Back in New Hampshire

This past week found us in Pennsylvania for Shawn's grandmother's funeral. She had been suffering from a great deal of pain and her body finally gave up Monday, July 9. She lived a full life, volunteering for quite a few organizations, working full time at the Chef Boyardee plant, raising three active boys, and traveling across the ocean several times to visit children and grandchildren in the different locations they were stationed while serving our country. As I sat in the funeral home listening to the minister and to those who shared I was encouraged by what an amazing example she was of one who ministers through her love and actions. Grammy always remembered birthdays and anniversaries and made Christmas extra special by wrapping up the little things that she remembered you liked. (Shawn received a pineapple upside-down cake mix every Christmas since I've known him.) She loved our boys and our boys loved her. We went to visit Shawn's grandfather before heading out of town Friday morning and Grady was wondering where Grammy was. I don't think Pappy heard him, and if he did, he didn't let on. They were married for over 60 years! What an accomplishment in this day and age. We are sad that she is no longer with us but know that she is finally home.

We did get the chance to spend some time with family we don't get to see nearly enough and we made a pit stop in Hershey, PA on the way back. We went to Hersheypark on Friday with Shawn's sister's family and the kids had a blast! (We had a pretty good time, too.) Yesterday we broke up the trip with a stop at the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA where the kids were able to play with all sorts of art materials and see how crayons and markers are made.

So, now we are home, it is raining, Shawn and Grady are napping, Conner is knocking on someone's door, and I'm updating this blog. It is hard to believe that I have been at this for 2 years now. This may surprise some of you, but, I am not a scrapbooker, so this kind of fills that void in our family memories!

Grady working with gears at the Canal Museum in Easton, PA.

Conner and Grady at the Crayola Factory.

Shawn explaining pulleys.

Uncle Terry (Shawn's father's twin who Grady has named the "New Pappy") keeping the little ones away from his work.

Conner and Nicole.

Seth and Grady in Hersheypark.

Conner on the waterslide.

Grady slept through a good portion of the evening at Hershey.

iTunes is Great!

Let me just take a second to let you know how excited I am! I got an iPod Video for Christmas and until yesterday only had about 3 hours of music on it. This was pretty pathetic. I think I have something like 2G of memory which translates into 99.9% of the memory was still free. Anyway, I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon going through all of my old CDs and uploading my favorite songs. (I think I've now used up about 5% more...Insane.) I guess I expected it to take a lot longer and be more difficult...it wasn't. I also found a few fun songs on iTunes that I had forgotten about (my most favorite addition is Troop's Spread My Wings...Sayward will remember Troop!) I can't wait to mow the grass with my new tunes.

We are having a great summer so far. This past Thursday night we all piled in the van and hit the drive-in for Transformers and Fantastic Four 2. Transformers gets a big two thumbs up from me. Very entertaining for both the kids and adults. Fantastic Four was just ok, I didn't really care for the first one either, though.

Conner and Grady are enjoying camp. This past week they spent a few days at the daycamp at our gym. Conner got a chance to play racquetball and tennis and Grady had a great time with doing the different activities. Their Creative Kids camp starts tomorrow and that's what they'll be doing for the next five weeks.

Conner and our neighbor at the beach.

Grady the crazy man.

Shawn wanted a hammock for Father's Day - but didn't tell us until the day before - so this past weekend we went on the hammock hunt. (PI people...had I had more notice I would have enlisted your help.) Finding a hammock proved to be a bit more difficult than we thought it would be. However, Brookstone pulled through and, with two perfectly positioned trees, we now are up and swinging! I took this picture through the window so as not to disturb Shawn and the boys.