Where I've Been

So, have you ever had something happen in your life that suddenly makes nothing else in the world matter?  All the normal little day-to-day time wasters (checking facebook, reading a novel, flipping through People Magazine...) seem so completely unimportant that I just haven't even hardly been on the computer for the last 10 days. 

My family has been dealing with a major health crises that has brought the world to a halt around us.  My Dad has been in the hospital since Wednesday March 21, has had an embolism, a 9 hour back surgery, and just last night an emergency surgery to remove bleeding in his spine that was causing acute paralysis in his lower body - we have another surgery on the horizon and then once he rehabs from all of this we have a pretty severe cancer diagnosis to deal with. 

The incredible outpouring of love, support and prayer from friends and family far and near has been incredible.  I knew my Dad was a popular guy, but he literally has thousands of people praying for him.  It's all been completely overwhelming, scary, sad, heartbreaking, and yet we have moments full of hope.  Needless to say, I haven't been on the blog at all and may not be until my life gets a little more back to normal.  I've been spending hours every single day at the hospital (which is 45 minutes away) with my Dad.

Your prayers for my Dad and our family would mean so much to me at this time.

Evening Play

After dinner last night we went outside to enjoy the evening light.  We are so blessed by this little piece of land we call home.  

 Scott (with a tiny bit of help from me and Camden) stacked 4 cord of green wood for next winter!  Good job, hubby!

 Exploring the woods...

So excited that spring is officially here!  I think we have many, many more evenings like this in our future!

Manchester Adventure

Taking advantage of our vacation time together as a family we made the trek down to Manchester a few days ago and visited the See Science Center for the first time ever.  Over the last couple of years we've used Christmas or Birthday money to buy a pass the the Montshire Museum of Science.  Our boys love this museum and we've been so lucky to be able to visit it on a nearly monthly basis for a while now.  When our membership ran out in January we decided to use this money towards something different this year.  We learned about something called a reciprocal pass to all of the museums (over 500) in the Association of Children's Museums and Association of Science - Technology Centers.  This means our family of four has unlimited access to children's and science museums all over the country - including the one we go to in Portland when we visit Brian and Sarah, the one in Dover that we just went to last week, the Boston Children's Museum, the Harvard Museum of Natural History and many, many more.  The Manchester museum is "free" for us now that we have this pass so we thought we'd check it out!  The boys had an absolute blast! 
Here they are digging for fossils...

 These guys loved the huge soft blocks.  We made lots of houses and towers and knocked them down!

One of the biggest highlights of the museum was the gigantic Lego project that is up on permanent display.  According to the website, this is the largest permanent Lego installation at minifigure scale in the world! 

 This is what Manchester's Amoskeag Millyard looked like around 1900 (by 1915 the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was commonly recognized as the largest textile manufacturer in the world)!  It was fun to learn a little history and see this incredible display up close and personal.  The detail is unbelievable.  I think Scott was in heaven as much as the boys were! 

A cool pulley system where you lift yourself up...

Kaleidoscope fun!

 Camden was adorable and stood in line to participate in a special chance to "walk on the moon."  He's usually really shy about trying something new like this and being independent of us, and he was so cute and brave stepping up to the plate.  We were very proud of him and he loved it!

 Go Camden!

 Overall, a wonderful experience.  We will miss visiting the Montshire as often as we have in the past, but what a great opportunity to visit so many new and different places for essentially the same price as our pass to the Montshire was.  YAHOO!!!!

 Three more days of vacation and then back to reality!  :(

NH in the Spring

About ten minutes after returning from our North Shore trip, we loaded up the double stroller and headed to campus to help collect sap.  Proctor has their own sugar house and taps their own trees and it is such a blast for the little kids (and the high school kids!) on campus to be a part of the process. 

Our boys loved riding in the back of the big truck ("glorified hay ride" as our friend called it - don't be alarmed, we weren't on real roads...) and emptying the sap buckets.  It's amazing how quickly the sap is pouring out of the trees right now.  This is one of our favorite activities that we look forward to every spring!

 Hang on tight!

 Soooo much sap!

 Happy Boy...

 What a place to grow up!

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Today we visited our friends' sugarhouse to watch them boil.  It was pretty adorable listening to Camden explain to Micah where syrup comes from and watching them lick their lips after tasting a fresh sample.  It made us miss my sister and her family as Dave is usually a part of the Tucker Mountain Maple Co-op and just lives for spring in NH.  :(  Hopefully some day they'll move back from North Carolina (Dave is in a 3 year program at Duke Divinity School, Caren has a great job and Clara is in a wonderful Waldorf school...only time will tell if they return to their little farm on Tucker Mountain).

 The boys loved visiting the alpacas too!  What a fun afternoon!

 This poor guy has some serious buck-teeth! 

Gotta love New Hampshire...

Back into the "village" and we're following a tractor.  Just another day in the country.

I love where we live, and I love that my little boys will grow up knowing exactly where the syrup on our table comes from.  :)