Of Salad Days and Salisbury

Babymooning used to describe the first few weeks with a newborn, nowadays it’s the vacation taken before the arrival of the babe- a last Hoorah! if you will.

When I was six month pregnant with Caleb, we babymooned by traveling to Blackfoot, Idaho. This time around, we really can’t babymoon with a toddler, can we? So we refer to another idiomatic expression: salad days. I’m not referring to the diet restraints my food aversions have put on our family, we have been dining on various salads as of late (tuna salad, chicken salad, taco salad, chef salad…). Who wants to turn on an oven at 4:00 in the evening? YUCK.

No,

we are trying to enjoy the summer before our lives change (again). Before Mike returns to school. Before we are evenly matched by our children (and I’m officially out-numbered, yikes.) Before we start asking ourselves what we have gotten ourselves into.

In other words, ignorance is bliss and we want to indulge in it while we can.

9/80 has started again, which means summer is underway at the Thomsons’. Michael works eighty hours in nine days and gets Friday off. This past Friday we had planned a day trip, but New England weather botched it up, so we postponed until Saturday.

Our family of THREE went to Salisbury Beach (thanks for the suggestion April). It was a fun drive and as Mike pointed out, “All signs point to N.H.” Salisbury is by the uppermost tip of Massachusetts next to New Hampshire and Maine.

We visited the State Reservation, which is the only way to go. It costs $9.00 and was well worth it to park next to the bath houses, snack bar, CLEAN restrooms and playground.

From someone who has only visited beaches in Mexico and California, I have to say I was impressed with how well the beach was maintained, how clear the water was, and HOW COLD the ocean was. But your body gets use to it… once you lose all feeling.

Our visit was for three hours, we left the reservation with a sleepy Caleb in tote. And stopped by DQ to grab some ice cream, and Mike’s first Dilly Bar.

Dilly Bars,

cherry coating,

canitgetanybetter?

I submit it CANNOT.

Next Friday off I’m planning a trip to Sandwich and Ellisville, MA to do some family history exploration there. If you have been to Sandwich, please give me your suggestions regarding places to eat and things to see or do!

A Parting Pun...

Read at your own expense:

We look forward to the day when Salisbury will become a self-sustaining stake…
: )

N.H. Update:

Next Monday, the 3^rd, we’ll get our second trimester integrated results back. On Friday, the 7^th we will be having another ultrasound to checkup on development and maybe take a peek at the gender.

Blogcoming

The past two weeks I’ve taken a vacation from the blog to spend some time writing. Yep, getting back to basics with the ol’ paper and pen.

Just like with any other vacation, the vacation is officially over when the unpacking begins. Although I hate unpacking, there are some thoughts that need to be ironed out, so prepare for a long post.

Branch Activity

This past weekend we had our first official branch activity. It was a simple activity. Just bring your lunch to Bird Park and hang out.

Michael and I are the sole members of the activities committee, besides Murphy. “Murphy” here is short for Murphy’s Law, as in "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

Those of you who were unable to make it to the activity, you did not miss a thing… You may be on the outside of an inside joke or two though.

Oh, and seeing as we do not have a Branch Historian… because we are a branch after all. I snapped pictures of the event. I made a scrap of a few. I am trying to decide if I want to setup a private blog for a branch album, give me your input.

Thanks to the Jordans, Allens, Merediths, Byerlys, McGuires, the Elders and the investigators they brought along,

for coming out to play!

Special thanks to the Regans for saving the day!

All Ears

I have been thinking a lot about friends lately. No, that does not describe it well. I guess I’ve been thinking about consideration and kindness as of late. Genuine kindness.

I wonder sometimes if the art of listening is dying. There is superficial listening, where we use a person’s stream of speech to mentally prepare our rebuttal, our advice, our perspective. We are not really listening to what is being said, the intent.

Also, I wonder sometimes if being honest has become out-dated in conversations. Maybe not intentionally, then again maybe so.

Not intentional due to the time restrictions that make us mumble

“Fine” “Great” “Okay”

when someone asks us how we are doing.

Intentional when we know if we say

“Poorly” “Overwhelmed” “Pressed”

we are exposing ourselves, our “weaknesses” and our circumstances, so we say “Fine” and move on.

I am guilty of both, not having enough time or confidence in those around me.

The fact is: I’m not perfect. I’m not happy all the time. The covenants I’ve made do not exclude me from times of trial, doubt or sadness. They are supposed to help me through those times. I realize that, but do others?

What ever happened to eternal progression, not instant perfection?
Or just talking-it-out to someone?

So, I want YOU to know: If YOU ever need to just talk- to unpack those words or iron-out those thoughts- YOU can talk to me and I WILL LISTEN. I will not offer a rebuttal, advice or perspective, unless YOU ask for IT. All I will do is LISTEN, NOD my head, and maybe say,

“YEAH, I GET THAT.”

That’s my promise to YOU

because I know how hard it is to find a good listener these days.

Going Green

This past weekend, Mike and I had a thought. We thought that maybe we should look into our ancestors and see if anyone lived out here in Massachusetts. This is an odd thought because most of our families immigrated to America in the late 1800s. Mine settled mostly in Minnesota (doncha know?) and Pennsylvania before moving further west to Indiana and Missouri then to Arizona. Michael’s family… well… Michael’s ancestors were mostly converted to the Church in their homelands of Denmark, England and Scotland (adopted line) and settled in early church locales like Nauvoo or to the later church settlements in Utah.

I digress. The point is I know when I have a thought like this; especially ones related to genealogy, I should look into it.

So, I doubled-checked my line, and found… nada.

Checked through Michael’s line and stumbled across a branch I hadn’t done too much research on because, well, we’ll just say the family member that stems the branch is very “controversial” in his family history.

And whatdoyaknow, Michael’s great, great, great, great, great grandparents (on the Green side, for those Thomsons out there in blogdom) lived in Norfolk County (that’s the county we live in). As I traced further back we learned that some of his ancestors lived in MENDON and HINGHAM (we belong to the Hingham Stake). And even further back we learned about John Ellis, one of Mike’s ancestors. Who knew Mike was descended from such a troublemaker?

Now we have a new project. We are going to see if we can find a grave site, any grave site of his ancestors who resided out here. Which is going to be difficult for several reasons: 1) the graves will be anywhere from 200-400 years old- meaning they may not be recorded or even marked or if they are marked the marking may be eroded and 2) the oldest grave I have found was dated back to the early 1800s- this is new territory for me.

YOHO! A genealogical adventure awaits!

It feels good to be back. : )

Hiatus Stickie

Happy 4th of July from Us

{ Caleb }

{ New Hampshire }

{ Angela & Michael }

Where the WiLd ThInGs are...

Another adventure we had while my family visited was going to the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, R.I. It was a small, but nice, zoo. As I have mentioned before, we are not pet people. So besides our neighbor’s cat, our turkey neighbors and birds- Caleb hasn’t really seen many animals. (What he needs is for Uncle Brent and Aunt Andrea to move out here and bring his turtle cousin Zooga, then he'd be set!) ... (OH NO, I just said "set"... New England is creeping up on me!)

His favorite animals were the giraffes (tall and lanky, hmm, I wonder why he favored those) and a little spotted turtle that swam in a tank.

The West African Crowned Crane was probably the most curious creature encounter for Caleb. Not only could this bird twist its neck to look at you up-side-down, he had more “hair” then Caleb.

Jealous, much?

And of course, Caleb loved the foliage. People always laugh when I tell them that Caleb has a flower arrangement in his room. He loves flowers, they make him happy. In fact, what gave me the idea to put an arrangement in his room came early on when he was a baby and the only thing that would make him stop crying during Sunday meetings was looking at the flowers in the foyer.