Laughter

God gave me Ricky, and I am feeling especially thankful. I needed a few laughs this week, and they came...the first two from Ricky.

1) Yesterday evening, Ricky says, "So I had this awesome dream last night...(pause deep in thought obviously enjoying the memory)...I was in an ANTIGRAVITY room..."
This is where I stop and laugh, not AT him, just out of my joy over where his mind goes with it's completely liberated. So then I apologize for interrupting and ask him to continue.
He says, "There were moons everywhere, and I could pick them up and toss them around the room." Then he re-creates his moves, tossing planets around like frisbees.

2) No more than 30 minutes later, we take a trip to Trader Joe's. As we walk into the store, Irish music is playing. We're standing in the entryway, between the cheese and the bananas, with no fewer than 30 people within sight of us, and Ricky starts doing his version of Riverdance...all 250 lbs hopping up and down with pointed toes and all.

3) Today I'm riding home from work on my bike and a guy across the street (4 lanes over), with the window down, shouts, "HEY BUDDY!" I think, hmmm, "Is that meant for me? Or maybe some GUY in one of these cars?" Then he says it again, louder, "HEY BUDDY!" Now he's gotten out of his car and staring straight at me. I crack a huge smile and yell back the directions he's after. The funniest part is that this is not the first time I've been called "Buddy" on my bike. The police officer did it just a few weeks ago. My only probable conclusion is that I'm so stinking fast that there is no chance I could be a girl. Or could it be that I'm just that manish? Time to stop taking the 'roids.

November

Wow, so no Hardy blogging since October! Here's the Hardy November calendar for your update.

We kicked it off with a trip to Texas. We stayed in Angela and Jody's new house in West U and spent the majority of our days there eating, shopping, and playing trains with Hardy. I had fun seeing how much Hardy was using his trains to learn colors, numbers, and vocabulary. We went on for hours like this. Hardy: "What color is James?" Me: "Red." Hardy: "What color is Percy?" Me: "Um...(pause)..." Hardy: "Is he green?" Me: "...(pause)..." ...Is he? Is he green?" Me: "Is he green?" Hardy: "Yes, he is."

We also celebrated Maggie's first birthday. It was a princess party, with everything pink. Maggie wasn't so sure about being the center of attention, but the rest of the kids and I enjoyed the big event, complete with princess clown.

Midweek, we made a trip to Palestine and later shopped our way back to Houston...Thank you Cynthia! All my work friends are jealous of my mother-in-law.

Back in Boston, we celebrated Thanksgiving at dad's, with a table of 10 and a big bird. That Saturday we celebrated again with mom at Uncle Bob's house. Mom made a traditional roast beef and yorkshire pudding to celebrate our English roots.

I didn't take any pictures in November, so I stole this sweet one from Angela. It's a classic!

CTK Getaway - Rest

It's Columbus Day weekend (aka leaf peeper's delight), and this was by far our best of 3 spent together here in New England - we nearly hit the foliage peak dead on.

Last Friday, we joined our friends from church and headed to Winnipesaukee for 2 days - away from work, chores, and other distractions. We filled up on friends, natural beauty, and reflected on 3 powerful sermons discussing rest by RUF minister Joey Pensak...a beautiful weekend.

Growing Babes

The last and most exciting thing to share is the kids. We were so grateful for having the family travel with these two so that Ricky and I could see how their personalities are unfolding. Hardy is still a Thomas the Tank Engine fanatic (note the PJs). A few times I thought he might be striking up a conversation with me, but he was actually rehashing Thomas stories aloud. He's got those things memorized backwards and forwards. So while Hardy is impressively meticulous, Maggie is simply an animal; she'll crawl anywhere and eat anything. That's right, they're busting up gender stereotypes left and right. At one point I pretended to be attacking them both. Maggie looked up with a huge smile and started racing toward me. Hardy raised his eyebrows, stepped aside and pointed me toward Maggie! It was priceless. We miss them and can't wait to see them again soon.

Mmm...Food

No Hardy vacation is complete without a little overindulgence. Ricky & I took the family to some of our latest and/or greatest finds. This included Neptune Oyster bar, Hi Rise Bread Co, Beauty's Pizza, Basta Pasta, and all the way to Ipswich for some fried scallops (my favorite), haddock, clams, etc.

Red Sox (14) - Yankees (1)

Ricky's dad treated us to Red Sox tickets. Better yet, they were Red Sox - Yankees tickets. Even better still, the Sox annihilated the Yankees. This was a total stroke of good fortune (attending a win), since the Sox lost both other games that weekend, and Red Sox fans are not nearly so much fun when they're losing.

New Hampshire 2009

Excuse us for the HUGE gaps in posts. You must be getting dreadfully anxious to see how we've been doing. Wait no more; we've finally uploaded some of our photos, so prepare yourself for rapid-fire posting. The first is a tribute to our beautiful neighboring state of NH. We've made it up there 2 more times since the triathlon.


This trip was to Winnipesaukee, thanks to generous friends that played host at their incredible retreat. Thank you friends! Here is one of our feasts. Yum.