Guys and Dolls and Friends and Family

Sorry, folks.  Photo dump time.

I can't remember being this busy...ever.  Between wrapping up Holden's school year, duties of Parent Association President starting already at Ella's school, planning and organizing the end of the year Teacher Appreciation Luncheon, Mom and Autumn arriving from California on their cross country trip, friends' birthdays, the Falbos visiting, helping out with Ella's big musical, and planning and packing for our trip to Italy and Spain (and cleaning the apartment for our friends who will be staying here while we're away)...I hardly have time to shower, much less blog.

HOW DO YOU WORKING MOMS DO IT?!?

Serious respect to you all.

So with very few words, here's the lazy-man's blog:

Finishing up school...

Foraging in Central Park with Wildman Steve!

Field trip to Staten Island

Ella's big break in Guys and Dolls...

Shauna, Jake, Francesca and Daniella visit from California...

Peonies from our garden

Grandma and Autumn drive 3,335 miles to see us!

Holden gets an early birthday present from Grandma and Poppa Skaggs

I know it sounds like I'm complaining about being so busy but there isn't one thing I'd give up.  I'm so lucky to be able to help out so much with Ella's school, to be able to continue homeschooling Holden, who is thriving, to have so many loved ones come visit us...

And ESPECIALLY to be able to spend two weeks traveling around Italy with my three favorite people in the world!  We leave next Thursday and Kevin has our itinerary planned down to the second.  I get to sit back and enjoy the ride :)

I hope to be able to at least post photos on Facebook and Instagram, if not blog.  At the end of two weeks Kevin will return to New York and the kids and I will travel on to San Sebastian, Spain where they will go to sleep-away camp.  I will be exploring the area with friends and then spending a week down in the Canary Islands.

Pinch me.

Nature in the Country, Nature in the City

Real quick update:

Holden is starting to wind down on his regularly scheduled classes.  Above is his latest zoo school where they learned about prey and predators.

He had his last Lower East Side Ecology class on Friday where they studied Urban Biodiversity.  They caught insects in a nearby park and then brought them back to the classroom to inspect them under a microscope.

And of course we had to stop by our favorite donut shop for National Donut Day.

On the weekend we had a great barbecue on Saturday with some new friends.  A girl from Ella's school also has a weekend house in Woodstock so we had her family over for dinner.  It was so fun to entertain friends for dinner again, something we rarely get to do in the city.  And they turned out to be super nice people.  It's fun to start to make friends up north now, too.

On the first Saturday of each month the Woodstock Land Conservancy leads a walk with different themes.  You may remember that we went on the tracking walk in the snow a few months ago.  This Saturday the walk was called "Eat Your Invasives" where we were led by an herbalist who taught us about the local invasive plants and what they can be used for in cooking and medicine.  This ties in nicely to a class Holden and I are taking this Friday in Central Park on foraging.

At the end of the class we got to taste some pesto and tea the teacher had made out of local invasive plants (weeds!).  They were delicious!  We'll be trying them at home.

The weather is still spotty here.  Not too cold, but a lot of rain lately.  Yesterday was beautiful, so Holden and I decided to take the long way home from swim class walking through Central Park.  We discovered a new area that has been under renovation for a long time but is now back open to the public.  It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful the park is and how far from the city you feel when you're in it, even though traffic is just a few yards away from you.

Did It Ourselves

Holden had the first of a two-part class last Friday down at the Lower East Side Ecology Center.  I reached out to them a few months ago and asked if they did classes for elementary age kids.  Usually, they bring their instructors into schools to teach about topics such as Urban Biodiversity and East River Ecology.  They do offer after school classes at their space on the shore of the East River, just under the Williamsburg Bridge, and said that they could do something for homeschoolers there as well.  So I booked two consecutive Fridays for a group of about 30 kids.

Holden's wearing goggles for some reason

It was a gorgeous day to be at the river and the class was fantastic!  The kids got to pull up oyster cages and see lots of marine life and then take it into their classroom and inspect them under a microscope.  They learned how to test the water for salinity and turbidity (and why those are important).  They discussed why the health of the river is important to our own health and what pollutants there are.  There was history, science, math, social studies...all wrapped into one!

We return tomorrow for part two.


Today Holden is back at the Bronx Zoo for his weekly zoo school class.  This week they will be learning about predators and prey.  Luckily, my good friend offered to take Holden this week so that I could catch up on a long list of to-dos (not the least of which was catching up on this blog!).  We are leaving at the end of this month for a big trip (I'll leave those of you who don't know in suspense!) and so I've got much to do to get ready - in addition to my regular job description as catch-all for this family.

We had an amazing Memorial Day weekend up in Woodstock.  The weather was beautiful and Holden brought his friend Simon up with him.  While we didn't have time for a long hike (there was a short one though), we did finish a lot of the things we wanted to get done before summer and visitors coming.

Here are some before photos of the back house.  We've been using it as storage since we bought the place but had always planned to turn it into extra sleeping space.

It wasn't horrible, but a blah beige color with ugly linoleum flooring.

Now it's fresh and bright and clean and has a beautiful wood flooring!  And the best part is we did it all by ourselves.

Yes, that's Kevin using a nail gun with a compressor.

The kids slept out there and absolutely love it!  Kevin and I felt like we were on vacation by ourselves with a quiet house at night, sleeping in and having a peaceful cup of coffee in the morning.  All without little ones running around.  And of course the kids love the independence and privacy.

Kevin and I walked into the house after the last piece of IKEA furniture was assembled, high-fiving and congratulating ourselves on all of the hard work we accomplished on the back house, only to find a pool of water under our washing machine!  Old Kevin and Gretchen would have grabbed the phone and called a plumber.  But we have a new sense of confidence when it comes to DIY.  Instead I pulled out my phone, searched a few sites, and before long had Kevin pulling out the machine, finding the leaky hose, heading off to the hardware store to get a new one, and replacing it all by ourselves.  Ten bucks and we were back in laundry business.  Seriously, it's such a good feeling to figure it out ourselves.

Simon and the kids got to see lots of wildlife - a snake, frogs, woodchucks, and even a mama deer and a brand new fawn right in our front yard.  The crazy thing is that it was Memorial Day weekend last year when we saw the exact same scene.  Perhaps even the same mama deer.

See in the background?

We enjoyed several barbeques including using the BBQ as a pizza oven.  And on our way home to the city on Monday we stopped just north of the city at our good friends the Van Engens, for Sharon's 40th birthday party.  A great end to a perfect weekend.