The kids have started giving me a hand in front of their face a lot for pictures, so I don’t seem to have so many good ones recently.

But then occasionally Sarah will ham it up!

And here she wanted me to take a pic of her “sand excavator”.

I joined Sarah’s preschool class for a trip to the library in June, and Sarah was excited to get her very own library card.

She was also very excited to finally get ice cream from the Manor Deli, which she has been requesting for some time.

Here’s a pic her teacher took of us having lunch after school — for the last few months she wanted to have lunch immediately after school every day with her friend Nicholas.

On her last official day of school she asked if we could paint her nails for the graduation the next day, so we did!  She was so happy, she said it would make it better when she does the hand motions for the songs they’d prepared.  Here she is enjoying some BBQ chicken (still her fave) with her freshly painted nails.

We went down to PA on June 1 for Nate’s Baptism and party on the 2nd.  We got to hang out with Josie and Nate, celebrate Aunt Molly’s birthday a few weeks early, and see how wonderful the house looks!  Thanks for hosting us, Mom and Tim and Liz!

We started celebrating Memorial Day weekend on 5/23 with the Larchmont Parade.  The kids were thrilled to get some American flags to wave.  They enjoyed the various bands — there were several bagpipe bands, a drumming group, and the Hommocks middle school band.  There were various girl scout troops, and the firefighters from Weaver Street and from Larchmont.  There was also a historical firefighters group driving an antique fire truck.

We went to Manor Beach for opening day!

Then on Sunday we took a day trip to the Queens Hall of Science and finally made it to their outdoor science playground.  The kids liked the water features, particularly an Archimedes screw.

After the museum we continued into Brooklyn for lunch at Fette Sau, followed by ice cream at the liquid nitrogen place.

Then we came home for some rest and reading.

One morning the following week I got another double yolk in my morning egg!  At one in one thousand, I guess that means I cook a lot of eggs since I got another one about a year ago.

Sarah and I were enjoying finding snails on these large leaves by the library that we passed on our walk to her school.

And here we are at the first Friday Family Fun Night at the beach.

Sarah was excited to take home her class pets, Hermie and Crawly the hermit crabs, for the weekend of May 17.  We did not have to do much to care for them as they already had food and water in their portable home, but we aimed to keep them entertained, despite the fact that they are nocturnal.  We built mazes and a race track, and a miniature baseball field.  And we introduced them to all of Sarah’s pandas.

On Sunday we took the kids to their first professional baseball game to see the Yankees beat Tampa Bay.

I volunteered to help Blaine’s class during the Art Appreciation spring activity — here they are making clay totem poles in the style of Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest.

An early sign of spring: we had our sprinklers turned on!  We found that a pipe had burst and Blaine was excited to help mark it to be patched.

One of my favorite halibut recipes calls for stinging nettles and morels — morels are hard to find, and I’ve always subbed in spinach for the nettles.  I was so happy to see Fresh Direct was selling both one week and for the first time ever I made the recipe as written.  It was delicious!  This is from the Lark cookbook (a Seattle restaurant).

Not sure what the kids were doing here.

I spent awhile trying to identify this weed which was spreading over our front lawn.  I finally figured out it is a wildflower called Carolina Geranium.  I don’t know why I fixated on this particular weed when we have such a variety all over our lawn.

Here are some pics of Blaine’s T-ball team: Modell’s Sporting Goods.  He is in the front row, center.

Sarah went to a birthday party at Bona Bona Ice Cream in Port Chester.  The party room had a “sprinkle shower” feature at the end where rainbow sprinkles rained down from the ceiling.  We were finding sprinkles in our hair and clothing for the rest of the day.  The ice cream was delicious.

The Chatsworth Carnival was held in May this year rather than June as is typical.  It was a food truck theme which ended up being a disappointment since only 3 of the 5 trucks showed up!  But otherwise we had fun!

Andrew bravely took our volunteer shift manning the Balloon Pop station, and Blaine served as his assistant.

Here’s Blaine cleaning his new (old) desk that I snagged for $10 at the rummage sale at the church across the street from our house.  It felt like fate since Blaine’s OT recommended he use a slanted surface for writing, but we’ve just been using a plastic 3-ring binder all year.

Blaine was excited to plant this flower he brought home from school for me as a Mother’s Day gift.  I think it’s a marigold?

One Friday after school Sarah had another birthday party near the Bona Bona in Port Chester, so I took Blaine there for a treat while Sarah had her party.  I think Sarah went to six birthday parties in May and June, three in one weekend alone!

Sarah’s T-ball pictures.

We enjoyed our first meal outdoors on our patio, on May 11.

Lastly here’s a cute photo Sarah’s teacher took of her with the school security guard, Matt.

We got back from the Bahamas in time to celebrate Easter!  Sarah drew this pic of an easter egg hunt:

On April 24 we went to the ribbon cutting for Chatsworth’s new outdoor art classroom.  Blaine was very excited to celebrate with his wonderful art teacher, Mrs. Arango (on the right below).

The weather was getting warmer and one day I let the kids visit Mr. Softee after school.

It was drizzling one night and Blaine offered to take out the trash and recycling and food waste, all by himself.  He even took the trash can down to the street.

Blaine and Sarah both signed up for T-ball this Spring.  Here’s Sarah’s team, Mr. Chimney, at one of their first games.

On April 28 we went to another ribbon cutting, this one for the grand opening of the new playground at Turtle Park.  This is the park that we used to call the “fire truck playground” but we were happy to see that the new playground is wonderful.

We left early in the morning on 4/13 for our spring break trip to Harbour Island, in the Bahamas.  The plane-plane-boat trip went pretty smoothly apart from about an hour delay to our second short flight from Miami to Eleuthera.

But when we arrived we were greeted with this!

The house we were renting was perfect for us: a short walk to the beach and a few restaurants, plenty of space, and a great pool for the kids.

The first night Andrew cooked barbecue chicken on our grill at the house.

On Sunday we had a beautiful morning at the beach, followed by a delicious lunch at Sip Sip.  We happened to be there for a Sunday special, Bahamian “boil fish” with buttered grits and johnnycakes, which was delicious (I tasted Andrew’s).  I had the tuna burger, and the kids had the giant hot dogs.

That night we had another delicious meal at the Landing.  I had grouper, Andrew had the lobster, and the kids shared a burger.  To top off our wonderful Sunday, our rental house had HBO so we were able to watch the premiere of the final season of Game of Thrones!

The next day (Monday) we’d reserved a boat trip at Blaine’s request.  We were picked up at Valentine’s Dock by Todd and Cassandra Pinder from Spanish Wells.

First stop, Pig Island!

There was also a strangely friendly turkey living on Pig Island, who seemed to be jealous of all the attention the pigs were getting.

We asked how pig island came to be, and learned that people just brought some pigs to the island and taught them to swim as a tourist attraction.  It didn’t seem like the pigs were all that interested in going swimming; they had to be lured into the water with slices of hot dog on a stick.

Next stop, fishing!  Blaine managed to catch a small fish (some sort of grouper?) right away, but then we didn’t catch anything else after that and gave up pretty quickly.

Sarah was not impressed.  She had not really enjoyed pig island, she refused to try fishing, and she was not a fan of the bumpy boat ride.  Luckily, we’d remembered to bring dramamine so neither child ended up getting sick.

Last stop: sea turtles!  They were so beautiful, really neat to watch.

Blaine loved the trip, especially getting to assist the Pinders in dropping and raising anchor, and tying up the boat at the dock.

That night Andrew cooked dinner again!  Steak that we’d brought with us from NY and snap peas.

On Tuesday morning, we took our golf cart to breakfast at Arthur’s Bakery.

We spent the afternoon at the beach and enjoyed building these large drip castles.

That night we got a babysitter and Andrew and I went to dinner at the Rock House in town (lobster crab spring rolls and more grouper — thai curry style).

The next day (Wednesday) the kids wanted to build another castle!  The wind had changed overnight and so the beach was covered in seaweed, which we incorporated into the castle.

We had another delicious lunch on the beach at the Blue Bar (I had mahi tacos).  That night the whole family went out for a sunset view dinner at Aquapazza, where I had yet more grouper, this time in a tomato broth.

We did not realize until we’d arrived that Blaine was barefoot!  He’d hopped in the golf cart sans shoes.  Oh well, no one in the restaurant noticed/commented.

The next day was Thursday, and we realized we’d been neglecting Sarah’s preschool homework assignment, to look for and take pictures with shapes.  Here’s Sarah’s first find, a rectangular mirror.

We had lunch at Sip Sip again, and Sarah was excited to take a pic of the circular cross section of her hot dog.  Andrew and I split the gazpacho and the famous lobster quesadillas.

An oval doorknob.

That night Andrew and I went out for another nice dinner, this time at Runaway Hill.  We both had… more delicious grouper!

On Friday, we spent the morning at the beach, and then went to lunch at Queen Conch (we had conch fritters and “exotic” conch salad).  Blaine explored while we were waiting for our food and found the man who was cleaning the conch, and got to ask him all about it.

For our last night we had burgers at the house, cooked by Andrew (of course).

On our final morning we packed up the house and went back to Runaway Hill for breakfast.  We were grateful to be on a covered porch as a very heavy downpour started coming down.

The rain stopped for awhile as we took the boat back from Harbour Island to Eleuthera, and we checked in at the airport and avoided another downpour at the nearby liquor store (which is where everyone hangs out and has a beer while waiting for their flights).

Our luggage was not so fortunate, since the airline had left all checked bags out during the rain.  We found this out when we got home and opened up the suitcases!  Oh well, lots of laundry and not too much damage.

We had a wonderful time in Harbour Island, probably our best vacation yet.  It helps that the kids are getting older, and we don’t have naps to interfere with our very important plans to lie on the beach, play in the sand and water, and read our kindles.  Add in all the delicious food and drinks and I was completely happy.  It was a perfect week!

Sarah had been complaining of a stomach ache on and off all week, so when she threw up Friday morning, 4/5, I decided to take her to the doctor.  Our pediatrician was away that day so we went to PM Pediatrics, an urgent care place in Mamaroneck.  The doctor there felt her abdomen and was concerned it was appendicitis and sent us to the ER!  Several hours later, we were sent home with a diagnosis of strep throat and constipation.  As far as ER trips go, I guess it’s not bad.  After all, Sarah walked out with her appendix intact.

Here she is looking mostly better the next day, after a few doses of amoxicillin.

She even felt well enough to keep her haircut appointment.

On Sunday we relaxed at the park.

And here are the kids celebrating Virginia’s victory in the basketball finals!

Andrew celebrated a big birthday this year!  He wanted to keep it low key, but the kids wanted to plan something special for our celebration at home.  They made a banner and decorated, and we cooked a nice dinner and had ice cream cake for dessert.

We thought we’d surprise him with some trick candles, but I think he was able to tell when he saw them all lit up.  If anyone could successfully blow out trick candles, it would be Andrew…

…alas, in the end he had to give up!  Happy birthday, honey!

On 3/28 we went to Chatsworth’s K-2 Tinkering Night.  The kids loved this pendulum painting activity, as well as a spin art table, various building activities and robots.

Here’s Blaine with Mr. Smith, who taught Blaine’s lunchtime Robotics club with the Dash and Dot robots.  Blaine loved it!

On 3/30 I made a day trip down to PA for a very sad occasion, the funeral of my Uncle Walt.  But on a happier note it was nice to see everyone at Ingeborg Road, and see all the progress on construction.

I was also able to bring down some of our idle baby gear.  It brings me great joy to know that Josie and Nate might get some use out of this high chair which we loved so much.