Maine! and more

We went on vacation! We've been back for awhile, but it's hard to play catch up. We had a great time with friends, cousins, grandparents, uncles, great uncles, aunts, great aunts and great, great aunts.  

Here is a flotilla of cousins, with Cora at the front. She learned to swim on this trip.

Ivy liked to point at her 7-month old cousin Arthur and say "Baby" in her sing song voice, but the truth is that Arthur is bigger than she is. He's a big boy, and jolly and cute to boot. This Creston and Arthur pair have some big Creston and Arthur shoes to fill, but we think they're up for the challenge.

Arthur, Creston and Ivy. (omg, vision of triplets, stop)

Arthur the Slumberjack

Grandpa at the helm

Aunt Sydney and Cora

We had a lot of helping hands, which was really nice. Here's cousin David with his helping hands full. Creston and Ivy were big fans of David and his brother Danny.

We went to check out Dave and Deb's Bluetick Coonhound puppies. The scene was overflowing with irresistible cuteness.

And Creston fell shamelessly in love with Dave and Deb's granddaughter, Paige. 

We are missing our outdoor meals under the big trees.

And swinging from those trees, too.

We took a break on our drive home and stopped to see Aunt Kathy, Cousin Laura, Thomas and Emmett. Somehow Thomas escaped our camera, but here are Ivy and Emmett.

And Laura and Ivy.

And here's famous Aunt Kathy, recent Guggenheim recipient, giving us rascals a generous tour of her studio. She was patient.

And then we landed in Brockton, MA where Gran Leah had about 16 different food dishes waiting for us, each of them delicious and beautifully presented. Despite having just thrown up in the car for no good reason at all, Creston deeply appreciated nibbling on this rib bone while perched on a cushion in the fresh air.

And we paid a sweet visit to Great, Great Aunt Mae before heading back to Brooklyn.

Thanks to all of our hosts, it was lovely from start to finish (and we wish it wasn't finished)!

Out of towners

A beautiful wedding in Maine got us out of town, a little dressed up, and staying up late. Ivy and Creston enjoyed the dance floor quite a bit.

Back in Brooklyn it was business as usual. Normal stuff.

But then we got out of town again to visit friends on their farm up the Hudson. It was perfect in every way. Just a short trip from home, but we were treated to dinner under the stars and a bag full of vegetables to bring home. Jason won Creston and Ivy over by being the blueberry-holder. Does the trick every time.

We left about 4 articles of clothing and one cell phone charger behind, so I guess we should head back up there immediately. Darn it.

What a weekend, and it's just begun

We've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time! Grand came to babysit on Friday and brought Cousin Rylee. Backyard pool time. Then we went to see Steel Pulse in Prospect Park before I went to pick up ol' pal Carrie at La Guardia.

Saturday we biked to DUMBO and took the free ferry over to Governor's Island of the tip of Manhattan. Couldn't figure out why Creston was overly cranky and then realized that it was 3:00 and the babies hadn't had lunch. We remedied that quickly and all was well. Here's Scully, Chris's pal, lunching with some babies.

Creston with something to say.

Ivy with something to say, atop a Frisbee.

 

 Handsomes.

 Ivy and Carrie

A very good day. And two more days off to come! Happiness all around.

Father's Day

We spent Father's Day biking out to Fort Tilden in the Rockaways. It was a 20 mile round trip and when we got to the beach, it was hard to imagine that we were still in NYC. It was quiet and beautiful and a view of nothing but the ocean. Creston and Ivy love their bike trailer. We keep it in the house between rides and they often just hang out in there.  Here are some pictures of our crew along the way. 

Ivy likes to feed Creston.

And Creston likes to hug. This was at Lisa Dold's going away party (she's moving to Lesotho, not sure what we're going to do without her). He had just met this little cutie but he was pretty sure he was in love.

We also discovered a kid park inside Prospect Park that has a nice little water feature. Creston and Ivy got soaked, then we headed over to Finn McKeinle's 2nd birthday party in Fort Greene Park.

Here's Ivy reading some of Finn's birthday presents.

And Creston in the backyard in the shade of our new umbrella.

We are getting ready for some 4th of July visitors around here and are looking forward to a full house!

Sea Lions and Samba

Papa is out of town for a wedding (Congrats Griffy and Jas!), but we still got out of the house to do some local exploring.  The Prospect Park Zoo had a "Sea Lions and Samba" event that involved a samba band banging away on drums while animal handlers directed two sea lions to "dance" for the crowd. They were pretty good dancers, but there are no pictures because it's hard to keep a 14 month old on your shoulders and take a picture at the same time. After the sea lions were all danced out, some pretty ladies in feathers led the crowd in a dance routine.

Some other pretty ladies spent the day with us, which was great because I can't imagine having done this solo! Thanks, Amy and Lisa.

Bo Peep and her sheep. I kept thinking how funny it is that a Brooklyn zoo has sheep, horses, cows, goats, etc. All this stuff that I grew up with. And on the way out of the zoo, in Prospect Park, I noticed a special attraction that welcomes visitors to "Dig in the Dirt!"  My mother sent me out into our field of Black Angus cows, each weighing one ton, to collect manure for the garden. "Dig in the Dirt!" indeed.

We did not, however, have baboons on Highbridge Farm. Check out this Papa baboon! He was so incredibly well groomed, I was impressed.

And two babies. Twins? They raced around like crazy, reminding me of some other pair of babies.