Skip to main content

Papu Comes to Visit 2

 It's been another 10 or so days of Papu in Vermont with us, and he's experienced more heat, severe flooding, Summer holiday camps, a long-awaited touristy activity, and many, many late dinners! 

We returned safely from Plymouth VT just before mudslides, flooding and road erosion caused all major routes between there and home to be closed. It's been raining nonstop some days! The snack shack that we visited in Papu's first week suffered flooding similar to what they experienced in 2011's Hurricane Irene, and many more surrounding towns have been struggling to get on top of water diversion and mopping up efforts. We are fortunate to be safe and able to access necessities, and bar one wild drive in a thunderstorm last Thursday, we are trying to time outings around extreme weather forecasts.

Of course, this means that we haven't been out much! Last Saturday, however, the sun was shining, and PJ took the crew into Boston for a bit of sightseeing. They visited Fenway Park, Harvard University and Berklee College of Music to name a few, caught a whiff of a history lesson when the local tour group stopped by the souvenir shop that they were perusing, and discovered a large shopping mall and Red Robin restaurant on their way back to Vermont later that day. 

Note to self: have them stand in at least one picture next time! 

Papu also had perfect spectator attendance at Ethan's week-long soccer camp held in South Royalton. Despite rain, limited snacks, and us forgetting the camp chairs on more than one occasion, he spent two hours each day watching his eldest grandson run drills - one day in his newly acquired Drakensberg Boys Choir t-shirt, no less! I caught this proud moment of Papu congratulating Ethan on scoring a cracker goal just before the final whistle blew. What special memories we're making...



Catching up on a lifetime of missed music lessons!

You can take the girl out of Cape Town but...

Adrienne enjoyed learning to play Dominoes

Since I still have some studying to do, the kids have to lower their weekday activity expectations, and Papu is forced to be homebound most of the time. As his reward, he has cabin-feverish grandchildren begging for sleepovers every single night! There has been more than one movie marathon into the wee hours of the morning, I'm sure, and I hardly ever see the younger two this keen to shower after supper so that they're considered eligible. Ha! 

This week offers more morning holiday camp for the children with down time in the afternoon and requires weather watching and studying. We're hoping to ramp up the tourist activities once roads are more accessible and time allows. For now, we're happy to enjoy pretty sunsets altogether.


Clear skies at last! 



Comments

  1. Enjoy! Sunshine but cold. Glad that they are enjoying all the weather and having Papu around. 😊

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The week that has been...

"Life as we see it", right? My time so far at the cycle tour office is reminding me of just how demanding life in this age can be - a time seeking instant solution and gratification: We want it now! We won't wait! This is what makes a relaxing, easy going activity seem so rewarding! We've always been fortunate enough to cook with pleasure - obviously more for mine! And since returning from BA, we've also found great enjoyment from leisurely strolls in the neighbourhood or at Sea Point promenade. Take time for this! Here's what we've been a part of this past week: We were encouraged to see a group of students from Bishops come out (even in the rain) and join with the FBC team in painting a mural on the school's new diningroom and kitchen wall. For news and updates visit: http://www.fbcschool.org.za/ We joined over 15 000 walkers in a quest to feed the hungry children in the Western Cape, by participaing in the Blisters for Bread walk on Sunday. We tackl...

Week 22

In no apparent order, some of the highlights of the last week have been: Carolling around a log fire with a Yankee Swap, cookies, coffee and new friends Last Friday evening we set off for somewhere near Norwich for our Adult Bible Fellowship (ABF) Christmas party. As visitors to the church, there's already an element of insecurity...now to be heading into someone's home, as Dear Husband would say, "socially awkward levels were at an all time high" - Was the gifts we brought to swap suitable? What was a Yankee Swap anyways? Could you bring something besides sugar cookies to share? Do you have to take off your shoes at the front door? Are you allowed to park people in when the alternative is further up an un-lit, ice covered hill? There were so many unknowns! But once I saw the wood burning in the fireplace I relaxed a lot . Yankee swap was fun! DH was no. 2 to pick a gift, and landed a torch  umm...flashlight, as the locals call it , and it looked as though h...

The Great Update

If you've stuck around, ever hopeful of a new blog post, I'm here to reward (?) your long-suffering. Read on... If you'd prefer the abridged version here it is: The last post before today was published in March 2020. Today is August 2021.  It has been a minute. What a year it has been. Since our last post we've gone from school-at-home in March to June 2020, to summer holiday under our first "lock-down". School for the kids was back in-person for the entire academic year beginning August 2020 until June 2021 and their reward was ten weeks of summer holiday ... and now here we are, one week away from the 21/22 school year - masks and all. Somewhere in between that, I graduated from college and participated in our online graduation ceremony as the 2021 student speaker! ( Yes, I don't know either... ) Completing the two-year degree felt really good and I'll admit that a part of me misses it already...but don't tell anyone I said so.  It seems as thou...