Some Spring Stuff

The weather has been great and it feels so good to be able to get outside more often. I was starting to get cabin fever... actually more than starting I was suffering from a full blown case of it!

I probably won't remember half the things I was going to post about but something has to be better than nothing. I have pretty much given up facebook for the time being but still update on twitter from time to time. Probably less so now that spring activities are in full swing.

Zoe update: (warning: proud parent update here but she deserves it!) We are proud of Zoe for her spelling B efforts and she almost made it to the end. She was in the final three. Actually the kid that came in first place on that level is now heading to Washington. She also placed 2nd in the foreign language Poem contest. I have included it below. The name of the Poem is Zycenie and means "Wish" in Polish. She was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society last night and the ceremony was beautiful. She was able to sing during the ceremony as part of the Cantare group she is in, which made it extra special. She got straight A's and so she put up a good argument to get her Facebook privileges back (they often get taken away as a first line of discipline) she is now back on but we are limiting her time online. I am not sure how much she values it though since one of the first things she did was post a picture album labeled silly pictures of 28pics or so of her family AND even posted a video that she took titled my family is weird (which included extended family too). Although funny, I did make her remove it and she has been instructed that any further postings must be okay-ed before going on her wall. She seems to be very proud of what she considers our weirdness (which we really are NOT!) and retells silly sibling antics to her friends who now want to come see for themselves. I am starting to feel like she is trying to make us into a side show. :-) If she starts charging, I better get a cut. :-) Her teacher jokingly asked her one day why she was so weird and she told him she inherited it from her mom (nice). haha I guess I will have to work on that but this was coming from her weirdest teacher of all and he is a great guy and an effective teacher!

Violet Update: Violet had her first communion last week and looked totally beautiful and was beaming through the whole ceremony. She was chosen to do a short reading and I think enjoyed the whole process. She spent a couple of days down in Jersey City with her Godmother and picked out a gorgeous dress. She went into the shop saying that she wanted something plain and comfortable but ended up with one of the fanciest beaded one. All our close relatives came to see her take this big step and Zoe was able to be the Cantor for the mass, which was nice. We had a celebration following mass and returned home with enough extra food to feed us for a week. I was able to freeze some so maybe DJ can pull it out over the weekend while he is fending for himself. Zoe, Violet and I will all be away on a camping trip starting tonight. I have to go up in the attic and dig out our gloves and hats for sleeping because the weather is supposed to get mighty chilly this weekend. One of the schools I will be visiting to talk about Horseshoe Crabs is Violet's and she knew I was working on a powerpoint presentation. I was so impressed that without me knowing, she went on the computer and made up her very own. I am thinking that I will let her do her presentation which is short and then fill in the gaps.

Marina Update: What can I say about her? She is up to her old devilish ways and keeping us all cracking up with her constant witty comments. Both she and Violet are playing soccer again and she seems to really enjoy the competition. I was actually invited to join a woman's league but I have gotten too out of shape lately (working on that though) and am a little intimated by some of these women. I need to be more vigilant about writing down some of the stuff that she comes up with because it is just so funny and insightful. She came home from school yesterday and said that one of the boys (a friend of hers) kept telling her that he was stronger and a better fighter then she was and could beat her up. She said that he started fighting and in her words "I kicked him two times in the peni and then hmmm... I think he decided that I was the better fighter" I know it is so wrong but I had a hard time keeping a straight face. Worst part is that she is in a preschool program as a mentoring student and so is the other child that she was fighting with. I am not sure what kind of example they are setting? Good thing there is only a month left and they won't kick her out now. :-) Oh, she also found herself an older boyfriend at Dziadzia's birthday party. They danced much of the time. He is the boyfriend of one of their cousins mother. They made a date to dance again this weekend at the cousins first communion. She is so funny and keeps saying that she is trying to get rested up for her boy and that she hopes he is getting sleep too. I think she has a crush, and even seemed mad when she confronted me and said "Mom, I saw you dancing with my boy" Haha I think him being 30 or so years her senior and already involved with a relative will make this an impossible relationship. :-)

Gavin update: Gavin is all boy despite the strong feminine influence in the house. He makes everything into guns and shoots people down. Climbs the furniture and anything else for that matter and has boundless energy that just won't quit. He is well on his way to being a class clown and spends much of his days trying to entertain us all with his silliness. He is such a happy go lucky kid 90% of the time. The other 10% we have to fear for our lives while he takes the tantrum from Hell. I hope this stage passes quickly. He is also still very huggable but just recently has decided to reject my kisses. He claims he only likes hugs now. :-( He will be going for an evaluation next month to see if he will be able to get into the preschool mentoring program which I am keeping my fingers crossed for since it is an excellent program, free and they provide transportation. I am not sure if I would send him two or four half days though if he does get in.

Update DJ and I:
Not much new to report for us. DJ finished up tax season, thank goodness but the following week was up in Maine for a conference and then back home for a few days before leaving for almost a week long conference in MA. Hopefully that will be it for now and he is looking forward to taking some much needed vacation time. He will be starting up his summer sports (baseball and volleyball) and enjoying watching the Redsox win big again for 2010.

I have applied for my horsehoe crab scientific collectors permit with the state and hope to get that approved and be good to go by the middle of the month. I going out to the island with eighth graders this month to work on an Asian Shore Crab study that is being funded by 10,000 grant that was obtained last year. This particular crab is an invasive species and has taken over much of the green crab's territory, which is interestingly enough another invasive species. I am counting down the days until my girls weekend rafting trip at the end of the month and starting the HSC spawning surveys next week.

Wow, this became quite long but I am glad I documented a few of the kids milestones so that they/we will have these memories in the future. Especially since my memory isn't what it used to be.

Polish Poem "Zycenie" (wish) for the foreign language poetry contest.

Dziadzia's 80th and one Island picture I forgot.

Wow, two posts in two days... I can't keep up this pace but I will try to be more timely on my updates. I also plan to go back to project 365 and I have many theme pictures on SD cards but have not had the time to look through them and post. I will be happy if it turns out to be project 100 for me!
We all had a great time at Dziadzia's 80th party. He was TOTALLY surprised and I think he enjoyed himself as well. He is off to Jamaica in a couple of days... I wish we could all tag along (even though if we stowed away in his luggage we would probably have to pay an arm and leg for baggage fees. :-) I have a few pictures from the other night but we just grabbed one of our small Canon Elf camera's and Marina had possession of it for most of the evening (as you will see by all her self portraits). She took so many "interesting" pics and one of each from the slide-show but not any post worthy and killed the battery before I got to it. Maybe I can post a link to the show because there are some priceless pictures there from years gone by up to present time. I even got the pleasure to dance with the birthday boy and I know somebody has pics and hopefully will send them to me. Please :-)

One last pictures because I forgot to include it last time. Here is a picture of the Island that I took a couple weeks ago. Oh and one more that was taken by someone else overhead but much better. A special place indeed, I only wish it wasn't a mile from shore.

Long overdue post.

I am not even sure where to start this post, so much has happened since my last post in February. The kids have been busy with school activities and Zoe recently finished the play "Once Upon a Mattress" The rehearsal schedule was insane for the month of March. She had to be there on Saturdays all day and most afternoons during the week. The final week before opening she was there every night, often until 10pm. I am so glad that it is over and that the performance turned out excellent. I worked on the Cast party and I think(hope)everyone really enjoyed themselves. CCD is almost done for the year and Zoe will be competing in a foreign language poem contest (hers will be in Polish) at the end of the month. Warning big mommy brag! Zoe got all A's on her report card and received high honors again so we are very proud of her and hope that trend continues. Today we will be celebrating Dziadzia's (DJ's Dads) 80th Birthday. It has been planned as a surprise party and there will be a band so I am sure I will be seeing a lot of polka dancing tonight!!! Then right around the corner we have Violet's first Communion at the beginning of May. I can't believe that she is old enough already. Spring sports have begun and all in all things are still hectic despite my efforts to simplify. I am looking forward to a much needed get away with my girlfriends for some whitewater rafting in May and hopefully DJ and I can join our friends in Block Island again in June. We had 5 couples last year and this year a few more have decided to go so I am sure it should prove to be even more interesting. Hopefully the weather will be better because biking in the rain, while fun, did get old quickly. I have had a difficult winter myself and the stress of DJ working long hours and all the things that needed to get done have taken there toll on me. I shouldn't complain though because some of my friends are going through harder times and it makes my problems feel frivolous. I am still trying to clean the house out and organize it more, which is a completely tedious task that has gotten old but there is still much to be done. I went through all my old maternity/nursing and infant clothes the other day and bagged them up and dropped them off at the donation center. It was very bittersweet and the funny part is that I realized that my pregnancy wardrobe was much nicer than my current one. :-) I am so thankful that tax season is over and even though I have committed myself to several spring and summer projects, I am looking forward to them all! The Horseshoe crab study is evolving and I am pleased to see all the local interest. I have several school groups scheduled that I will be visiting so far as well as other community outreach events. The surveys and tagging will begin in May and that is always enjoyable. I am also continuing this year as an Island Docent and we have some great projects scheduled. Last year they converted the guest house into a classroom and added a large deck area off it. This year we will be constructing a covering for it to essentially make it into a covered pavilion outdoor classroom. It is set to be delivered in pieces next month and will be tinker toy style I am told. I will do my best to help but I think I will be the unskilled labor during the raising of this structure (anyone need lemonade?). The Island will officially open in early June but studies will start prior to that. I really look forward to spending some time out there again. I have yet to spend an overnight and am not planning to do so this season but perhaps next year with the family. I have heard it is wonderful experience to have the whole island to yourself at night. I hope to be able to make the time to be involved in the tagging of the Juvenile Osprey this spring and I have one other project in the wings that it is still too early to discuss. I hope to involve the children as much as possible and am really looking forward to summer break and the freedom from our regimented schedules. We will be spending a few weeks in Maine and the two older kids will be signed up for Ocean camp again in August. They had such an awesome time last year, I wish I could sign myself up too. :-)
Wow, this became such a long and boring post. Below are some pictures from Easter, Gavin's very first dentist appointment (which he loved!) and some pictures of harbor seals. I had gone out in hopes of documenting some on Commander Rocks for the BLT but unfortunately there where none to be seen there that day. We did find some out further near Faulkner's Island and a few in the waters closer to the Thimbles. The last picture shows how high the tide was during that recent flooding that we had. The beach is totally covered and the wall is almost submerged.

Happy Valentines Day! & Going Private?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines day. Nothing much new going on here. We have been busy running around so we decided to celebrate in a very low key way. We stayed home and had leftover Thai. I had made it for dinner the night before but the kids were not especially fond of it so they ate some of Dziadzia's special soup. We watched some winter Olympics and called it a night. The children got me a rose and a cute music card and DJ gave me one of his usual funny ones. This time it came with a pin that he wanted me to wear around which I refused to do outside of the house.haha I gave the kids each a tiny heart box of chocolate and Gavin was so thrilled with it. It was so cute to watch him open it. It was a heart with a picture of a pirate and said "I treasure you" He picked up the box and said "mom, I love it. you did a good job!" He quickly decided that he didn't like the chocolate covered carmels though. Gavin and I went for a fish run and returned with a cute little red addition for our tank. I was on the hunt for a flame angelfish but there were none to be found so I settled on a fire shrimp. We had one of these for years but he died last winter.
Zoe had spent the previous night at a Holiday Inn party with her friends and I think there was very little sleeping going on so she was totally exhausted. Violet had gone to Jersey City Saturday for Alex's rollerblading party and was tired as well. She is now a self proclaimed expert. I hope she is right and I can take her and Zoe this spring.
Marina has been entertaining us for years with her very interesting and unique observations of the world and human nature. For those of you that know her well... it seems that she may have gotten over her issue of patting strange men on the butt and staring them down. Only time will tell though. She remains the most stubborn child in the world but hopefully that will serve her well as an adult.
Gavin has always been my class clown but recently it has been so much fun to hear him expressing himself better with words. I need to write down some of the stuff he says because it cracks us up. He must hear things on TV. All of a sudden he has become Jaspurr's buddy and follows him around the house. The other day he was talking to the cat saying "Jaspurr, your my buddy. We have to stick together" Jaspurr tends to be vocal and Gavin starting asking me what he was saying so I would always make something up like. "he said he loves you" or whatever. Now he is convinced that I speak cat. The cat must have woken him up with his meowing to be fed and so Gavin came into our room while we were sleeping and repeatedly starting asking me what he was saying with each meow. I was still half asleep and after giving him about a dozen different answers, I told him to ask his father. Gavin replied "mommy, daddy doesn't know what cats say" haha I think the cat is going to start telling him to pick up his toys and to stop having meltdowns when he gets frustrated. Speaking of that, he must be feeling off this week because he has become very clingy and wanting me to hold him all the time. I hope this is just a short stage because he is around 27lbs now and it is hard to get anything done with this monkey on my back.

wow, this post has become a long and rambling one but I don't plan to post much for a while. I have some projects that I want to tackle around here and I will be making every effort to go unplugged. I have a few things I need to do online but by eliminating the unnecessary stuff I should be able to free up some more time. That is the my plan and my hope.

Recently, I have noticed that the Internet applications are making things more connected and it is becoming harder to keep up with all the changes. I am becoming more concerned about privacy and although I keep this blog unavailable by search engines, I feel like it might become more findable through other means so I am considered making it totally private. I will send out invites if I do this and if you don't get one and want to be added, please send me an e-mail. I have removed any outside links from Facebook and such and I think I need to spend a good hour or so cleaning house and checking my settings there as well.

13 years!

Today marks our 13th wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that we have been married for 13 years, although at the same time it seems like a lifetime ago that I was single. We have been married now officially one third of my life!

Thanks to Irene who came over to take care of the children, we were able to enjoy a relaxing anniversary sans children (one day early). She truly helped make the day special and left a beautiful surprise at the end of the day. When I opened the bedroom door we were greeted by heartfelt cards and the scent of fresh roses. To top it off we have left overs from the meal that she planned, purchased and then prepared with the kids. Dziadzia (Grandpa) made us a large batch of his special chicken soup that we all love, so now I won't have to cook for a day or two. :-) I am feeling very lucky today that I not only married my husband but gained such a wonderful sister in law in the process. THANK YOU IRENE!

Today kicked off the first official day of project 365. The weather is less than perfect for outside photos (much like our actual wedding day) so I started with a picture of the roses for day one (theme,red).

Nice winter weather

Project 365

Simply it is just an excuse to stop and look at the world around me in a different way. I am embarking on this project with a group of friends, most of which are much more experienced photographers and will hopefully mentor me through this photo journey. We will be taking one picture a day for a year and every week we will focus on a different subject/idea. The start date for me will be Monday Jan 25th. I will have the theme listed for each week and up to 7 pictures displayed. The older pictures will be moved to the archive section of the 365 blog, where they can be veiwed and will remain. My hope is to learn how to use my new camera equipment, train my eye, and become a more creative photographer over the coming year. I have added a link to this new blog site to the left sidebar of my family blog. www.nauticgal365throughmyeyes.blogspot.com
The Themes so far!
Week 1- Colors: Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Black, Choice and White
Week 2- Personal Treasures
Week 3- Guilty Pleasures
Week 4- Hidden Letters in Life
Week 5-Children
Week 6- Looking Out Your Back Door
Week 7- Textures
Week 8- Items Around Your House: Faucet, TV, Cell phone, Doorknob, Light Switch, Sink Drain, Choice
Week 9- Looking Up
Week 10- Self Portrait
Week 11- Structures
Week 12- Notions
Week 13- Springtime
Week 14- Landscaping

A little of this and that.

Tis the season again to be longing for the spring thaw and that very special day, April 15th! We attended DJ's work holiday party last night and had a blast dancing with friends and didn't end up getting home until almost 1am. Irene and Stanley came down to babysit and it sounds like the kids had a great time making dinner and cookies with Irene and playing a lot of wii . They are very generously coming back next weekend so that we can go out and celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. Boy did those years go by fast! DJ is busy working long hours to finish up year end financials and will be starting up with tax returns next week. The kids are also busy with extracurricular activities and it seems to be increasing hard each year to stay on top of everything even though I try to limit the number of things that they get involved in. Zoe is competing in two competitions now with school. The first one is a foreign language poem that she will be reading in Polish. The first round of the competition starts in about 2 wks and the final reading will be in April. She also won a spot in the first stages of a national spelling B and is studying to try and make it to the next round. I am starting to wonder if perhaps she is not my child because I was/am the most horrible speller.
These first two pics are from last week. Gavin's godmother bought him this adorable outfit for halloween but he ended up being a shark. I was going to use it for Christmas pictures but decided on a different family picture. It is size 18M-2T and is getting small on him so I put it on him and snapped a couple of photos the other day when the weather was agreeable.

Some pictures from ice fishing.  Gavin and I went out with my friend in the morning and caught a few bass/pickerel, took a break to get Marina from preschool, have lunch and warm up a bit and then headed back out for a couple of hours but we only caught one bass in the afternoon.

Here are just a few "wayback" pictures that I scanned for Zoe.

Winter sunsets and "wayback" pics.

I still have much to learn about my camera and I look forward to experimenting with different filters but I took a few of the sunset from one of my favorite local hangouts. Just how many pictures of the same sun can one own? I suppose it will all depend on the capacity of my electronic media to hold it. Here are a couple from last night. It was not one of those spectacular colored filled skies but was still picture worthy in my opinion. It makes me long for the warm summer nights though because although picturesque it is still bitterly COLD! Edit: As luck would have it the sunset tonight was full of color but I had no camera with me.

People are doing a "Wayback" week on Facebook, where you post pictures of yourself from your childhood and in doing so I realized that I only have a couple . Most are at my mothers house but I was able to find these two. Wow, my mom should have put down the scissors and let a professional handle my hair or at least straightened out the bowl before cuting. I am not sure when she sought out a trained hairdressor but I  remember lining up in the kitchen with my siblings for our haircuts and my brothers getting the buzz in the warm weather (I guess that is what hippie mom's do? :-).  I was showing the kids these two pictures and Marina said "what, you were a boy you when you were little?"  haha :-)

"The Best Day"

Zoe sang this for me on Sunday at the library... sniff, sniff. I doubt she feels this way some days but I will take it when I can get it :-) Too bad the mic. was not working so it is on the quiet side but I still think it was sweet but I am TOTALLY biased.

In Search of Fishers and Playing with SLR.

Picture of a Fisher but not one that I took. I am hoping that all mine will be close mouthed ones. Actually they are really cute and I think the most dangerous part of them is their retractable claws from what I have read.

I took the new camera with the 18-55mm lens out for a test spin in the back yard in hunt of the fishers and to give them our discarded Christmas tree for their collection. I do find it funny that most of the information I have read on this creature does not fit the mold for our backyard neighbors. First they are supposed to be nocturnal but I see them at least once a week during the daytime running through the yard. Second they are supposed to be solitary animals. There are three that I see traveling together since last spring and they are all full grown and not pups at this point. Third they are generally thought to keep their distance from humans but that has not been my experience. They have been very bold and will run through the yard while we are outside and once while I was trying to snap a few pictures (which I did but they are not very clear) they turned around and came running back toward me and two of them ran up a tree about 10 feet away from me and started in with some noisy vocalizations. DEP assured me that even though they make a great meal out of small dogs and cats and I often see dead squirrels hanging out of their mouths that they shouldn't bother a toddler. When I was rafting this past spring the raft guide told me that they were plentiful in that area and had been known to take down black bears (not sure how true this is?). I am not totally reassured but so far the only time they seemed to have any interest in us was when I pursued them with the camera. I did find many of their tracks in the snow yesterday and found some of their favoite little caves. (pictured below) I still have much to learn about the camera though and was playing with some of the settings so the pictures are not the best they could have been at this point.

Back on schedule.

Today is the first day that everyone is back at work/school and although I really enjoyed the unstructured time with the family it is nice to get back on schedule. DJ was able to take off several days before and after Christmas, including my birthday which was a real treat. I only had to endure mild teasing this year from my Evil Sister In-Laws but I don't expect them to go so easy on me next year. Hopefully they will show some mercy since they themselves have already made the fabulous 40 mark. Now I just have to make sure that I do the fab. part and the forty part will take care of itself! :-)

The Holidays were enjoyable but quick lived in retrospect. Zoe cantored Christmas Eve mass and Violet was an angel in the pageant. After church we headed up to DJ's sisters house to celebrate with the Polish side of the family. Kids, kids everywhere... The cousins had fun playing with each other and doting on baby Julia. Some cute pictures of Gavin breaking bread with Julia and if I remember I will post them when Suzy forwards them. hint hint... Even though we arrived home late on Christmas Eve, it did not deter the kids from waking up early to see if Santa made an appearance. It was pretty funny because as most parents do we used the Santa is watching line on the kids for at least the last month in an attempt to encourage good behaviour. I think Marina was concerned that Santa might not show up because of her many warnings and transgressions during December. When she came downstairs she scanned the room and her stocking and with a satisfied look on her face she exclaimed " Well, that worked out well then. He came because I cleaned up yesterday" I think her take home message was that she could misbehave all month and do a quick makeup session and still get the goods.
We broke down and bought the wii for the family as the big present and each person received a game. Santa also brought a gift and filled the stockings. This year we tried something a little different and instead of opening presents and heading to my mother's house we stayed put and had my side of the family here for brunch. Everyone brought something (many things) to eat so we had plenty of food, so much so that I never ended up cooking the ham I had purchased to cook up for the evening meal. Later in the day we had friends over and snacked on all the leftovers and the kids had a chance to play with their friends.
DJ was skeptical at first about getting the wii when we are trying to go less plugged in but we are all having so much fun with it and are now considering getting rid of digital cable for a bit. Not a big deal for me but I think DJ will miss his sports coverage.

So far we have spent way too many hours on it but it is been a fun distraction during last weeks cold, snowy days. The favorite game is wii fit so far and everyone wants to weigh in and compete to get the top slot for the games. Sports resort is another popular one and DJ and the older two are fans of Mario smash bothers. So much so that DJ let them stay up until 1am competing the night before my birthday. Yikes!

New Years Eve was spent with friends in our home and Gavin was the only one who didn't make it to midnight. He was also the first one up in the morning but luckily we were able to convince him to snuggle with us in bed until almost 10am but he was not about to go back to sleep. I think that is the latest that we have slept in for many years. I don't think we left the house at all that day but we did manage to take down the tree and inside decorations. The outside will have to wait until it thaws out a little. New England has been totally frozen over.

For my birthday present I got a digital SLR camera that also takes HD video. It was a combined present from several people and I picked it out and ordered it myself after researching options and finding it on sale with two lenses included. It arrived yesterday so there has not been much of an opportunity to play with it yet. I am considering signing up for a class this spring in hopes of improving  my photoghraphy skills.  I am looking forward to seeing what it can do and with the addition of the 75-300mm zoom lens I should be able to get some awesome shots of the Fisher cats while still keeping my distance.