Columbus Day Weekend

It was still rainy last week, but it dried out for the weekend.  David, my niece Emily's husband, was in Hartford for business and came up for supper on Thursday.  He was a good sport, taking a dog walk and playing Lego Jones (this is what Cal calls our Lego Indiana Jones video game to which Willa is addicted) with Nick and the kids while I grocery shopped and cooked.  Most of you know, my kids are "active", "spirited", "high-energy" and David coped very well.  We really enjoyed having him and hope he and Em will come out for a visit (hint, hint).  To quote my sister: He's a great guy. 

Saturday, we ventured out to the Granville Harvest Fair.  It was a beautiful day, the kind where you take off your sweatshirt in the sun and then put it on in the shade.  Granville is a small town and their fair is kind of a  town garage sale/craft fair/car show all in one.  We spent our day searching for an old cheese grater (I want to use it to hang my earrings on!), enjoying the food (pulled pork, yum) and looking at the crafts.  Cal and Willa got their faces painted:

Willa is a pink and blue tiger.

Cal got a bat across his face. 

 They also had great time watching a juggler.  Willa kept picking up the stuff he dropped and handing it to him.  He recognized her persistence by picking her up and "juggling" her!  She loved it, of course.

Here she is ready to fetch.

It was a nice day, which ended with pumpkin ice cream, but, alas, no cheese grater.

Sunday was spent at home doing final gardening, making invitations to Cal's birthday party and playing in the "sandbox".  The sandbox is actually a drawer taken from the side of the road and filled with sand.  The kids were using as a habitat for their dinos and one tiger.  Berries were brought into play as food, then squished to be blood.  It wasn't as violent as it sounds.  Well, perhaps it was for the berries. 

Monday was Columbus day and everyone had it off.  Nick packed us in the car for a trip to Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire.  We hoped to hike and see a friend of Nick's from college, but we never connected.  The hike was great though, beautiful and challenging.  We did half the climb to the peak, which was 1 mile.  The first 9/10ths of the mile were a slight uphill climb over rocky terrain, the last 1/10th was much more vertical, but fun.  The kids liked scrambling and climbing up the rocks.  We were awarded with an amazing view at a clearing in the trees.  Someone on their way down said "Ah, the last view."  Willa replied, "It's our first!"  After resting and a snack we headed down.  Cal wanted to keep climbing up! 

Willa sketches

Cal and I lag behind.

The view from the clearing.

At the top (our top, not THE top).

The ever-popular artsy shot.

The trail is marked by carins like this.

On our way out of the woods, we saw a barred owl (we'd never seen an owl in the wild before!) and the Frost Free Library.  We couldn't help giggling at that.  :)

One last adventure for the day was supper at the People's Pint in Greenfield, MA.  Good beer, excellent food and interesting atmosphere.  It was decorated with silhouettes of shadow puppets.  We picked up a few new ones! 

The kids were asleep by the time we reached home.  We were all tired, but happy. 

We had a great weekend, though, we missed you!