Turtle Time

Today, Isaac and I went to "turtle time" a new fun activity they had at the Family Center. A woman from one of the local animal rehabilitation centers here on the island brought two turtles along with her, and taught us all about them. I actually learned quite a bit.

I had no idea turtles lived so long! The pair she brought had been captured in the 60s! There was a spotted turtle, who lives in water, and a box turtle who lives on land. We learned that turtles have their spines connected to their shells, which is why you have to be very careful handling a turtle because if their shell breaks, that means big trouble for them.

She also brought along some old turtles for us to touch and explore, and even a huge snapping turtle shell for the toddlers to try on! It was really neat, I'm so happy that we went!

Happy Halloween!

This was a really great Halloween! We had a costume/birthday party on Saturday, which turned out to be a horrible, rainy day, which put a damper on the costume parade through town, but non the less, it was a blast! Isaac (who was a candy corn of course) got to play with a dalmatian, her 4 day old baby sister (also a dalmatian) a lady bug princess, her little brother who was a dragon, an owl, who's little sister was a lady bug, two little cupcakes, a fairy, who's little brother was a monkey, a tiger, a shark, and a ballerina, who said she was a witch.

It was so much harder to gather all the toddlers together for a photo this year, last year they weren't so independent, or mobile yet so it was much easier! We managed to snag a couple good photos though!

Back at home, we carved pumpkins, Ian carved a scary face, and Isaac and I did a silly, happy face. We had fun choosing the right ones for the job, it was hard, but I picked out two identically round ones, hoping Michael would carve one, an oval one, which Ian carved, Isaac picked out the teeniest pumpkin I've ever seen, and we piled them all in the cart and somehow managed to make it to the car, pumpkins all in tact!

For the dress up part, Ian had a really great Viking costume that he put together with his mom, the assembling we did here, and the make up and stuff like that. Michael slipped on his rain gear that he wears for fishing, and I threw together a last minute witch costume. After a few house visits, we were ready to hit the streets for Trick or Treating!

We met up with some friends who just had a baby 11 days ago, he wore Isaac's chili pepper costume and was soooo cute I could hardly stand it!

I hadn't ever gone trick or treating in any town but Edgartown, so it was a new experience for all of us! Isaac was very brave for a few houses, and marched right up to the porch, but gone stage freight and forgot his lines : )

Luckily Ian wasn't ever more than a step behind him. We ended the night with two very sleepy trick or treaters, one sleepy fisherman who had to work at midnight, and one super sleepy witch with very achy feet!

Only 364 days until next Halloween!!! Hoooorayy!!

An Awesome Autumn

My friend Heather, who lives in Hawaii, asked me to collect her some pretty Autumn leaves. I guess I never really thought about it before, but they don't really have the whole change of season out there. She grew up here in New England, and Im sure she misses seeing the fall colors!

Isaac, Aunt WooWoo, her dogs, and I headed on a nature walk in search of beautiful foliage. We had a nice walk, but we really had to search for any colored leaves! Sure there were tons of leaves, but they were mostly from oak trees, which were just dry and brown. Bleach.

While we were heading back, we spotted some pretty ones in some trees above us, that hadn't quite made it to the ground yet. Good thing Isaac isn't scared of heights! If only Aunt WooWoo had remembered to put on her safety glasses. . .

I had the very, very best intentions to press them within the pages of some wax paper, and iron them and send them to her with her early Thanksgiving car package. I just needed to find the time. When I had the time, I reached for the Ziploc bag of beautiful leaves only to find they had all turned brown : (

WHAT A LET DOWN!! Lesson learned, that's for sure!

Not to worry, it looks like the rain is behind us, and soon enough, maybe Wednesday, we'll be out again in search of better replacements!

Here Fishy Fishy

Michael wasn't quite ready to give up on fishing this year, so we met up with him and his fishing buddy at one of the beaches in town. Isaac and I were going to go look for sea glass, we didn't see a single piece, and Michael didn't catch any fish, but had fun anyway.

Isaac got to run all around the lighthouse, and help Dada cast out his lure into the ocean. I think there will be plenty more days like this in the future. I think Eric may have his best-fishing-partner title challenged pretty soon. . .

Pumpkin Fest!

YAAAAAAAYYY!!! Pumpkin Fest was a huge hit this year! Isaac always has a blast at Morning Glory Farm, but this year he had so much fun! We ended up driving to a friends house, and then walking to the festival with them, which worked out very well indeed.

They had such a great turn out, I think it may have been even more crowded than last year! There were Alpacas, pumpkin painting, and carving, a bean bag toss (which Isaac mastered once he put on my sunglasses, "safety first mama" he reminded me) pumpkin bowling, face painting, tons of food, a hay maze which was more like pikes of baled hay stacked inside a tremendously hot green house, hay rides, and best of all. . . PONY RIDES!!

I wasn't sure how Isaac would do with them, but he said he wanted to go, so we paid our $2.00 and waited in line. Turns out, these were no tiny ponies like I thought they'd be. They were horse size ponies! Like a champ, when it was his turn, he walked slowly over, held out his hand for the pony (horse) to sniff him. Then I helped him climb up into the saddle, and he looked at my friend with the camera, and put his arms up! I thought I was going to have a stroke.

There wasn't even anything for him to hold on to!! He had SO much fun, my irrational fear of him falling to his doom quickly disappeared. The horses name was Mickey Blue Eyes, and was so very sweet, I wanted to just bring him home with us.

It has inspired me to bring Isaac to some more pony rides. There is a barn here that advertises they do them by appointment only every week, so I may take them up on that. I think it'd be a fun winter activity.

Halloween is coming!

It's always a great day when we see something in the mail from Hawaii. We know that whatever it is is filled with exciting things from one of my best buddies, who always seems to know exactly when I'm feeling a little down.

This year, she sent Isaac the best Halloween card that I have ever seen! It not only looked like she made it herself, in my all time favorite medium, felt of course, it had finger puppets!! I don't know how she knew, but Isaac has been obsessed with puppet shows for the past two weeks! These were pricelessly perfect!

Thank you Auntie Heather!!

The Grey Barn

I had seen something in the local paper about how you could visit one of the local farms, and watch them milking cows!! Well, that's right up my alley! I had to go check it out. I knew my sister Caitlin would love to tag along, so we planned a time to go check it out.

Of course it was raining harder than it had in months the morning we headed up that way, which turned out to be just fine. The cows didn't seem to mind it very much, Isaac got to splash in his rain boots, which is always fun, and I discovered a mammoth tear in mine. . . not so much fun.

We met a very, very scraggly dog there, who we named Stick, because everything we said that, he'd creep over. Turns out he just really wanted someone to play fetch with him.

Isaac found a tractor right away and insisted on "driving" it around the place. We've been working on imagination lately. He would make a very charming farmer someday : )

We walked through the barn to the milking area, and I was simply flabbergasted by how brilliant these cows were. They lined themselves up outside, then came into the room in pairs, had their turn on the milking machine, then when they were done, they walked themselves outside, in a straight line, to the open barn and had breakfast. I was simply amazed that nobody was leading them, they were doing it totally on their own! And when the newest cow approached the feeding area, the others just gently moved aside to make room for them.

There was one bull, who I spotted right away, he had this crazy looking contraption in his nose which made MY nose start itching like crazy just looking at it.

(I'll definitely go back there! Hopefully on a not so rainy day)