ramblings and famous folks

I have been such a blog slacker this week and it makes me so sad!  I have all these random ideas floating around in my head and just haven't had the time or clarity of mind to actually sit down and write!  And even now, with both boys sleeping at the moment (although it's probably just a matter of minutes before Micah wakes up...) I still don't think I'm going to be able to articulate anything very interesting.  Oh well, I'll do my best!

As you all know, New England got pounded with snow today!  It was so fun to sit in our little home and watching it coming down in buckets all day.  For some strange reason, I thought I would try to be super-mom and walk the boys down to the dining hall for lunch.  Part of me wanted to be super-mom and the other part of me was SO sick of being cooped up in our one-room downstairs.  We also haven't been grocery shopping in ages, and didn't have anything in the house to eat.  So, I bundled the boys up - snowsuits, boots, hats, mittens - and trekked outside.  My baby carrier was in the car (which was about 15 yards away on unshoveled walkways and covered with over a foot of snow) so I decided to push Micah in the double stroller.  That was a mistake.  I put him in there and covered the whole stroller with a huge blanket to block out the wind.  He was screaming the whole way.  Camden wanted to walk on his own, but was taking FOREVER so I finally convinced him to sit in the stroller with Micah.  I almost died going down the huge hill (literally slipping and sliding with my monstrous double stroller skidding and pulling me down the hill) and then Camden decided he didn't want to ride and tried to climb out of the stroller while we were still moving.  Meanwhile, my head is buried, staring at the ground as wind whips snow into my face.  It was a miserable 10 minutes and the only thing that made me feel better was seeing my friend Molly come into the dining hall looking just as flushed, frustrated, out of breath and exhausted as I was after walking over with her two kids.  We commiserated with each other a bit and convinced ourselves never to try THAT again!  Ugh!

On another note, we had such a fun evening on Saturday.  Scott and Gregor brought their basketball team up to Dartmouth to watch them play Harvard.  Rather than sitting home alone all evening, the boys and I joined them.  Camden had a blast watching the game, dancing to the music during time outs, eating popcorn and climbing around on the bleachers.

Scott was able to drive home with us rather than on the bus so we decided to stop at Ramunto's for pizza since it was getting pretty late.

Two of my FAVORITE books of all time.
Images taken from http://www.jodipicoult.com/

Part way through our meal, my favorite author of all time (Jodi Picoult) walked into the restaurant and sat right next to us!  I was freaking out to Scott, but he did a good job calming me down and convincing me not to say anything to her.  I'm not sure Scott quite understands how famous and how talented this woman is!  She has written 17 novels (the last three of which have debuted at number one on the New York Times best seller list!) and her books are translated into 34 different languages...let's just say she's super talented and well-known!  It made my day to see her eating pizza with her son and took all I had in me not to tell her how much I love her! 

Images taken from Amazon and Tomie.com

This experience came on the heels of a funny experience on Christmas Eve with our other local hero, Tomie dePaola.  Tomie has been published for over 40 years and has written/illustrated over 200 books.  Some of my favorite children's books were written by Tomie, and although he lives in New London, we don't see him very often.  On Christmas Eve we were out to dinner with my family and when my mom brought Clara to the bathroom she pointed out that Tomie was sitting at the Bar with some friends.  On her way back, Clara walked slowly by him and he struck up a conversation with her.  He was so kind and she was talking his ear off (we could all see and hear every word from the table we were sitting at).  The best line was when Clara says, "I've driven by your house before!" - aka: my family stalks you!  So funny.  He was unphased and was so sweet to her.





We've been making some good progress on our house recently!  The electrician will be in there next week!  I'll post some pictures soon of our gutted house!  It's pretty crazy!

Oh dear...Micah is up...gotta run.  Goodnight!