Things are coming alive in Vermont, and we have been busy, busy, busy! The sewing has been pushed aside for other seasonal projects. Eric has been doing odd jobs to the house and yard. Last weekend he completed the floor and sides to his new trailer (Thanks, Dad and Pat).
His next project is the basement. Our basement looks like it should be on a Clean House episode. First it will be cleaned up and uncluttered, and then there is a big remodel planned. He is figuring on completing it this summer, but I'll bet this project will last at least 3 years. I have been on a frenzy to rid the house of clutter myself. Eric, Corie, Zakary and I are all pack rats, and we have all reached our limit. I started with the kitchen. It took four days to clear out and wash all the cabinets, eliminate the excess stuff, reorganize and put all the keepers away, and bag up for donation or price for yardsale all the unwanted items. Within the first 30 minutes of the project this is what the kitchen looked like and stayed like until the fourth day.
It was worth all the work though. I ended up with six garbage bags of things to get rid of! The next two weekends were spent in Zakary's and then Corie's bedroom. That ended with four bags for the yard sale and eight bags for the Salvation Army.
The kids have been doing great. Zakary just got his graduation certificate from preschool... it seems like just yesterday he was my baby. His teacher said that he was very intelligent, but entered the classroom with his own agenda (smart and stubborn, yep that's him). She also asked us if he took things apart at home to see how they worked. Eric and I just laughed. There is a reason why all the screw drivers in our house are kept hidden.
Corie keeps getting taller and taller, or to be more specific her legs keep getting longer and longer. Most of the time she is still my little girl, but I can see the teen starting to come out. The other day she said one sentence that contained the work "like" at least five times. Ugh! Another sign of what's to come: I had to ban the Nintendo ds at bedtime, because it had taken over the nightly reading time. I am officially taking the blame for the declining health of her cyber dogs, "Mom, if I don't feed my dogs every night they will die, and it will be your fault". It's not easy being a mom. Click here to see more:
family pictures
Another sign of the warm weather is Whitneys annual lion cut. I tried to get a side shot to capture her full cuteness, but she kept swirling and twirling like a swarming shark. I ended up with 16 pictures of a grey blur. It's worth the $40 haircut to avoid the clumps of tumblehairs rolling across the floor and the splats of hair balls everywhere. As soon as we get her home she starts purring and rubbing on all the house corners. Happy cat = happy cat owners.
I suppose the last piece of info that I'm going to bore you with is my foraging story. I was walking down our driveway wondering what I was going to put into the quiches for dinner, and I was wishing that I had bought some mushrooms when I was at the grocery store. All of a sudden my eye caught sight of morels. Lots of morels. Over fifty-five morels right on the side of our driveway!
So I went back to the house and hopped on the internet and visited several sites that taught me how to distinguish false morels from real ones, and then went back to the morels and ran them through the test. They passed with flying colors (pun intended), but then I decided that death by quiche was not how I wanted to go... but for a little while it was kind of exciting. Obviously, it doesn't take much to excite me. I did get a taste of native Vermont when my coworker brought in a bag of fresh fiddleheads for me. Thanks Maureen. If you are hot to see some more morel pictures just click on this:
Morel link.
All I know is that it was barely over 50 degrees last night. Yikes! Despite the cool wet weather we are having a great summer. Corie and Zakary are getting spoiled rotten by all the grandparents. Three weeks ago Zakary spent a week with Grandma White and came home with new Hot Wheels and lots of stories. At the same time Corie was with Dennis' family getting the royal treatment. Two weeks ago we went down for a long weekend visit to Nana and Grandpa Sprague's. We had a great time hanging out and relaxing. Pat cooked some amazing food (I'm sure she is partially responsible for at least two of the pounds I gained). 
We finally got to meet the Amber's dog, Bear. He is so cute. Despite the fact that he digs up the yard, chews on everything and is still in the process of being house broken he has won the heart of my anti-dog Dad. Needless to say both of the kids want a dog now. Thanks Amber!
We saw fireworks for the first time in years. It was a small but well done show. Dad and Eric got to do man things with power tools. I think that qualifies as fun for them. 
While on the road we stopped in Albany and did some shopping. We hit JoAnn's, Target, Lee's Market, Kim's Oriental Shoppe, and Harbor Freight. We topped off the shopping with a Chinese buffett. I mean, does it get any better?
Last weekend Grandma and Grandpa Smith took the kids. I can tell by the amount of wet clothes returning home that they had a blast. Zakary was a little disappointed though. He had planned to stay with them until it snowed, because as he put it "I don't get to see Ryan (his best friend and neighbor) much in the summer". Apparently Ryan is the only reason to come home. It is always interesting to see where you rate as a parent. It's a good thing he is so cute. Eric spent the child free weekend putting up lattice, and I spent it sewing a softie that was in the new Stuffed magazine. Oh yeah, we know how to have fun!
