Back in Vermont

Sunday evening we were looking forward to a dinner and story swapping session with u.Randall and a.Kitty.  United Airlines had other plans, so while the weary travelers waited around for their plane to leave Scotland some 12 hours late, we made the most of our time.

The last feirie presents of the trip included pipe cleaners:

Annaliese and Caspian were tasked with cleaning up the play room.  It was a long shot, but I sent them off on their own to do that.


Annaliese came back in this outfit:

Caspian came back without an outfit. (Note: Because these munchkins seem to be shedding their clothes at every opportunity, I've started doing some photo editing to mask certain private bits when necessary.  In case anyone was worried.)

The weary travelers ended up in Newark some time in the early AM on Monday, and we were looking forward to seeing them a little after 10 in Portland.  'Twas not to be.  After the first couple delays, we were looking at an afternoon arrival, giving us time for a Caspian haircut.

The shaggy boy:

The mostly shorn boy, and Annaliese, who received the slightest of trims.  She followed the bath up with a long brushing session in front of the mirror, asking variations on whether her hair was longer/as long/almost longer than her mother's.

At 11:45 we learned that the connecting flight to Portland had been flat out cancelled, and the plan now included a flight to Boston, and a bus ride to Portland.  (With the luggage arriving in Portland several hours earlier by plane...)


With a nap coming up, and a long drive back to VT ahead, we sadly forfeited the homecoming celebration and piled into the truck, leaving c.Ginny and the pooches (Chipper pictured below) as the welcoming committee.


Ginny sent us a note later int he evening letting us know that a.Randall and a.Kitty finally made it home, several hours after their luggage.

The kids fell right into travel mode, slept for the first half of the drive, and woke up for our lunch/fuel/sight-seeing stop in Exeter, NH.  

After hearing form the Moore boys for years about Exeter the architecture and education mecca of New England, I dragged the kids around the school's campus to have a look.  The infrastructure is very impressive, and from the chatter we overheard from teens walking between the lovely brick buildings, it seems to attract a bright crowd.  (One overheard conversation about the use of google translation programs as a replacement for knowing a foreign language sparked conflicting emotions.)


We stopped at a bakery/sandwich shop for lunch on Main Street.

A stop at the grandparents' house for hugs and a few supplies, a stop at the Shrewsbury coop, and we were back at our cabin.  

Caspian immediately found a caterpillar, which the kids stuck in a Polly Pocket house thing they had "borrowed" from somewhere.  I didn't see them for 20 minutes, until they came to find me because the caterpillar had crawled into the miniature toilet bowl in the tiny house to hide.  "We" decided to let him stay there.


This picture doesn't show the caterpillar that's sitting on Caspian's forearm.  It's here to show the handsome little boy with his new haircut.

A decision was made for all of us to sleep on the porch, a combination of my not wanting to get their loft squared away, and the kids being so darn cute. 

It was a long time between these two pictures.