September

We love Fall! September is my favorite month, beginning with our Anniversary.  This year we celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary- so much has happened in those seven years!

In September Lily started her next session of Soccer, and she is still loving it.

                The first day of soccer was “Groveland Day” our small town festival day of rides and games and all sorts of fun things for kids.  It was also one of the hottest days! The kids had fun taking pony rides, making pine cone bird feeders, seeing Curious Creatures, going in the bouncy house, checking out the fire trucks, and riding the mini train.  Jen and Mike were nice enough to join us for the soccer game and the first part of the day too! 

The fire department gave out these hats, and they certainly got a lot of use!  And yes, our children have plenty of toys but nothing is more fun than a big box!

Of course, September is the time we start visiting all of the farms! Although this year, we never really stopped, because we visited our local farm weekly for our CSA share, and we visited a few other farms for blueberry & strawberry picking and, there was the Market Basket disaster so we visited a few more farm stands for produce this year.

I think this was our busiest farm tour yet.  Starting with Strawberry Picking and ending with Christmas Tree cutting, we visited

Rogers Spring Hill            Turkey Hill Farm

Boston Hill Farm              Cider Hill Farm

Russell Orchard                Parlee Farms

Stasinos Farm                   Applecrest Farm

Crescent Farm                  Maple Crest Farm

 

This was our first time at Boston Hill, we met Maghan, Dave and the kids and Mairin came along for the fun!

The September weather this year was awesome, it was actually pretty hot the days we went to Russell Orchard and Cider Hill.  The Cider Hill day surprised us, it was not forecasted to be that hot and we were not prepared.  So, this is why Kellan’s face matches the pumpkins!

Russell Orchard is one of our favorites!

They have one section of older, more classic apple orchard trees, rather than the standard rows of small trees that are grown more systematically.  We love the look of the older trees and some of them are really picture perfect.

We have taken the kids’ picture in front of this tree veery year!

 

 

Sometimes apple picking gets tiring. Your best bet is to crawl right into a shady tree and take a little nap!

If that doesn’t work you can just lie right down anywhere you feel is right.

  

That hollow tree amazes me, it still produces perfect looking apples despite having basically no trunk. The kids played in and around that tree for a while, it is really cool to see!

 

September is also “harvest time” at Grampy’s house! His concord grapes are delicious and each year there are more and more.  We tried making grape sorbet and our own juice this year, both of which came out pretty good! The kids love picking and eating all the purple grapes.

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Thanks to Jen and Mike, we were able to take one weekend away from apple picking to celebrate our anniversary.  They stayed with the kids, which the kids LOVED, and we went to Rockport for a night away.  We can’t help ourselves though, the next morning we went to yet another farm, but this one for antiques! Steve’s uncle was set up at Todd Farm and we were caught, had to explain that yes, we get a babysitter to go to the flea market.   Thanks Jen and Mike for watching the kids AND doing our laundry while we were gone!

Happy Anniversary to us!

We began some house renovations in late summer/early fall as well.  The middle window is new, and was formerly our closet.  It is now a bathroom! Having two bathrooms is pretty great! Kellan also now has a closet in his room.  We’ve been very busy helping Barry as he guides us through these renovations.  He puts us to work on the tasks we can do and then Steve will work with him some days to get the larger part of the project done.  I’ve been the official painter/stainer and have been busy this summer and fall staining the doors and woodwork to match the rest of the house.  Also, the mauve colored trim is gone and I’ve painted all the trim in Newburyport Blue.  Steve worked with Barry up on the roof for this one, and now the outside of the house is put back together.  It was quite a project, as we found that installing a tiny bathroom leave very little wiggle room for working, and no room for mistakes.  We found that there is ONE sink in the universe that will fit correctly in this bathroom!

Only way to end the summer is with one last ice cream stand visit!

The kids really had a great summer.  Their school is open year round so they kept their same schedule of two days per week with lots of fun mixed in.  We visited Storyland, York’s Wild Kingdom, lots of beaches and parks, the zoo, aquarium, Squam Lake Science Center, several Trustees of Reservations properties, Lake Winnepesaukee, Echo Lake, and….I’m sure there was more!

Lily seems so grown up lately, her vocabulary and memory are really amazing.  I hope she is able to put it all to good use once she gets to school.  She continues to never tire and is constantly energized, from the minute she wakes in the morning until she completely exhausts herself, still playing in her bed.  Kellan is learning so much as well, he’s hot and cold with his moods- he has bouts of energy where he’s a wild man, running, yelling and crazy, and then he has his times he just wants to cuddle and relax (and eat, mostly).   Unlike his sister, he likes his sleep and still takes a long daily nap.  He’s a grouch when he wakes up (he may or may not take after his mama).  He’s accident prone and will literally run into walls at times. We’re lucky to have two smart, healthy, beautiful children to enjoy these summers with.