took these birdies mini golfing

MIT means More Impressive Tuition

I took a couple of our future college students on an official tour of MIT in Cambridge. It's a pretty imposing place.

 Fun fact about MIT: every student who enrolls MUST pass a swim test. Has something to do with the founder and being on the banks of the Charles River. I doubt there are very many universities/colleges that require passing a swimming test to graduate. Another fun fact: If an enrolled student takes a swimming class, an archery class and a sailing class, they are eligible to earn the official MIT Pirate's License. 

My maternal grandfather went to MIT in the 1930s. We still have his report cards. Now I want to dig them up and see if the Pirate's License was a thing almost 100 years ago.

 Fun for US? We met our BFF Ellen across the street for lunch after the tour. She works in the office of the President, and hooked us up with some fine MIT yo-yo's. She also took us on a behind-the-scenes tour of the library, where we saw the very impressive dome. It's a beautiful campus and we heard some imposing statistics about accepted students' average GPAs and exam scores.

 It was fun to walk the halls and grounds of MIT and learn about this fine institution of higher learning. Another Fun Fact: After the tour, no one in my little group raised their hand when I asked 

"Now who wants to go to MIT?"

Already done that.

Wednesday nights are FREE! at the MFA in Boston

The parking is NOT free, ($28 in the museum lot) but well worth admitting a group of art lovers into the MFA for the evening. A nice walk from the museum is the Prudential Center. We browsed a couple of shops, and then went right to the top for stunning views of the city.

 We grabbed some pizza on the walk back, and enjoyed the rest of the night as patrons of the arts.

The Eighth Grader went to Washington D.C.

Tradition in our town dictates that the eighth grade class spends a week each Spring exploring Washington, D.C. It's an adventure that our kids LOVE. Leeli is our fifth child to embark on this journey with her classmates, and was not disappointed. She had a good time and came home exhausted.

 They spent their days touring the museums, monuments and historical sites, and their evenings doing more of the same plus an evening dinner/dance cruise on the Potomac River.

 The only two negatives that she reported were:

 1. School dances are lame compared to church youth dances

-and-

2. The construction on the Capitol building made for a disappointing back drop to their class picture.

She said her favorite part was visiting all the monuments and memorials. She loved the Holocaust Museum and

the memorial to FDR the best. 

We can't wait to go back.

meanwhile: LIFE

It's been a week since we launched Sweet Mesquite into the western frontier and missionary training. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about her OFTEN. We haven't heard anything yet; we're eagerly awaiting the first report and know that it will be full of good things. Meanwhile, life on the home front is so full, that we hardly have time to stop and fret.  I'm reading a few good books in between activities--I love audio books while I'm tripping around town in my taxi-van. The garden is planted! We're enjoying a colorful late Spring. There are lilacs on my dining room table, and I can smell them in every other room of the house, they're so wonderfully fragrant.

Spring soccer is underway, and our red-shirted goalkeeper is my favorite part of being a spectator. 

 Rooney performed in the High School POPS concert and won an award for her outstanding musicianship. It may have been the last time she'll be playing the tenor sax in a High School ensemble because she has so much more she wants to fit into her schedule before she graduates in a couple of years. If it was her last performance, it was a good one.

 T.B.B.E. (the best baby ever) flew in for a visit.

 I enjoyed nibbling as much of him as I could.

We also enjoyed a visit from the party bus of New Hampshire.

They don't travel lightly, but my sister makes it look like a cakewalk. I nibbled some of her busy boy, too.

 We broke out Angela and have been tripping around town in the warm sunshine and fresh breezes.

(we got in a few rides before Mesquite left)

 Leeli's AAU season has come to an end.

She played with a great group of girls and was lucky enough to have my co-hort, the other Mrs. Swiftcomb, for a coach.

Not driving to Danvers and Lowell twice a week sure made it an easy season for me.

 There's MORE! Building a deck, repairing a pool, painting bedrooms, teaching seminary and piano lessons, staying on top of the yard work, house work and laundry... it never stops.

A crazy, chaotic home is my comfort zone. 

good day Sunshine!

It's been an exceptional Winter.

We've been especially pleased of late to see the temperatures go up and the sun come out.

 We can't play IN the snow, but we've enjoyed playing ON the snow. Snowshoeing on top of several feet of snow on a sunny afternoon is pretty fantastic.

the family that...

I'm a big fan of the saying

"The family that plays together stays together."

How do you wrap that concept around 

hauling and stacking wood?

Whatever the trick,

it's not exactly PLAY.

But we do it...

often enough that everyone knows it's a much faster, much less painful chore when ALL hands are on deck.

We loaded the garage with wood to burn (again), and with cold temps on the way, we might be at it once more before February.

We don't love stacking wood, but we DO love the wood stove.

the college girl is thriving

People have been asking me about how our Sweet Mesquite is doing since I dropped her off in Idaho, oh, about a month ago now.  Here's the first-day-of-school picture with her room mate and partner-in-crime she texted me:

Truth is, she's making college two thousand miles away look like FUN.

She cooks/packs her own meals, likes all of her room mates, plays in the University Band, was asked to be the Choir Director at church, has joined an Ultimate Frisbee team/league, and goes Country Dancing for fun.

 I think she likes it.

Friday Night Lights

A couple of weeks ago we had our first home football game.

It felt great to be out under the lights, enjoying the electricity in the air with super-charged fans, a whole passel of cheerleaders (30 this year!), our favorite tenor-sax-playing-member of the marching band, and a WIN! for the home team.  There's so much about Fall that I love, and Friday nights on the football field is definitely one.

granting wishes

September is typically a crazy, crazy month; a jump-start to a new school year full of activity and frenzy. I find myself verbalizing phrases like "we live from day-to-day" (or hour-to-hour), or "we're flying by the seat of our pants."  My good husband paused us both for a few minutes last night in the crowded High School auditorium where we were embarking on an evening of meeting our two daughters' teachers to gently remind me that even though we feel carried away by the tide of September-ness, ultimately we are making choices about whether or not we're in charge of the journey.  It's true.  We make choices that throw us face-first into a maelstrom, and also decisions about how we handle the commotion that happens as a natural consequence of choosing it.

With that as a preface, mid-September has to be the most chaotic month to have a birthday. (I have a daughter born five days before Christmas. I stand by my word.)  Planning ahead (WAY ahead) for a celebration in the midst of all the upheaval that is September always feels like the right thing.  This year we made plans.  In July.  We knew that in addition to the bedlam we could predict, there would be the disruption of moving a college student to Idaho.  Purchasing tickets in advance felt right. So we did. Who knew that on the list of events we would not be able to predict, would be a pre-birthday girl stricken by a LONG bout with a mysterious cold virus turned into pneumonia?  Not her.  Not me.

Miss Rooney's solitary birthday wish for a momentous 16th birthday observance was a trip to New York City to see Alice's Adventures in Wonderland performed by the National Ballet of Canada.  The company would be in town for one week only.  I thought we could take a day off from school, have a day in the city, and cap it off with the ballet before driving home the same night.  It was a good plan. Until she missed a week of school because she was so sick.  We consulted with her doctor, and he insisted we go. She was on the mend. We decided to forego the day in the city, lest she miss so much school work she became buried under it. 

The enthusiastic birthday fairy (that's me), picked her up at school during her last class of the day, and whisked her into the car for our four hour ride into the city.  We got there with time to spare, so we took a walk into Central Park and visited the Alice in Wonderland sculpture. It was the perfect way to begin our evening.

 She loved it.  We both did.

From there we made our way to Lincoln Center.

By way of scenes of New York which we love:

Brownstones.

 Man on a park bench.

 The Guggenheim.

 Moroni atop the Manhattan temple.

Even though we were short on time, we tried to squeeze as much out of New York City as we could. After the park, we ducked into a Starbucks to change our clothes. I felt very happy to find on-street parking, and we walked a few blocks to the theater.  Rooney was SO SO excited to discover that our visit coincided with New York's fashion week!  Too bad we didn't have more time to explore all things fashion; we did get a kick out of some Drag Queens-for-hire who were staging a mini protest to Fashion Week.  Hilarious.

 

 Rooney was eager to get into the theater.

We opted out of dinner for fear we might miss something, but neither one of us felt hungry--we were too anxious for the ballet.  Another good reason to return: for a bite (in) the Big Apple.  

 The theater was gorgeous.

The setting was perfect.

We had front row balcony seats on the right.  We felt like VIPs in our own box. It was a very intimate setting.  I don't think there's a bad seat in the house.

 We especially loved having a birds eye view of the Orchestra.

It really was amazing.

 The dancing was exquisite, the cast was fun and full of personality, and there were some entertaining surprises.  Bravo!  The National Ballet of Canada nailed it.

It was a perfect night.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was breathtaking and my blonde ballerina can't wait to come back.

Turning sixteen at the ballet was magical.