Visiting Parents

Sorry for the lack of posts in June, but we have been blessed with several visitors and thus short on time. Our first guests were my parents. They came for a week at the beginning of June and we had a blast. They just so happen to be here over graduation so MIT was all dolled up for the inflow of people.

We, of course, did not go to graduation, but we did walk around afterwards...you know, to get us ready for next year. ;-D Below is a pictures of the aftermath of graduation.

Here's a picture of grandma, Hannah, and the bear.

Here's Hannah in the cute new outfit that Grandma and Grandpa bought for her. Can you guess where they bought it? Those Helsel buffs out there will know this one. :-D

Here's Hannah being pushed around in her choo choo box. This was a favorite activity while the grandparents were here. Since then she has gotten much better at getting in and out of boxes/tubs.

Here's Hannah being cool like grandma. For those that don't know, grandma always wears a hat with a wide brim. Here Hannah has hijacked the hat and is being super cute.

While my parents were here we went and had dinner at Tim and Nancy's place. Here's Caleb and Hannah eating.

While at Tim and Nancy's, Hannah had tons of fun playing with the ice cubes. She would grab an ice cube out of the ice bucket (which isn't the easiest task), and then bring them over to me. This kept her entertained for quite a while because unbeknownst to her, I would hand the ice cubes to my dad who would put them back in the bucket when she wasn't looking

Another thing we did while my parents were here is we went up to visit Mrs. Rowland in NH. We had a great time catching up and visiting. Hannah had a great time playing with Daisy, the dog. Daisy is 16 years old and basically blind and deaf. This was perfect for Hannah because Daisy didn't get scared away by all the load sounds Hannah makes. Hannah did a great job of being gentle...and so did Daisy.

All in all, we had a lot of fun with my parents. Caleb and I even made it out once on a date, so that was cool too. OH, I almost forgot. While my parents were babysitting they made an amazing discovery. Outside one of the dorms are two flamingos. Hannah loves them!! We have played with them several times since. Here's a pictures

The best part is that they don't fly away from her and they can take an infinite amount of roughness.

Happy 27 to ME!

Yup, yup, today is my birthday. However, in honor of Colleen, we decided to start the celebration on Saturday. (Since New Zealand is about 16 hours ahead of us, it was my birthday on Saturday as well, so we started celebrating right after Colleen called and reminded me that it was already my birthday). So on Saturday night Caleb and I went out to see the movie Get Smart, while Liz (Caleb's little sister who is visiting) watched Hannah. It's a really funny movie, and I suggest you all go see it.

Then on Sunday morning after church we went to the Bugaboo Steak House in Water Town. We got there 15 minutes after it opened and were the only people there for quite a while. It was like Caleb had rented the place out for me! The restaurant was pretty cool. They had all these animals (not real) up on the walls and strategically placed around the rooms, and every so often one of the animals would move (like a fish flapping its tail). Our favorite animal (or at least Hannah's favorite) was the talking Bison. Not long after we sat down we heard Bill the Buffalo start talking. Hannah loved it! She spent the rest of the meal pointing and talking at the buffalo. Luckily he spoke two other times while we were there. It was definitely one of the highlights of our day.

After lunch we all came home, ate some Angle food cake (which Liz so graciously made), and took an afternoon nap.



Then we went out to Castle Island (which is a completely bogus name because it is neither a castle, nor is it on an island, but anyhow...).



Our specific purpose was to dog watch, since Hannah loves dogs and gets really excited when we see them. But some side benefits were the beautiful weather and watching the para-surfers (I"m not sure if that's what you call them). Then we ended the day with some Mike's Pastry's and a Bee Movie at home.

All in all, I say it was a successful birthday...which I suppose is good, because you only have three n^n birthdays, and the first two you don't really remember, or know too much of what is going on.

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes and cards!

Dim Sum

So this morning we all went to Dim Sum. It was super fun (once we all found parking). We had tons of tasty (and unknown) dishes as well as some of our favorites.

Here's Carey & Bethany enjoying our food.

Hannah was also adventurous and tried some new things. She was surprisingly enjoyable considering we went during her nap time. But as always, she's a champ!

Hey Cheryl, this picture is for you. Yeah, Liz is actually eating her greens. It was one of her favorite dishes at the table. And I swear it's not cheeto's painted green. :-D

After Dim Sum, Liz and Caleb walked the Freedom Trail. Here are acouple highlights from their walk.

Garden Tour

So my Garden has totally blossomed. Let me give you a tour.

Here it is from the road. The first bed has zucchini's on the left, then broccoli, and carrots. In front are the merry golds, with peppers on either side, and then radishes on the far right.

Here's a radish and carrot I picked. The carrots still need alittle time to get bigger, but they are still super tasty.

These are our tomato plants. They are huge. Currently they are growing out the top of their cages (which are about 4 feet tall). I'm not quite sure what to do now to encourage them to grow up and not out. Any ideas out there for cage extensions?

Here are some of the tomatoes that we have growing.

More Tomato's. We will have a bountiful harvest of these.

Here are the Cabbage. You can see some lettuce at the top of the pictures. I just picked some of that, which is why they are alittle small

Here's a broccoli. I could probably harvest one of these soon.

Here's one of my zucchini plants. As you can see, we will be having quite a bit of zucchini very shortly!

Here is a banana pepper. Pretty cool, huh?

The only sad part is that my cilantro plant is going to seed...but used it for quite a while, and I guess now we will get to have some coriander. Besides the cilantro, we have also used tons of the parsley, radishes, and I've tasted the carrots and snap peas. It's been alot of fun gardening and I"m looking forward to tasting some other "fruits" from my labor. (lol)

And for those who might be interested, here are some pictures of what our garden looked like when we started:

The three plants on the left are the tomato plants, and there are two pepper plants on the right.

Here's Caleb planting the cabbages. Can you believe they started so small?

Here's my spice row: basil, rosemary, parsley, and cilantro. And you can also see one broccoli behind the cilantro.

Here you can see the broccoli on the right and the merry golds in front.

And there are the zucchini's in the center. They have really done well!

Yesterday's attire

So yesterday Hannah wore some really cute outfits. Here's the dress she wore to church:

The dress is special because it came all the way from New Zealand. Although you can't tell from the picture, it has a cute little sheep on the front. :-D

This dress Hannah wore to our church's big 10 year anniversary party. This is one of the few clothing items that we have bought for Hannah. It's so cute, how could we resist? :)

Friends and Food

So this weekend has been full of fun and excitement for me (& Hannah & Caleb). First on Saturday, Caleb and Hannah had some quality "dad-daughter time" while I went to my friend Jeanette's bridal shower. Here are some pictures:

This is Victoria enjoying the wonderful spread of food we had.

This is Alisha and her incredibly cute daughter Abigail.

Here's Debbie hanging out with baby Julia.

Here's an action shot of Jeanette opening her presents with the help of her two flower girls (who also happen to be expert present openers...good thing they were around!)

Here's Julia smiling at me as I played peek-a-boo with her. Talk about precious

Unfortunately we didn't think of taking a group picture until half the people had left, so here's a small subset of the group that was there.

Then on Sunday, we had a BBQ with some of our MIT friends. Caleb grilled up some super tasty burgers, and everyone else brought some delicious food to share. There will definitely be more BBQ's happening this summer....yum!! Here are some pic's from that:

Here's a group picture of all of us (minus Hannah who was taking nap). Obviously someone very clever laid out the picture, because I didn't notice until now that all the guys are in the back, and all the ladies are in the front. Not only that, but each gentleman is standing behind his lady. Wow, talk about good layout

Here's a picture of Hannah Hug and Hannah Williams. All day Friday when I was hanging out with Jason and Jeanette we tried to get a cute picture of "the Hannah's" without any success. Then today I saw them sitting next to each other, and so I said, "Hannah" and they both looked my way. How cute is that!!

Here's a group picture of us sitting around our stash of food. That seems to be the common theme for the weekend: friends and food. (actually, that's a good title for this blog entry :-D)

Here's a picture of the four babies we had at the BBQ, all of whom are under two. As you can imagine, there was quite a bit of action.

This is a cute picture of Jeanette, Bonnie, Dave.

Here's Jason and his daughter "little w", as she is know when she is hanging out with my Hannah "little h"

And to top it off, Sunday night Caleb and I went to our church's big 10 year anniversary party. It was fun to see (and hear) how God can plant a vision in a few, and grow it to many.