Okay - time to catch up

I've been a BAD blogger this summer, and we've done so many wonderful things that I'll never catch up. I will try, however, to do a post each week with updated photos, etc. Although, I must say, compared to the way I can upload photos in Facebook, this Blogger interface is really lousy. I got frustrated and only loaded up a few pics, so if you want to see more, they're in Facebook.

Anyway, we'll start with back to school. EJ is in 5th grade this year, which is in middle school in our town. Here she is on the first day:



Over Labor Day weekend, we took a small one night trip out to western Massachusetts. We visited the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst. It's a gorgeous facility, but I really wish that they had more square footage dedicated to gallery space. They do, however, have a nice library for the kids and a beautiful art studio. This year is Eric Carle's 80th birthday and the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, one of his better-known works. EJ is lucky enough to have several personalized signed books from Mr. Carle, including one he sent her as a gift after she wrote him a letter to tell him about her collection of signed children's books. He returned the books we asked him to sign, which he personalized with her name and some sketches, and then a few weeks later, we received a copy of Dream Snow from him. We've tried to get one personalized for Sophie, but he is mostly retired now. We did get some signed bookplates though.



We spent the night in Northampton and had dinner at the Northampton Brewing Company, which we highly recommend if you're in the area. The next morning, we drove to Sturbridge, MA to the Old Strubridge Village, a recreation of a colonial village. It was WGBH's (Boston PBS) Family Fun Day, so Curious George met us at the gate. Sophie LOVES him, and gave him a big hug and told him that she watches him every day. She doesn't know it yet, but I just ordered her a Curious George Halloween costume. We're trying to talk EJ into being the Man in the Yellow Hat, but she's not interested. I think we need to get K a hat to wear with her for trick or treat.



Here are some other photos (again, more in Facebook). It really is a nice destination and they had a lot of hands-on stuff for the girls to do.