jinxed it! After a lot of negotiating (including a last minute grass mowing job by our realtor and a visit from the AC repair man because it was about 96 degrees in there) the house finally closed today!

It will be so nice not to pay both a rent and mortgage payment for the month of June :) Now we can check the last thing off the moving checklist!

Whew

It's HOT here y'all! Three days in a row of 90 plus degrees. Wow! I'm not complaining because I'd rather have this than the snow we received a few weeks ago but all these Vermonters are afraid they're going to melt :) I don't blame them - 90 feels really hot when there is no central AC anywhere! Luckily, it cools down at night and we have an AC unit in our bedroom so we're fairly comfortable. We've been retreating to the lake house where it's usually about 5-10 degrees cooler to run, hike, and let Willow swim. I haven't been in yet, but today might push me over the edge!

It's supposed to get colder tomorrow and then be beautiful again this weekend so don't worry about us too much :)



The weather plus Memorial Day coming up has really made things feel like summer! All my kids are REALLY ready to be out of school...only a few more weeks for them. We wrangled the boat and trailer up to have it serviced so it will hopefully be ready for all our summer visitors :)

I'm taking Willow out now to help me fulfill my duties as the garden waterer so I'll post more later!

Weekend Fun

This weekend we traveled down south for the wedding of two of our best friends. Matt was a groomsman so we were included in a whole weekend of fun :)

We flew in Thursday night after work and stayed with friends in Virginia. We made them drive us by our old house (sad). Unfortunately, I forgot our key so we weren't able to go inside and had to be satisfied with looking in the windows. Our yard has suffered in our absence - there are more weeds than flowers in the beds!

Friday we headed down to North Carolina and started the weekend with a lunch at Hooters (I'm not kidding). The boys each enjoyed a "big boy" with their meal.



Friday night we dressed up and headed to the rehearsal dinner. I actually bought this dress....OK I wasn't alone, I went with my mom...but I didn't have to depend on Meg to dress me! I found the necklace all on my own - I'm so proud.



There was a lot of toasting...



The bride and groom enjoyed a cake and chocolate covered strawberries...



We spent some quality time with our awesome friends!





We stayed at the after party until after all the shuttles left...I'm not sure I can explain the scene in our hotel room afterwards but we had fun.





Saturday was the wedding day! The boys hung out at the pool while we had a delicious lunch and did some shopping. Here are the girls all ready to go! (I have to admit, Meg did provide me with a dress for this night).



The reception was in the bride's backyard - it was amazing! Tents everywhere - plenty of delicious food and drinks and lots of fun decorations.







We had the chance to see so many people we love...

Family



Friends







The bride and groom of course!





We talked to each other a little too :)



We ended the night with another trip to Hooters...



And fun in the hotel lobby...



We were lucky enough to have smooth travels and returned home to a beautiful sunny day and a very happy puppy!