Mother's Day

I hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day!  We did!  After church, we posed for a picture on the deck.  Then we had grilled burgers and potato salad for dinner.  And German Chocolate Cake Gelato for dessert!  Technohubby and I made phone calls to our own dear, sweet, much appreciated moms.  A fine day was had by all!

Among the Daffodils

Last week I ran into a friend who lives nearby, and she invited our family to come over and pick daffodils in her small apple orchard.  “Bring the kids.  Bring the grandkids.  Bring a camera,” she said.  No need to ask me twice!  She is one of the best gardeners in town (as well as one of the sweetest people) and her gardens are just gorgeous at every season of the year.  So, today Felicity, Theo, Melissa, and I headed over to pick some daffodils.

The little boy and the big red barn.

Looking up from the orchard at my friend’s house, which was built in the early 1800′s.

Sweetness everywhere!

Like a typical boy, Theo had minimal interest in the flowers, but loved the stick he found and went around whacking at things.

The first apple blossoms I’ve seen this season!

Felicity spotted a small snake and called Theo to see.  She touched it with Theo's stick and it slithered away.  Just a harmless garter snake.

Examining the many different varieties of daffodils.

We’re hoping to go back on Mother’s Day and take more pictures!

Cool Aunt Points

Yesterday, I earned myself some “cool aunt points” when my niece and nephew received these from me.

Did you know that you can mail almost anything?  As long as you can affix postage to it and address it, you can mail it!  So, I took two empty plastic soda bottles, cleaned them, dried them, filled them with goodies, taped them very securely with packaging tape, addressed them, and sent them off to a couple of cute kids.    Some of the contents included: packages of Jelly Bellys, an inflatable globe, headbands, a nose flute (yes, such a thing does exist!), an octopus leg finger puppet, bouncy balls, a set of jacks, glow sticks, and more!

Nantucket Homes

The homes on Nantucket are so unique.  They are historic.  They have charm or elegance.  They are family summer homes with names.  They have unique features.  Here’s a walking tour of the front doors of Nantucket.

I love to see what people name their homes and wonder how they came to settle on that particular name.

One of Nantucket’s more elegant inns is the Jared Coffin House, named for a prominent member of an old, Nantucket family.

I thought the "mailbox" at this home was quite unique.

It’s a very common sight to see beautiful sings painted with real gold.  This one bears the pineapple, the symbol of hospitality.

It’s fun to see the variety of door knockers on Nantucket.  In general, door knockers are much more common here in New England than in other parts of the country.  The style of this first one is what is known as a “classic New England door knocker”.

Many of the homes and inns on Nantucket are seasonal residences/businesses.  Most likely this is one, which had shutters over its front door, one blown open presumably by the storm with high winds that blew through a few days before we were there.  It has a great door knocker as well.

I love the varied styles of homes on the island.  Most are elegant or charming colonials, but there are some older, more rustic homes, and some Victorians as well.

An impressive entrance!

And last, but not least, is the entrance to the Atheneum, the public library on Nantucket.  It was standing on those steps, next to one of the tall, white columns, that I stood fifteen years ago and was just overwhelmed with a convicting feeling that I belonged in New England!  And here we are!  God is so graciously good!

Chipotle Night

Our family loves the food at Chipotle!  But every time I even buy a single burrito there, I have that sort of *ouch* feeling at the high price of the bill.  So when I found some Chipotle knock-off recipes online, I decided to give them a try.  Tonight we had a complete Chipotle knock-off meal!

We had Chipotle rice bowls (I know…they’re on a plate), and I set it up buffet style.  The buffet consisted of: Chipotle Copycat Cilantro-Lime Rice, Chipotle Copycat Barbacoa Beef, shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, Chipotle Copycat Corn Salsa, Chipotle Copycat Pico de Gallo, sour cream, my own salsa, Chipotle Copycat Guacamole, and tortilla chips.  Click on any of the above names to link you to the original source for the recipes, and you can have your own Chipotle meal!

By the way, I had actually made the Barbacoa Beef a week or more ago, and froze enough for this meal.  We agreed that it was even better from the freezer than it had been freshly cooked.  Win, win!

Celebrations

Hello.  The long-absent blogger has returned.  (I must confess that we are finished watching all of LOST, so that won’t be keeping me busy at nights anymore.)  We have also been extremely occupied with “celebration season” around here.  We have had a total of six special occasions at our house in the last two weeks.  We clean house, cook food, serve food, celebrate, and repeat.

The first celebration was Theo's 2nd birthday!  Felicity planned a really fun party (hosted at our house) with a Noah’s ark theme!  Colette made the cake, and all the animals came!

She planned a menu with foods in every color of the rainbow and animal crackers too.

Present opening fun with Aunt Colette!  She gave him an adorable red car.  Vroom, vroom!

A big two-year old!

The next celebration was our actual 25th wedding anniversary.  We celebrated at home as a family, and our kids cooked us a delicious dinner.

Next was the pre-Easter breakfast from my last posting.

Then there was Easter Sunday!  We used the antique lace tablecloth, the new Limoges(!), and even the antique crystal salt cellars and sterling pepper shakers.

Colette made Lemon-Raspberry Coconut Cake for dessert.  Yum!

Moving on to the next life celebration…Felicity’s birthday!  Sadly, the only picture I took of her all night was with her cell phone, so I don’t have it to share.  But she liked the pasta wrapping paper on her present, being a self-confessed “pastavore”.

And last night, we enjoyed having an overnight visit from some friends from California.

Pardon me while I collapse from fun!

Pre-Easter Breakfast

Walter, Felicity, and the kids are spending Easter Sunday with Walter's family, so today they came over to celebrate with us.  We all had breakfast together.

We rarely get to set the table fancy for breakfast, so it was really fun to do something different.
The menu was:

scrambled eggs (both plain and with spinach and chives)

bacon

croissants with butter and homemade plum jam

fresh berries

orange juice

coffee

Colette searched online for a tutorial in folding a napkin to look like a bunny, and then she diligently set to work.  She discovered that the trick is to iron each fold as you make them.

The breakfast table.  I love to do the Easter table in a white/brown/green color palette, because that’s exactly what our springtime world looks like…melting snow, brown earth, and (sometimes) the start of a little green here and there.  This year, Easter is a little early for much green outside, but we can imagine.

My sweet family!

Theo got to do his first Easter egg hunt, and he proved to be a pretty good hunter!  We did it indoors, since there is still so much snow on the ground.  Sometime, when all the grandkids are older, I think it’d be really fun to do one in the snow!

Melissa just sat there, looking adorable, and playing with the Peter Rabbit pull-toy.  Looking adorable is what she does best!

Happy Easter to you all!

A Walking Tour of Nantucket

Technohubby and I have different attitudes towards vacations.  He likes to relax…sleep late…take naps.  I, however, am like a kid who just found the entrance to Narnia, and I can’t wait to explore it all!  And after 25 years of marriage, we quite understand this about each other.  So, while he sleeps late or naps, I go exploring with my camera.  My love of photography really developed ten years ago on Nantucket, because everything there is just so picturesque.  Granted, it’s a bit more picturesque at other times of year.  But come along with me as I give you a walking tour of Nantucket.

March must be construction season on the island, because the sounds of hammering and sawing and the signs of new construction could be heard and seen everywhere.  Nantucket experienced hurricane force winds during Nemo, that same storm that gave us 30″ of snow, so there was plenty that needed to be repaired to the island’s historic homes.  Many of the homes on Nantucket are shingled.  This one was sporting the patchwork look of new shingles along side the old, sea-weathered ones.

And this beautiful home, (truly one of my favorites in terms of design), seemed to be undergoing quite the renovation.  Upon closer study, however, I realized that the roof was missing.  That seemed odd.  Why would they need to remove the entire roof?  Then I studied it some more and realized that sooty, red streaking stained the inside of some of the windows.  Sadly, this home had suffered a fire.  (If you look closely, you can see some smoke damage coming from the missing second story window on the right side of the home.)  I took Technohubby back later to see it, and we walked around the side, where the soot was even on some of the new construction, so it must’ve burned while under construction.  I was very glad to see that it was being rebuilt and would, clearly, be gorgeous again!  I can’t wait to go back and see it all finished someday.  I wonder if it is an inn, and we might stay there sometime?

Everywhere you look, design elements pay homage to the history of Nantucket as a whaling island.

Love, love, love(!) walking the quaint streets of Nantucket!

There are two churches on the island whose steeples can be seen from sea, and this is one of them.  Technohubby and I toured this church when we were here for our 10th anniversary, including a climb up into the steeple and a peek at the fabulous view of the island from there.

Daffodils were pushing their way upward already!  That’s certainly not happening around here, so it was a delight to see them!  Nantucket has a big Daffodil Festival about mid-April, which signals the beginning of the tourist season on the island, although the real tourist season will not start until June.

Very, very few shops were open while we were there.  But two bookstores were, including this one.  It’s motto is, “Independent and Out to Sea”.  Haha!  Love it!  It’s book selection definitely reflected its motto.

I love the trade signs for the shops on Nantucket, each one so unique.  And I love the brick sidewalks!  Note the complete lack of people.  In fact, when I was in the bookshop, the owner mistakenly thought I was a local.  I guess those are the only people they expect to see on the island in March.

In the downtown area of Nantucket, many of the streets are still the original cobblestone.  The cobblestones came from the ballast of ships.

Haha!  That’s a good description of the island at this time of year.

When we decided to go to Nantucket, we both knew that we wanted to each lunch at The Brotherhood of Thieves, our favorite restaurant on the island.  Sadly, it was closed for renovations.  Sigh.  And we also wanted to eat a nice dinner at one of two restaurants, either Black-Eyed Susans OR The Company of the Cauldron.  Sigh.  Both closed for the season.  I did walk by The Company of the Cauldron, and took this picture of the sign they had replacing their menu board for now.  Quite amusing.

This hat shop had a write-up in Victoria magazine a long time ago, and I had wondered if it still existed.  And then I found this!  How tempting!  I had to follow the arrow to see if it was open, but alas, no.

Pretty steps and buildings.

This is Main Street on Nantucket.  This cobblestone street is usually just bustling.  Part way up, on the right, there’s usually a farmer with his old pick-up truck selling fresh produce and flowers from the back of his truck.  It’s a Nantucket institution.  The shops on Main are an eclectic mix of high-end retail stores, essential shops (like bookstores and a pharmacy), and t-shirt and souvenir shops.  And in the middle of the road, as you can see if you look closely, is an original, working gas lamp.

On the side of the building at the far left of the above picture (currently a Ralph Lauren store, but it used to be home to Nantucket Looms, an exclusive weaver on the island) is this sign, just in case you’re wondering if there are other delightful spots in the world to go to.

And at the same corner, these signs point you to other destinations on the island.

At this time of year, with no foliage on the bushes and trees, it’s easy to peek into gardens that one might not see at other times of year.  This one is exceptionally elegant with its armillary and intriguing, little, copper-crowned structures.

Crocuses blooming!  Spring is slowly unfolding on the island!

More Nantucket pictures to come in another posting.