When Uncle Evan and Ellie are in town, I take a picture of them on a certain bench in the LSU quad. This is number 5.
2012:
April 2015:
2017:
2018:
And today!
It’s always Linus, Ellie, Evan, Oliver, and Miles.
Middle school. I sure hope it’s kinder to them than it was to me.
I promise, they’re happier than the smiles (or lack thereof) would indicate. Especially Miles. That’s his “smile.”
They enjoyed looking at all of their past first day of school pictures, so I had them re-do this one from 8 (eight!!!) years ago.
They’ve changed a little.
Sigh.
For now, our bus stop is literally a block and a half away, which is amazing. But we will probably move to one a bit further away so they won’t have to be on the bus for two hours (!) every afternoon. I’ll enjoy this little walk until then.
Getting on the bus!
Sewing tangent: I made Miles’s jacket and Oliver’s leggings. The jacket was a real labor of love, it’s the Go To jacket by Patterns for Pirates. I’ll post more about it later.
So I’ve already blogged about the two days we spent in NYC as well as the fun we had getting to Virginia. But most of our trip was actually IN Virginia and we did a lot there, so I need to post about that now!
So uh let’s see. We arrived in Virginia Thursday night and were all pretty exhausted. Dinner. Wine. Sleep.
Friday we walked to Chipotle for lunch. Then we got ready to go our first professional soccer game. The boys were very excited. We went to Audi Field to watch DC United play New England something. I can’t remember. The boys got free scarves! The sunset from the stadium was gorgeous. Anyway, ultimately the game ended in 2-2 but we didn’t mind because it was exciting.
Saturday, the boys and I drove to my sister’s in Clifton. It’s about half an hour from Kiki’s, and it’s a pretty drive if you take the shorter (I think) route but it’s also windy and hilly so I prefer to take the boring highway route. I know, it’s bad but what can I say?
I’m going to put the rest of this behind this link. There’s a lot.
I already blogged our road-trip-within-a-road-trip, and now it’s time to post about the rest of it. I’d better start with Part 1: Getting to Virginia.
Kristina flew down Sunday night, and we spent Monday getting ready for the trip. Packing, laundry, making sure we had a plan for our roadside attractions. Oh, and eating delicious meals at Picnic Provisions & Whiskey and Molly’s Rise and Shine. Highly recommend both. Also visiting Terry and taking the boys to Dollar Tree to pick out road trip snacks (I gave them each a $5 budget.)
Monday morning, we hit the road with my new cargo bag on the roof. First stop, the giant catfish in Slidell! (Huge thanks to the website Roadside America for all of our stop ideas.)
A couple saw us pulling off to take a picture with the fish, and thought it was hilarious, so pulled over as well and offered to take a picture for us. Thanks anonymous Slidell couple!
Lots more road trip adventures inside!
I’m blogging this from the back seat of Kiki and Mike’s car as we head back to Virginia. We left New York City a couple of hours ago, and while I’ve been terrible about blogging our trip so far (I mean the one to Virginia) at least I can get this one down now, while it’s still fresh.
We arrived yesterday (Sunday) a bit after noon (it’s about 4 hours from their house and we left bright and early.) Got the car parked and dropped our bags off at the hotel (a Courtyard by Marriott that we got for an absolute steal) and headed out to explore.
We decided to walk to Rockefeller Center since it wasn’t too far away, and one of our ideas was to go to the top.
The east coast was going through a nightmarish heat wave this weekend, so we didn’t want to do anything that involved being outside much. But when you are in a city where you walk everywhere, it’s an impossible goal. But at least we could duck into air conditioning as often as possible.
After we baked on top of a skyscraper, we headed to the Nintendo store.
Oh and we ate pizza before going up, and the boys were not happy that it was square instead of traditional NY pizza. It was delicious though. 🤷🏻♀️
Afterwards, we walked around Rockefeller Center a bunch because there was ice cream and air conditioning. And then went back to the hotel so we could check in. We rested for a while in our rooms, then headed back out for “real” pizza and to see Times Square.
Went to John’s Pizza for dinner. Was delicious but hot. Like, my shirt was soaked with sweat. 🔥 But the pizza was fantastic. The boys were thrilled to have “foldable” pizza.
It was getting dark by the time we left, so it was time to see the lights of Times Square in all of their glory. The boys loved it.
My favorite part was the group of Sri Lankan men who asked me to take their photo. And then wanted everyone in the picture. 😀 They were adorable and pointed out a few times that they were politicians back home. I had to get a picture with my phone as well, of course.
Next, we went back to Rockefeller Center to make use of its facilities and got some dessert for the boys. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel and I slept like a rock. (I have said “rock” a lot in this post.)
This morning, we woke up and went to stand in line for bagels at Ess-a-Bagel, which was handily right by our hotel. I was nervous about ordering, but I did okay and didn’t get yelled at. The boys loved the bagels (they got butter, I got lox spread.) They were totally worth the wait.
After eating, we walked up to Central Park and we all climbed on rocks. The temperature was much lower today, thank goodness.
Ahhhh!
Our next stop was a cookie dough shop that Oliver had been dying to go to ever since we decided to make this trip. We took the subway down to Chelsea, and when we got there, it was closed! 🤬 Poor kid was heartbroken. There was another cookie dough shop around the corner, but it took a while for him to recover. (As an aside, as fond as I am of sampling cookie dough when I make it, these places where they scoop it out to eat raw – it’s egg-free so safe – make me want to retch and I honestly couldn’t even look at it. But I’m weird.)
The next stop was the one I was most excited about….MOOD!!!!!! You know, the fabric store from Project Runway?
No one else was excited, though. 😆 So I very thoughtfully made my choices as quickly as I could. But I mean there are 3 stories of fabric! I had a list of patterns I want to make dresses with and the amount of fabric I needed, and tried to decide fast. It was actually good for me because otherwise that place would have sent me into a tailspin of indecision. I ended up getting a few yards of cotton voile (a light woven cotton) for a dress:
And then went to search for swim fabrics, because I wasn’t thrilled with what I’d bought at Joann’s. And I hit the jackpot! I found these (the blue is for contrast):
And I love it, but after it was cut out, I saw this, and was all 😍😍😍 so got some of it as well.
Dreamy, right? And the blue will work with it as well.
The people at Mood were so nice, but sadly we did not see Swatch the dog. 😢
This was happy Pam:
It was time to head back to get the car and go back to Virginia to beat a bad storm that was coming. But first, more pizza! The boys wanted to try 99 cent slices, and the cheapskate in me was happy to oblige! They said they liked it best of all. Of course.
We made it back to the car just before the sky opened up, and that is the end of our New York adventure! I’m happy that writing this post has taken up a good part of the journey back to Kiki’s. Woo hoo!
We were at our friend Heather’s house for her birthday party/Fourth of July party, so I got this month’s pic in the hallway. I usually use my DSLR for the monthly pic, but it was too hot to go home and grab it (and too hot to contemplate doing it outside earlier in the day.)
(This isn’t the first time we’ve done the July monthly pic in Heather’s hallway…)
The silence is deafening. There’s no sound of a soccer ball being kicked around the kitchen, banging into cabinets, making me cringe every time I hear it hit the dishwasher or the oven. I don’t hear YouTube videos about some soccer game or how to solve a Rubik’s cube or how to bake the perfect snickerdoodles. I don’t hear FIFA ’19 being played while an 11 year-old commentates in a bad British accent.
All I hear is the air conditioner, sometimes a car driving by, maybe Ziggy barking at a UPS truck.
It’s blissful, and it’s the only week of the summer I’m going to get this peace. The boys are at camp at Jean Lafitte National Park, and the best part is, it’s not far from George’s work, so he’s even driving them! Heaven.
The quiet is especially welcome because it’s been a busy week. Terry’s daughter’s quinceañera was Saturday night, and I was feverishly sewing shirts for the males in the house, and finished them just in time.
Here is a pic of the boys in their shirts:
And a family pic at the quinceañera, but you can’t see that the colors in their shirts perfectly coordinate with the Upton dress I made last summer. That was not even on purpose! A happy coincidence.
A few more pics from that night:
And then on Monday, Oliver and Miles were in the background of a tv show that’s coming up. We had to be at the zoo at 5:30am, which was not fun. Linus went to camp by himself that day.
Meanwhile, I can’t even really work out much because I have tendonitis in my right shoulder, which suuuucks. It means I can’t do more than half of the exercises at Orangetheory – no rowing, no upper body anything, nothing that requires a plank position, nothing that uses my shoulder. Blah. At least it’s not something worse. Shoulders scare me. But it means my arms are going to turn from fierce guns to blobs of goo.
On a happier note, in just two weeks, Kiki gets here and we start our road trip to Virginia! So exciting!
How did it get to be the middle of June? And also, it’s only the middle of June?
Random things….
Soccer started up again! Rec league from here on out, which is nice because it’s low key and only on weeknights. My weekends are mine again! They’ve had two games so far, and the first was dominated by boys – Miles got three and Linus got one. Woot! In the second game, Miles got one, and they lost, but, you know, whatever.
Of course I took pics… (Miles was on the white side for the first half of the game.)
And this video of one of the goals from the first game. I love the display of brotherly love at the end.
We also took a trip to Baton Rouge for a few days to spend some time with Grandee and Larry. We went swimming, and my mom tried to get me drunk on vodka slushies (best pool snack bar ever, right?), and we had steak for dinner one night and homemade pizza the other night, and Grandee took the boys to a movie while I worked, and I brought my sewing machine to work on some linen shirts I’m making for the boys, and overall it was pretty relaxing.
Oh, and I saw this dress hanging in the closet.
I loved that dress so much when I was a kid. I feel like I should re-make it. I don’t know why, it’s not like it’d be flattering. Maybe I can be Pam 35 Years Ago for Halloween. Hm. I can’t find any pictures of me wearing it, though. But I did find a bunch of other “cute” ones.
Classic.
We have a couple of exciting weeks coming up…some TV background filming for Miles and Oliver (Linus wasn’t interested) and other fun things like that. Terry’s older daughter’s quinceañera is a week from tomorrow (and the reason I’m sewing linen shirts like crazy.) And boys have their one week of camp in about 10 days (YAY), and then a couple of weeks after that, Kiki flies down and we are heading on our road trip! So excited!
What else?
I have a new NOMB post out today – it’s like the other “meme” posts I’ve done. (Mom problems, kid problems, dad problems, Mardi Gras problems…)
Check it out – NOLA Summer Problems
One of my favorites is this one:
Smiles are too much to ask for in some cases. Ahem.
Check out those sock tans, though. Just like Grandpa John.
Okay, well, it’s only been a few days, but so far it’s going better than expected.
Between them, they boys can now cook fried and scrambled eggs and ramen, so I don’t have to think about feeding them too much.
Speaking of food, I made smoothies and they finally drank them! So now I just have to slowly work towards adding some spinach or something to them.
Friday I worked while the boys played Laser Tag…
And afterwards, I took them to Five Guys for lunch. Miles and Linus had never been, and it was a hit. 😀
We’ve also been playing board games, including an entire game of Monopoly. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to finally go bankrupt.
We also played Life, and while Linus ended up with a singleton, two sets of twins, and triplets, Miles was genuinely sad not to get any kids at all. (I got one girl, FINALLY!) Again, Oliver won. Hmm.
The boys are also feeding the neighbor’s cats for some money, and I got a lot of sewing done, including a dress that I’ll post about later. Tomorrow they start soccer (just low-key rec soccer, thank goodness) and until the end of the month when they have one week of camp, we don’t have a lot going on other than board games and teaching them how to cook more things.
Fingers crossed things continue to go well and they don’t drive me insane with their fake British accents!
Can you believe it? Today is the boys’ last day of elementary school. Sniff, sniff. Not that they’ll be changing schools or anything, but they’ll be in sixth grade, and things will change a little bit. They’ll be switching classes (though staying with the same classmates all day.) They’ll have lockers. They’ll start learning Spanish (along with continuing French, of course.) They’ll be able to join clubs! Pretty cool.
As usual, I’m gonna get all nostalgic and stuff. And I’m going to post this picture from the first day they started at their school, in August 2011.
And a picture from this morning, the last day of fifth grade:
To compare, a picture from the first day of fifth grade:
Geez, it looks like they were more excited about starting school than it ending. Hmm. Maybe I should look into summer school?
