monster golf

It was fun - we were practically the only ones there. Shara was sort of scared of some of the animatronics but it didn't stop her from going through the 18 holes. Great for a semi-rainy day and far enough away that she got to read a good amount of her book. Yesterday we actually bought one at the library. They had an author there talking to a group of 4-6 grade kids, "My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending with Special Guest Author Anna Staniszewski" She had the kids do a little writing exercise, talked about her book and answered several questions from the kids. Shara got her first book from the My Very Unfairy Tale Life series and really likes it. Something in it was rather scary to her so she's only reading it during the day.

Conversation

Shara: I told you not to get not to get me socks.
Mommy: no you didn't
Shara: I did in my head

Kitchens where all the fun is!

So this is Holly. She came back to us last night and is already causing trouble. She kept us from eating the Cardamom Orange Spritz Cookies Shara & I made Thursday night.














This evening we were at church for the annual Holly Faire.Shara was a big help in the kitchen. She was much more focused and efficient before she started eating the bakers dozen of cookies she bought herself. As you can see, she had a very fun time!

Awesome Work

Shara came home Friday and today with many graded big projects and the ones that really counted were all either Awesome! or Excellent! I'm so proud of her. One of her teachers asked if she could have the assignment back and Shara said sometimes they keep them for next years class to show as examples. And after not much trumpet practice, yesterday she made up for it. The two of us hung out in her room "jammin'" - her on trumpet and me on clarinet - she got all the backlog of homework done and we had fun too. Today she wanted to make time to practice. Maybe by the spring we'll be able to play a real song together. That will be fun!

Saturday we went to church to discuss our covenant (behavioral agreement with each other) and potluck. Shara came too and wanted to stay with the grown-ups. She was the only kid there but participated the same as any of the adults. Here's a skit she did about listening to other peoples wants (I believe).

Shara & friends in a skit from church

Shara dancing w/ Mary M. @ another church event (Tom's birthday party)

Haunted houses are very common.
All of the dead come alive.
Lots of scariness for everyone.
Lots of people dress up in costumes.
Only the bravest people come out.
When it gets dark peoples' pumpkins light up.
Everyone has lots of fun.
Emergencies are when you run out of candy.
Never eat too much candy.

Halloween & Other

Halloween - this year Shara was inspired by Teen Beach Movie and decided she wanted to be the biker girl and the one in the movie had a beehive ala Amy Winehouse. Disney had several "commercials" on tv showing just how simple this hairstyle is to do yourself! Ha! So needless to say, last Sunday began our foray into beehives and Aqua Net. At church the youth group wanted to do a costume contest and Shara won for most detailed costume. That day she did most of her hair herself. All I did was put some of it into a bun and she did the rest. Later that day, after almost finishing the pumpkin carving, we tried to rush to the town parade and didn't get there because our ambition was too great and the hair didn't work and it was very upsetting. I think we learned a good lesson from that trial.

Last night (10/30) I posted that I "have to wake Shara up at 5:55 am and do her beehive. I'm hoping we won't both end up in tears. I'm going for the cheater's way and using a rolled up pair of pantyhose - they say a bath loofa - poofy sponge thing, but I think the hose should work ok. Pulling out the aquanet! It went mostly well and was a team effort. Original outfit ripped off and after rummaging through the laundry found a good shirt. Got to the bus stop early and with breakfast so I'd say yes, well.

So her hair was in need of a redo after the day at school. I took just the pantyhose and that seemed to work well for an extra poof to her hair. Then I had to get ready because we had the family theme going. I put on my Broadway Lunch shirt, slicked back my hair, put on a little 5 o'clock shadow and became a 50's male. Quick supper (thank you Alan for the great grilled cheese) and we were off trick-or-treating.

Two cool chicks

Shara carved this all by herself while I made the meringues!

ready for trick or treating

They looked so cute before baking.

Not so cute now, but tasted excellent!

Some comments from facebook: 10/31 - listening to shara sort her candy is hysterial. "This is the best day of my life". "I have to have dots. That's my new goal." And apparently we shouldn't have the blue raspberry jolly ranchers.
Denise Hamer Charland, Olivia Melo, Tobi Applebaum and 8 others like this.
Lauren Katherine Does she need dots? We have one box nobody will eat! Lol
Laurie Lessner no thank you. we have plenty. It's now turned from funny to the point where I'm really having to hold my tongue because it seems like she's eaten so much. Maybe I need to be more like Alan Yabroudy and keep refilling the wine glass.
Lauren Katherine Mmmmmmmmm. Wine.
Laurie Lessner the candy follies have come to a close - the end of gluttony in our house - until after Shara goes to bed and then I'll have just a little more...
Jill Lessner Looker Sounds like a fun night!
Laurie Lessner it was - each year is a big difference and great memory


















10/26 - Finally some good pet news - Brutus had his stitches taken out this morning and was given the go-ahead to resume his normal activities. Alan tried to get him to go down the spiral stairs, but he didn't want to, so he got carried down to sit on the couch with Shara. He was made to get himself upstairs and chose the spiral. He did fine, but at his age, normal activity is sleeping most of the time!
Jill Lessner Looker Great news!!
Laurie Lessner thanks all!
Scott Gillespie YAY, BRUTUS!
Tobi Applebaum So happy to hear the good news. Brutus is a trooper.

Church Year Beginnings

Shara displays Bobbe's version of Rosie's brownies, with mango sorbet. One of the many delicious treats at our Circle Dinner last Friday night. We all had a wonderful time hanging out and talking with church friends. Shara read a very creative story she wrote, danced and entertained our guests. It's nice having built in entertainment.

Sunday I signed up to host coffee hour at church. Alan and Shara ushered. We brought Betty's German Sour Cream Twists - I forgot to mention to her the dough was left over from the lesson she gave Shara & myself. I also made a couple of yeast breads - the banana cinnamon swirl is below. I had to leave coffee hour for a bit for a meeting. Shara sat on the floor in the office and made rubber band bracelets until Alan was ready to go. It was rather relaxing and peaceful having her there.  

 These are pictures for the class I taught for Korin a couple of weeks ago. There was only Shara and Jenny, but we had a really nice time. We read the story "The Mishmash Heart" and spoke about the phenomenon of how loves grows the more you give it away. We decorated hearts and the Sonia, another teacher, asked if I could take a picture of a beautiful piece of artwork one of her students made.

Target Photoshoot

Out much too late on a Friday night!

Daddy's 50th Surprise Party

We have almost no photos but very good memories. This was all Shara's idea - having a surprise party. I wasn't sure we could pull it off but we did and Alan had no clue. We arranged for Oma, Jidor & Auntie Chris to come over for cake after church. Then Shara would take daddy out for lunch. We figured somewhere sit-down so we'd have a descent amount of time to get set up, but without the help of John & Maggie (and also Hannah!), and then Pat and anyone else I could bark orders to, we'd never have been in place when they came home. And they didn't call like they were supposed to, so it was a real surprise for us when Shara comes in, runs downstairs and calls, "we're home! we're here!". And just a minute before they start coming down, the phone rings and it's a friend of Shara's and I couldn't hang up on a little girl! so I missed Alan's expression but he was very surprised.

This is the best photo we have!

It was nice having friends and family come together when they wouldn't normally have a chance to meet each other. Next time I'd like to have more people - I don't like having limits! I want everyone to join in the fun - and if we had planned better, could have asked the NY family to come too. Oh well, ideas for improvement are always good.

Weekends of Festivals

Last weekend we participated in our third World Peace Day event by joining other First Parish friends for our walk around Bridgewater, MA, spreading peace to all. Read about it in the Bridgewater Independent and view some neat photos of us. It was a nice day and the first time Alan joined us. Before the peace activities, we had our family portrait taken for the church directory and we were able to purchase photos too. That was fun and interesting because we never sat for a family photo shoot before. It was very well done and a few came out very nice. Shara's looked great but we just ordered her school photos the day before and didn't want to go overboard.

Sunday was the Margarita Party from the church auction. We had a bunch of people over to the house who had "won" the item, which was to come to our house for a party! It was a good time, and once I was able to fix the blender and get it screwed together properly so it didn't pour all over the counter when I was trying just for the glass, it was much more relaxing. Shara provided the entertainment by creating a scavenger hunt for people to play when they entered the house. It was a fun way for people to learn the house and Shara certainly had fun directing them.

During the week we didn't do much but one day I was able to leave work early to get Shara and we ran some errands, one of which was going to Langwater and Mockingbird Music. The music shop was for me to get reeds for the clarinet that my co-worker may sell me. Then Shara and I can practice together. Langwater was a nice trip picking out lots of good veggies and getting into the Fall spirit:

This weekend we had quite a history lesson. The first was about the Civil War. At the library they had a civil war weekend that was very interesting, even if it wasn't as well attended as I thought it would be. We saw a fashion show, had some bbq, talked to the re-enactors and jumped every time they fired a rifle. Shara liked it so much she dragged us back in the evening for the lantern tour of the camps.

Sunday was also activity filled. First we went to church where Alan participated in the service in his role of ministerial search committee member and Shara had her first RE class. She seemed to like it a lot and handed me the paper that told what they're doing in class and gave us talking points for home. She also couldn't wait to show me the paper with responses to questions from the class. After church we went to King Richard's Faire. We voted between the Jubilee Concert at the Middleborough church, featuring the FPBwater choir, and King Richard's. I lost, but had a fun time anyway. How can't the Faire be fun? We did stop to eat lunch before though. Learned lessons over the years that the food isn't worth the money, except for the desserty stuff. But the most enjoyable activities are the joust, according to Shara, and the performers, according to all of us.

Avocado Yumminess

Shara Gillespie

Last night we went to school and got Shara's trumpet! She was so excited and could make some great sounds with it. We all took a turn and she was the best. A real natural!

Schools been going very well. She's still happy with her teacher and other than the annoying boy who keeps talking, even at inappropriate times, she likes her class.

Last weekend we spent a nice day with Bubbe. We went to shul for Yom Kippur and then a quick trip to Gershon's for a bit of lunch. It really was a quick trip and even though the day was gorgeous, we had to drive because we were in a bit of a hurry. Bubbe didn't really want us to leave the service but Shara really wanted to continue our tradition and then the rabbi spoke about how important it was for people to have nice memories of their shul and religious traditions, I figured he was speaking to me and I needed to make sure Shara looked back on Yom Kippur with happy memories. What could be more happy than going to Gershon's? The rest of the day was pretty nice too. We picked up the bagels and headed back to Bubbe's where we helped clean and get ready for everyone coming over to break the fast. This is another good source for happy, though a bit crazy, memories. It was chaotic but we were able to spend some good times with family and Shara really seems to have a way with little kids. She played hide and seek with Holly and tried to keep the running under control, but realized how difficult a task it was and we pretty much gave up and just gave a lot of hugs and big smiles.

Chilly morning

Fourth Grade!

Mini Golf - Kimball Farm

Shara loved (s) school. Her teacher is so nice and she gets to sit with anyone she wants at lunch. When I got home after her first day she was still bouncing off the walls she was so excited. Then Friday we were alone - Alan had a church meeting - so we had a girls night watching Bedtime Stories and eating leftovers. Then we were able to have a girls' day Saturday. After being unproductive in the morning we headed out to Kimball Farms to play some pretty good mini golf, look at some birds (peacock didn't open it's wings) & ponies - so little and then had to cart around those kids full of barrels of ice cream... We joined in the ice cream gluttony and got children's sized, which really were as big as mediums, with toppings. Shara had cherry vanilla chip w/ butterscotch and I had red raspberry chip yogurt w/ hot fudge. Then on the way toward home I made her stop to get apples. Shara stayed in the car - locked in the back and played on her phone. I went in and after looking around for a bit, went back out and told her she'd enjoy seeing all the fun things inside, like little cups of pressed cider from a spigotted barrel coming out of the wall for 5 cents or the huge bins of apples. I got apples and a 1/2 peck of peaches. Happily we were ready to go on our way home - shopping for apples or anything else wasn't high on the list. But we do have four big bags of peaches in the freezer now!

A tough looking Shara and her "Penguin"

Labor Day weekend - we went to the Looker's camp where we made a penguin! Shara also had a great time visiting with her cousins. She swam with them across the "cove", played a lot of ball/catch, played a game of Apples to Apples Jr. and ate far too many marshmallows. Funny thing about Apples to Apples - Samantha wanted to let Shara have first dibs on the game. I thought because we had bought it for her when she was little, but she forgot that and just loved the game so much she thought Shara would appreciate it too. She does!

The day before we drove straight to Saratoga to look around the town a bit before going to the Lookers. We ended up looking around at the Dance Museum, having a very nice crepe lunch, enjoyed browsing the used book store and a new agey shop, before heading to the park to assault the ducks. They didn't seem to mind much. Then we had a little tiff about where to go for ice cream. Of all things to argue about! The known Ben & Jerry's or the riskier "Ice Cream Man". We ended up risking it and had some good ice cream at an old fashioned ice cream shop.

Marshmallows - and S'mores of course

Snuggling on a float

Loving hanging with the big kids!

Here chicky chicky chicky

Something to Remember

Post by Bully.

Marshfield Fair 2013

8/25/13 - Today Shara helped me make the jarred peaches by peeling all of them! Couldn't have done it without her.

8/24/13 - Marshfield Fair!

Wonderful time - we actually closed the place. We got to the fair at around 2 PM and looked around to get a lay of the land. Not much different from when we were last here three years ago, but the biggest change was Shara. She's so much bigger now we were able to do so much more and she enjoyed more of the activities we liked too. We first went to the food area for Alan to get a chili dog. Then we checked out the midway. We went on the bumper cars and they were pretty tough to control. If the wheel was turned around enough you went backwards and that was the way we started out. Shara took the wheel and accelerator but we switched back and forth. Then when we got the hang of it, we were done. Then she went in a kiddy fun house with Alan and thought it was so-so. The last ride we went on were the spinning dragons. She loved that I was going on with her and she could show me how we could control the speed by turning the wheel inside. It was fun and we got it going pretty fast!

I thought it would be exciting to see the Clydesdale horses in an exhibition. We got to the ring but wondered if it was still happening. A few people were milling around and it was on the schedule so we stayed. The people running it said it would start in 10 minutes so we hung out, chatted, laughed and teased each other about going in the huge, scary rides, and finished our Dell's frozen lemonade. The horses came out and they weren't as big as I thought they'd be. They were pulling a carriage and went around the ring while the announcer talked about something we could hardly understand over the loudspeaker. Then they went on to do figure 8's and that's when we said it was time to move on. We saw the magician for a quick show. It was pretty entertaining but I seem to remember last time it was better. 

At this point, if I remember correctly, it was dinner time. The choices were basically the same as usual. Alan got a steak, cheese, onions & peppers. The smell of the sausage was incredible and I almost had one in honor of dad (grandpa) but thought it would be just a little better to split the chicken teriyaki/steak kabob combo with Shara. It was a good amount for the two of us and didn't leave us stuffed. I think we wandered around more - checked out the craft hall and agricultural hall. Shara really didn't want to go in either hall but once we were in, she wanted to look at everything. She said, "I don't know why I want to look at all these vegetables, but I do." We got to the demolition derby bleachers early enough to get seats that would leave us with an easy escape if we wanted to leave early, which we did need to do if we wanted to get to the hypnotist at 8:30pm. We had a lot of fun at the derby - it was the figure 8 race finals. Lots of figure 8s today! Shara said she was treating it like a fashion show - she picked the cars she liked the look of best. Her favorite was the pink and green with the hobby horse on the top. We could have sold our seats when we left, the place was so packed (we didn't). 

We went back up to the entertainment area, stopping for dessert on the way. I knew I wanted the apple crisp w/ ice cream. Alan was still full and Shara thought she wanted to try a fried sweet (that was actually the name of a vendor). She was going to get the deep fried snickers bar, but the oreos sounded good too. I suggested the oreos because I had one once and it was good, but the Snickers would be too sweet for me. Then it was a choice between the Oreos and a Milky Way. She couldn't decide so I suggested quietly to Alan to get both. I went the other way to get my apple crisp and we were going to meet up at the magician's stage. They came over with both the Oreos and Milky Way. Alan decided he wasn't too full to have dessert so would make the sacrifice and eat what she didn't want. The hypnotist show was pretty good - Shara really liked it. She thought it the lady who thought she was in love with the hypnotist was funny, especially when she thought the temperature was really high and she was fanning herself with her skirt! Shara wondered if she had underwear on - we assured her she did! She also thought it was pretty cool being up so late - and so did I. We were talking about how one year we carried her out asleep in my arms and now look at her - closing the place! Next thing you know, I told her she'd be having me drop her off to spend the night there with her friends! She didn't seem to like that idea much. No problem with me - I had fun all going together!

Playground Fun

Lay week one of the fun times Shara and I had were playing on the playground at her school. We ran and climbed and swung all over the place!

Harriet the whiner & More from ArtsFest 2013, Session 2

Shara made a fantastic narrator

View all the videos and artwork

Fulfilling the End of Summer Bucket List

Miniature Golf - we have a beautiful mini golf course so close to home, but this is the first time we've ever gone. Won't wait so long to make another visit. Alan went to a meeting and we had a girls night out. Shara and I were pretty closely matched. She was good about chasing the balls that got away - and we both overshot and had them taken away by water or fly down a hill!

Ended with a lot of mosquitoes so had to have our ice cream in the car. What suffering!















Shara's bucket list includes a lot of camping out. Since I wasn't wanting an overnight outside, she set up her own tent in the family room.

 

Big Time Concert

Last night Shara and a friend from school had a fun time at the Victoria Justice/Big Time Rush concert. Victoria Justice was much more enjoyable since we didn't have to deal with the blood-curdling scream of this girl behind us. Nice that the adult with them didn't care that it was bothering us so much - I actually had to say it was so loud it hurt. Oh well, eardrums heal! Anyway, all happy in the end, but Shara will freak when her ears are still ringing today like mine are.

A sea of pink!, but we used the buddy system and on the way out, all held hands. And only one wrong turn to get to the car.