Summer Camp

Sue has been going to Deer Lake summer camp since first grade. Deer Lake is a traditional summer camp, on a lake, with swimming, canoeing, archery, forestry, and crafts. Every two-week session Sue joins a new tribe. This session she was a member of the "Rabid Fuzzy Cows". This is her tribe.

Can you find Sue? (Hint: black sweater)

Thanksgiving 2011

This year our Thanksgiving was a bit different from the norm. Instead of joining my mother and her friends (who were going to have goose this year), we decided we wanted a "just-family" Thanksgiving, and we wanted turkey, and so we did just that. It was lots of work cooking everything, but the house smelled great and we had a lovely dinner. Friday we went to the Florence Griswold museum with our friends the Dattilos. It was a spectacular day! And then on Saturday, a long walk in the woods with the Dattilos and dogs, including a picnic. Another glorious day. Ahhhhhh.

Lagoona Blue

Sue and her friends are all going as Monster High characters this Halloween. They didn't coordinate, and still managed to all select different costumes. Amazing.

Girl Scouts Brownie to Junior

Sue's Girl Scout troop had its last meeting of the year, in which the girls all advanced from Brownie to Junior.

Girl Scouts Curious Creatures

Sue's Girl Scouts troop invited local animal educator Curious Creatures to show the girls close up some animals they probably hadn't ever seen live before. The kids were fascinated: ferret, chinchilla, and boa constrictor were among the favorites. The emperor scorpion was probably the least favorite.

Sue's 9th Birthday

Sue was nine on Memorial Day. Nine! All those trite comments about how fast kids grow up are entirely too true. She seems unimaginably big and mature to me.

Sue only had one real birthday wish this year: pierced ears. Seeing as she's getting so grown up, I figured she could handle it now, and at her annual physical we had the doctor pierce her ears. Sue was really really good about the whole thing, and so far has been really good about taking care of her ears too.

See how proud she is?

A Relaxed Sunday

The French Open has started. Yesterday Brendan and Kipper spent a little time chilling in the family room watching some early round tennis. Kipper has finally learned to relax and enjoy a little cuddling.

Sturbridge Village

We took the last day of Spring vacation and went to Sturbridge Village with the Dattilos. The girls are old enough now that they really got into it. The adults had a great time too :-).

Sue's School Picture

Sue's school has switched to a new company for taking the annual school pictures, and they are much better than the last one. Here is this year's pic.

Montreal Vacation

Last week we took most of the week to visit Montreal with Kim, Larry, and Natalie. It was great to get away for a real chunk of time. Montreal was fun to explore, and we had a wonderful vacation.

Sue's Birthday 2010

I'm late posting about Sue's birthday this year. Since her birthday fell on the day before Memorial Day this year, we decided to have her party the following weekend. This meant that the actual day was a pretty quiet birthday day, although there were presents and birthday cake.

Grandma Gail and Grandpa Jim bought Sue matching outfits for her and her American Girl doll Emmy. They were a big hit:



The weekend after Memorial Day we had a girls' party for Sue -- eight girls on her eighth birthday. We did finger nail painting, games, a scavenger hunt, pizza and cake. As Sue said, "Eight is great!"

Here are the girls racing to see who can make a mummy the quickest.

Horseback Riding

Sue is making real progress in her horseback riding lessons. She is now riding around the ring without someone leading the horse, and she is starting to be able to really control where the horse goes.

The Running Of The Children

The town of Branford had its local Easter Egg Hunt in Foote Park this past weekend. It was a gorgeous day. Every year Branford cordons off a number of large rectangular areas, strews large handfuls of candy and plastic eggs filled with toys and more candy, and then lets the kids have at it, by age group. This year Nancy Ferlow was with us. She dubbed the event "the running of the kids", and she really nailed it.

We arrived about 20 minutes early, luckily, because they launched the kids about 10 minutes before the official starting time. We ran into a number of families heading in, on our way out.

As you can see, Sue completely filled her basket, and was one happy camper.

Fairy Village

The Griswold Museum asked their artists to create tiny fairy houses all over the museum grounds. They ended up with 35 fairy houses, which were truly amazing. They were incredibly imaginative, detailed, and diverse. Here are some pictures of our favorites.

Halloween

Sue was a witch this halloween. She loved the face painting, but was only OK about her costume (the hat was too small and kept on falling off).

This year we joined Kim Dattilo's girl scouts halloween party Saturday afternoon, had dinner with them, and then went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. In spite of the gloriously mild weather, and the fact that it was a Saturday night, there were noticeably fewer trick-or-treaters this year. Swine flu effect, perhaps?

I painted Sue's face green, and added a spider web on one cheek and a spider on the other. Sue's favorite part: putting on the black lipstick.



Sue also loved the fake witch nails, for about 2 minutes, until she realized that fake nails are a pain in the arse, and she was having trouble picking up candy from the bowls offered.



Here's a slide show of Kim's Halloween party.

First Day of School, 2nd Grade

Little Sue was so ready for school to start this year! The day before, she had planned exactly what she wanted to wear, she had organized her backpack with all her new school supplies, and she was clearly impatient for school to start.

On the morning of, she got up about 1/2 hour early, and she was a model child: she got herself dressed (she usually wants Mommy around for companionship), she helped with breakfast and preparing lunch, she was cheerful and happy. She was ready to go 1/2 hour before we had to leave for the bus.

After school, she was supposed to take the bus to her after school arts program, but she took the bus home. When noone was there to pick her up, she was not fazed. She took the bus back to school, where they called Tabor, and the director (!) drove over to pick her up. She didn't freak out or get upset. Amazing.

Here is Sue with Tori, who lives in the house right at the bus stop, and is also in Sue's class this year.



Sue is carrying a stuffed whale that her friend Maia left at our house the day before.


The usual crew at the bus stop:


Sue loves to make funny faces for the camera.

A New Coat

Grandma Gail and Grandpa Jim sent Sue a beautiful new winter coat. Sue was so excited to open the box -- she had to put it on right away.

NYC and MoMA

Last weekend we went into New York to visit the MoMA and see Grandpa Jim and Grandma Gail. Sue was doing a MoMA workshop at Eli Whitney Museum summer camp the following (last) week, and we thought it would be more interesting for her if she'd actually been to the museum first.

We had a great time! Although the weather was rainy, everything went incredibly smoothly. We took the Shoreline East train from Branford into New Haven and switched to the Metro North, an easy walk across the platform. Sue really enjoyed the ride, as you can tell in the pictures below.

This was our first trip to MoMA since the renovation. It's so much bigger! But it was fun to see old favorites, like the helicopter, the bicycle stool, French impressionists, Andy Warhol, and Jackson Pollock.

On the way back to Grand Central, we stopped by the American Girl doll store, and the grandparents bought Sue her first American Girl doll (#14, which has hair and eyes similar to Sue's). At the store, a personal shopper was incredibly helpful, because frankly, it was a little overwhelming. Sue was in seventh heaven on the way home, full of modern art and ecstatic about her new doll.

The Elusive Child and Random

The other day I thought that Sue was looking particularly cute, so I asked if I could take her picture. "Sure!", she said. Right. She's at that age where as soon as she knows she's being photographed, she starts making funny faces.







I had spun some rainbow yarn and make a little shawl for Sue, more for the fun of it than thinking she would actually wear it, but surprise surprise the other day she wanted to wear it. So of course I had to take a picture. The shawl didn't make it all the way to school, but still, I'm very happy she thought of it.



Sue and I both love rainbows. We haven't had one around here in a while, but as I was leaving for tennis last week I noticed the remains of one out by the water. I called back to the house so that Brendan could take Sue to see it. Later I found out that Sue had taken a picture of it!



This is Kipper's favorite place in the house during the day. Looks pretty comfy.

Firsts

Little Sue had her first piano recital last Sunday, after only four lessons. Being the proud parents that we are, we took some video footage. You can see Sue in her YouTube debut here.

Also, my mother gave me a rigid heddle loom for my birthday, and I just finished my first project, a wool scarf. Woot!