Catching up

I'm going to try and post once a week - I've been bad about posting of late! Things as usual have been very busy. My younger son and husband are involved in lots and lots of baseball. DH is president of our local town's Little League and my younger son is on a majors team. DH is coach for that as well as "Coach Joe" who also was the boys' anesthesiologist for the cochlear implant surgeries. The team of kids is a really nice group as are their parents - I just love baseball season!

Our Easter Sunday dinner was just lovely. We had 13 people total for dinner, including 6 kids. I didn't get pictures of Seth, Kelly or Steve but got everybody else.

Here you have Mike, Tom, Sam, and Owen


These happy guys are Denise (Owen's mom), Hugh (DH) and Mila (Mike's mom)


THESE are all the crazy kids - all boys. Sam, Mike, Tom, Owen, Owen, and Sawyer


The food was great - the fellowship even better. Thanks, guys, for sharing our day!

THEN the Nor'easter of 2007 rolled through. Wow! It was April 16 - we knew we were in for some strong winds but wow! Talk about strong winds!

This is what greeted us when we woke up that morning - trees were down everywhere.


On closer inspection, we discovered Hugh's truck took a pretty good hit


Ouch!

Our street has a north and south entrance; both were blocked:


Our neighbors took a HUGE hit - I'll bet they have 100 trees down. You used to not be able to see their house from the street.


Power was restored amazingly fast - within 6 or 7 hours. Other parts of the state didn't fare nearly as well, including our friend Steve. He was out for 3 days; others were out for longer than that. Steve stayed with us two nights - it was sort of like a slumber party. On Tuesday night, after taekwondo, we went to Ben and Jerry's free cone night. Hugh was the last person in the door before they locked up. He got this great shirt!


I want him to wear it while he teaches his spinning class but he won't (in case you can't read what it says in the picture, it says "Body by Ben and Jerrys"

The boys have been busy this spring as always. They both now are involved in the STAR program and love it. Last weekend they did a ropes course up in Fairlee, VT at Hulbert Outdoor Center. This is a picture with Sam and his buddy, Rowan, who also is in STAR


Here's Sam, Rowan, Jon and Tom. Jon's a medical student with an interest in kids with chronic health conditions - he's wonderful! Mark, the director of STAR, always says "can you find the medical student in this picture"?!


The boys (and Hugh and me as well) were invited by the STAR director, Mark, to chat with the second year medical students at Dartmouth Medical School this past week. Tom and Sam did most of the talking - color me a proud mom! They did GREAT! The students asked great questions and seemed to be very interested in Tom and Sam, their experiences as the only deaf kids in their school, etc. Tom gave an amazingly succinct telling of what's involved with a cochlear implant; Sam talked a lot about doing sports with implant/hearing aids and some of the challenges that it presents. They both were funny and articulate - I know, I know - I'm really prejudiced! It was a wonderful experience for all of us.

It's a beautiful Sunday morning - we have many chores planned today (reference the ugly YARD pictures above!). Steve's coming over and we'll cook out later. Enjoy your week!