August 17-28 2021

Summer is plugging along. It’s been a pretty quiet few weeks. Lots of appointments, time with our pets, puzzles, gaming,  home decorating and some socially with friends. 

When we got back from Vermont Ally was dealing with an upset stomach for a while and felt pretty crummy. So we took things pretty easy and low key for a few days. 

We are all excited that Cloey and Daisy are starting to get along better. 



Puzzling!

Turns out Daisy is really active at night. She opens the closet doors, pulls open the drawers and drags clothes out of the drawers. She did all of that one night. 

After NYC with her new Jordan sneaker purchases we have been thinking about how to store her nee shoes. Some Pinterest research and we decided a trip to IKEA was the solution.

But first it was lunch work. Every Friday we have been home this Summer we have made and 10 bag lunches for our Church’s Friday Cafe (homeless meal pick up). 

Here we are at IKEA. 

Ally put the shelf together mostly herself.

Becky and I hung it up and then Ally styled it. 

No it’s not hung up crooked, it’s just that in our old house the floor and walls are not level and plumb. It’s pretty cute and yes the litter box remains in Ally’s room.

Saturday morning Ally and I went to Guatemala Girls at Gabi’s house. It was just us and Gabi and her mom. The girls went swimming for over an hour and it was nice to see some friends.

Then later for dinner we had Erik and his mom and brother over for dinner. The kids played PS5 upstairs and Becky, Deb and I talked in the living room. We all had dessert together later after dinner. 

I am just so grateful to have Daisy. She brings so much joy and love to Ally. (And us).

I took at at home COVID test after feeling sick for a few days. Negative! Such a relief. 

It was a really hot week. So lazy mornings in bed for Ally.

And puzzles most afternoons.




But we started thinking about changing up a wall in her room. These 3 prints below she’s had for a long time. 

So after lots of texting of photos back and forth and some talk about her vision of the wall. I came up with the above layout. 

Ally wanted all black and white. A mixture of words and art and she didn’t want anything “too perfect”

We had the Guatemala print and the Be you. 

We found a couple of quotes from her favorite show The Vampire Diaries that she was excited about and I just kept searching for things she would like. Which is a challenge when Ally does not always know how to tell me what she wants but is quick to reject things! 

Once the layout was approved. I ordered prints from Walgreens of the download files I purchased from Etsy. Then I did a mock up on the actual wall.

And hung it all up. Ally was pleased. 

We all love this Rohrshack inspired cat print above her and Daisy. 

We had managed to do the whole wall on a very tight budget using frames we had and inexpensive downloads and the Walgreens prints came out fantastic and were really low cost.

We all feel like this was a nice change to Ally’s room. It looks more like the room of a High School Freshman now than a middle school girl. 

On our trip to VT we got a puzzle at the LL Bean outlet. It was fun to put together.

Beth and Becky went to the beach during the hottest day of the week. But before and after the beach trip Beth helped move some furniture around at our house. Our bench is going to live at the 2nd floor landing for a while. It looks great there and we can easily open and close the window which we love, but the downside of that is Cloey can get on the bench and scratch at the screen. It is a second floor window and we really don’t want her to push the screen out and fall out the window!  The picture above was taken on Saturday which was cool weather, only 68 degrees after the 100 degree Thursday weather!

Daisy found an open window perch.

Saturday Ally was meeting her gymnastics friends at a local hotel for a pool party. 

The weather was not great so they didn’t really swim.



But hung out in the hotel suite. 

It was a sleepover party. But Ally did not sleep over. She came home at dinner to so she could eat and sleep well. Today, Sunday we have a new family picnic at her new school. 

One more week of Summer left!

Stowe Vermont August 13-16, 2021

NYC was not as relaxing as we had hoped but we all really enjoyed the time away. So we decided before it was the end of Summer we’d head north this time for a long weekend in Vermont. 

Drive was about 4 hours including a quick stop at the LL Bean outlet. This is outside our hotel when we arrived.

Becky went to pick up dinner and bring it back to our hotel and Ally and I played travel Uno.

The cards are teeny tiny. 

Becky thought she ordered a fig and arugula pizza. But it was a salad. She ate it anyway but was kind of bummed.

I told my family they looked so relaxed in our room they had to let me take pictures of them. 



Saturday morning. This is 14. New distressed jeans and nikes from our NYC trip.

We decided to drive to Burlington VT on Saturday and check it out. It was about 45 minutes from our hotel. Beautiful view of Lake Champlain. We saw the UVM campus, drove around the lake front and parked to walk through the shopping district.

We stopped in at 10,000 Villages and Becky got this hat. It fits her small head and looks good! Ally got some earrings. 

Becky sat in this ski lift chair and people watched while Ally and I went in a few stores. I bought Ally her first Lululemon leggings. They are almost a requirement here for teenagers. 

They both look so happy. We then stopped for a drink and bought the best popcorn I’ve ever eaten in my life at the kettle Korn stand.  We decided to eat lunch at a restaurant on the water. 

But by the time we had walked there in the sun Ally wasn’t feeling well. So we took a couple pictures while Becky got the car and we drove back to our hotel. After lunch and a long break Ally was feeling better. 

Her new medicine says she needs to be careful in the sun, and eat it with food which she did but we think the antibiotic was a lot for her system.

Later that evening we went in the hot tub at our hotel. 

That night (and every night) we watched a movie together in bed. We had a king size bed in our room, which is plenty of room for the 3 of us. We watched:

When we were soldiers 

World War Z

Tomorrow War

All 3 were very good

Sunday we had planned on riding the gondola up to the top of Mt Mansfield and eat lunch up there. But Ally got sick after breakfast. That medicine really did not sit well with her. So after puking we decided a gondola ride was out. We hung out in our room, watched TV, played Minecraft, I read a book.  Eventually we went out to pick up beer at a local brewery. The Stowe area has many microbreweries and one in particular has a beer that is very hard to get in Boston. And they offered curbside pick up! So we ordered online and picked up beer for some friends back in Boston. 

Becky was very happy to pose for a picture.


Dinner in our room from again, this Bavarian pretzel was bigger than my head. And it was delicious.

Monday morning we took it easy and did not give Ally her antibiotics and drove over to the gondola.

In the car on the way up.

Such a pretty view





But the way down was a little scary for me. 

And Ally thought it was so funny to see me so scared. Becky took a video of us. I just love Ally’s smile. And your can see her perfectly straight teeth! 

Before we left Stowe I made them take a picture in front of a covered bridge. 

Then it was time to leave. Ally listened to her audiobook the whole ride home. She is reading Tell Me 3 Things. 

I’ve been suggesting all Summer she listen to her book and only last week did she finally agree to try and it turns out she likes it. Likes listening. She needs to do something while listening, like draw or a puzzle on her phone. But she is almost done with this book. 

And when we got home Daisy and Ally were reunited. 

Our friends Angelita and Sophocles came to check on Daisy while we were gone. Daisy hid the entire time and they never saw her. Cloey was happy at Beth’s house. 

It was a fun, relaxing weekend.