In These Hills: Spring

Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts

May brought....

>> Monday, July 14, 2014 – Spring

May was as beautiful a month as ever in Vermont. For Mother's Day we took a picnic up to Mount Tom which is close to our home. It was a lovely day to get outside and enjoy the fresh air.

May also sees some warmer weather. We opened up our porch and Nelson and Liz made a new base for our table out of pipes. I love it!

Another very exciting spring event is the annual shaving of our cat. He has extremely long hair--by spring there are cat dreadlocks all over the house. He doesn't look happy here, but he actually does feel better with the shave.

May brought Helen's 18th birthday. Her big birthday treat was to go to New York City with a friend. They negotiated the city pretty much on their own. It was a big adventure.

Her favorite cake is called "can cake." You bake the cakes in 16 oz cans and then slice them up.

For some reason, the girls love "animal onesie's." Helen received a Lemur onesie from a friend. The girls got down and jived in their onesie's after the birthday dinner. I am always startled when I go up to their room on a cool, rainy day and find them lying in their onesies reading. Maybe I didn't dress them warmly enough when they were babies.

Nelson has become a runner. This race, "Road to the Pogue" is a 10K that goes up the mountain we climbed on Mother's Day. He did quite well and is now training for a 1/2 marathon.

He has completely transformed his life this year.

Finally, our big May tradition is to tour open studios on Memorial Day weekend.

We have visited this blacksmith many times. Here's another "now and then."

Here I am with Helen enjoying a "maple cremee." A true Vermont treat.

Our girls have fallen in love with a crepe restaurant called "The Skinny Pancake." We managed to include it for lunch on our studio tour day. It was a lovely end to May.

Spring has Sprung!

>> Monday, April 28, 2014 – Spring

Here's the first day of spring at our house.....

And here's our road a few days later.

To combat the snow and mud I filled the kitchen with flowers.

Liz experimented with spring cookies. These sugar cookies, baked in muffin cups with a smidge of coconut toasted on top were sweet but delicious!

I made my first yogurt and, time permitting, will never go back!

Easter brought more wishes for spring.

This is my tabletop meditation on the potential of spring and the promises of Easter.

Liz and Helen made our traditional Easter cookies. They are orange with orange frosting. They made over 100 cookies for the whole family.

Easter morning brought new bunnies and chocolate.

The girls piled 40 Easter cookies on a plate and covered them with candles in honor of my brother's 40th birthday.

While spring has been muddy and cold outside, it has been full of warmth, flowers, sugar, and love on the inside.

Poignant Times

>> Tuesday, June 11, 2013 – High School, Spring, waldorf

These are poignant times for our family. Last week Helen returned to her Waldorf School as the Royal Page for the Knighting Ceremony. The Knighting ceremony is a 6th grade right of passage at the Waldorf School where students must complete a wide variety of tasks that show they are ready to enter the middle school years. Here is the Squire's Challenge:

Thou must do good works.
Ten hours of community service must be accomplished before thy knighthood shall be achieved. Thou must find an elder to vouchsafe and sponsor thee, and to speak for they good name.
Thou must represent thy heritage with a family crest.
Thou must fashion a sword with which to be knighted.
Thou shall uphold a vow of silence on the eve of thine knighthood.
Thou shall compete in a tournament of medieval games and embark on a quest, requiring the eyes of an eagle, the cunning of a fox, and the courage of a lion.

An alum is invited back to act as page to the King and Queen. Here she is standing by their thrones!

And here is the church, ready for the 6th graders to arrive:

It was a fun and poignant night for Helen. She got to come back and reflect on what a special education she had as she listened to the 6th graders honor each other and bask in their accomplishments.

Here's a link to Liz's Knighting Ceremony and Helen's.

The poignant days continue with our nephew James graduating from high school. He's headed off to Iceland to travel next week. I find it amazing that he speaks Icelandic. He loves languages.

While we were at his graduation lunch, Helen texted me to let us know that she had received a prize at her high school undergraduate awards for her work editing the literary magazine. We texted a toast right back to her in the awards ceremony. The wonders of modern technology.

From going back home to our childhood, to reflecting on our own children's childhoods, and to celebrating the next steps our teens are taking what a season in our lives this is.

Final Days at Waldorf

>> Monday, June 3, 2013 – Spring, waldorf

Lizzie is approaching her final days at the Waldorf School. She graduates in two weeks. There are so many "final" moments right now. The may pole was one of those final moments. Here is her class singing and processing with the may pole.

And here they are doing the final dance.

So many mixed feelings about these final days.

Open Studio Weekend

>> Sunday, June 24, 2012 – Spring

Open Studio Weekend is a long-standing tradition for us. We pack up the car for a day trip, choose a section of Vermont, and go visit craft studios.

This year we went north. What a beautiful spring day it was. We got off on to back roads and drove along ridges with open vistas.

We visited a bookbinder and basketmaker.

We stopped at this blacksmith shop.

I love seeing everyone's studios.

We came upon this barn. Inside was filled with chinese lanterns, paintings, and a potter!

We ended the day by pulling in to the new distillery that has opened by our house.

We tried this vodka made from whey. It was delicious.

We brought some home and ended our lovely day on the porch.

Big Moments in 7th Grade!

>> Friday, June 22, 2012 – Spring, waldorf

Two other highlights of the spring for Liz were her class play and the spring semi-formal. I probably won't keep these photos up very long as they include her classmates... Here she is as the jester in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It was a great production! Her class can really act and I can't wait for their Shakespeare play next year.

After the play, the kids who will be going to high school together quick changed and headed out to a semi-formal. Don't they look great? Again--I'll be taking this down pretty quickly after regular readers check in!

Waldorf 7th Grade

>> Wednesday, June 20, 2012 – main lesson, Spring, waldorf

Elizabeth brought home her 7th grade work and I thought I'd share some of it.

This is the cover to her main lesson book. The instructions were to create a cover that represented an aspect of their 7th grade curriculum. Liz focused on perspective drawing and geometry--two of her favorite subjects.