Welcome to My World, Raph

Raph is officially DONE with his fourth year of teaching.  We enjoyed this weekend together immensely though it actually is a short break.  He begins a research internship especially for teachers on Wednesday.  A pretty sweet gig for six weeks (four day weeks at that) which is well-paid, earns him six credits, and happens to be interesting!  The only draw-back is that it is in Boston and Lowell, an hour commute each way.  He'll be sharing the commute (and gas) with a friend who has the same job, but it is still an additional two hours away from home.  

So we tried to live it up this weekend, despite my working schedule.  I had to do exchange student stuff on Saturday in Portland, a place we both would like to explore more.  It was an international fair/market and while I sat there trying to persuade people to host exchange students, he strapped Makili to his back and took him to the Children's Museum.  For like four hours and had a terrific time.  Makili was awesome - slept both the way there and the way home, played and smiled at everyone, and was generally amiable.

On Sunday we went Strawberry Picking with Tim and Tamara.  Makili caught onto the concept very quickly and was almost immediately stuffing his face with anything red connected to the leaves, whether it was rotten or not.  He was completely covered in strawberry juice (sorry grammy about that new green hooded shirt you got him - it was really cute.)  He threw a complete tantrum when we took him away, but was quickly distracted by rocks and sticks in another area.  We went back to T&T's and made an absolutely FABULOUS soup/salad combo.  Tim ate kale for the first time (??Seriously??) and then we played RISK!  I want all of you to know that I am currently the raining Kittery champion of Risk and Tim has vowed never to try to take over Asia again.  He had a lot of LOUD and adamant advice despite the fact that he lost.

And today I had to work and it rained ALL day, but the kids were spectacular and played well together for so long.  Jack and Sam helped me to paint some BEAUTIFUL decorations for Makili's birthday party in two weeks.  Raph cleaned the house and Larry's car and then came and took Makili so that I could have 3 instead of 4 for a little while.  He played with him and had good ol' daddy time.  And we topped it off with some really excellent swiss-chard quesadillas and conversation.  And tomorrow - the BIG DAY - coming.  It is supposed to rain, which is sort of a bummer as we had hoped to take Makili to the farm for his birthday, but doesn't look like that will happen this week.  We'll think of something else fun.