Why Time Out Isn't Worth It

She just dumps everything out of her crib and makes another mess for mommy to clean up...

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And Now To Get Ready For Vacation (s)!

Now that my varicose vein surgery and our refinancing are both finally behind us, I can start getting ready for a fun month ahead!

First up, we head up to North Conway NH on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with Phil & Sue; definitely on the agenda is taking the kids to Story Land, an institution of an amusement park up there. We stay until Monday and then take a day trip up to a water park in Maine, finally heading home Monday night.

The following Saturday we head to Stone Harbor NJ for a week of beach fun & where we will finally get to catch up with the Kaplan cousins after waaay too long!

We come back on Saturday the 19th in time for Alex & Miki and the Wray cousins to arrive in Boston on Tuesday the 21st for a week long stay in bean town!

So... Let a fun filled August begin!

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Birthday Serenade

Birthday Haul

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Vein Surgery/Refinance Update

I went back to work today after being allowed to unwrap my legs yesterday (although I have to remain in a combination of compression stockings and spandex until I go back to the surgeon on Monday.) Work went pretty well, with only a small amount of hobbling.

In other news we close on our refinance tomorrow at 8am after nearly a two month process, whew! To celebrate both my birthday and the end of the refinance ordeal Anthony is babysitting tomorrow night so that we can go have dinner and some much needed sangria ;)

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Ouch.

My varicose vein procedure this morning took three hours - twice as long as it should have - and was pronounced a '9.8' on the difficulty scale by the surgeon, due to the numerous difficulties he encountered. For my part I am just glad it's over, but I definitely have a few days of soreness ahead of me. Ouch.

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Stocked

For my varicose vein surgery tomorrow - I think the recovery process will require lots of ice cream :)

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Ahh Much Better!

Mike left work early and we headed to the pool, phew!

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Wilted

95 degrees with a heat index of 102 = miserable kids! We Bostonites are not used to this humidity!!

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Cambridge Commons

We headed out bright and early this morning and met Katie & Kyla for some summer playground fun at Cambridge Commons, officially my new favorite playground! While Amelia and Kyla played in the sand and water (and us grown ups kept cool by dousing ourselves as well) Charlie made a friend and played baseball with a staffer in the adjacent park. This time since I knew what I was getting in to I brought a towel, changes of clothes for the kids and swim diapers for Amelia! Here are some pictures:

What Happens When You Forget One Set Of Clothes At the Pool

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Refinance Update

The refinance of our mortgage is moving ahead, with a closing date of July 30th. Last week we had the bank appraisal, which came back on Thursday at $350,000 - Just enough to cover the mortgage while leaving 20% equity, but leaving us to come up with about $4,500 in closing costs and prepaid expenses. Fortunately our financial planner has informed us that we can take the money from one of our Roth IRAs with no penalties or tax consequences, and the money will be direct deposited into our bank account this week. With those hurdles out of the way and the laundry list of supporting documentation -- paystubs, W2s, tax returns, employment verification, certificates of insurance etc etc -- express mailed to our loan officer yesterday, I am starting to breathe a sigh of relief! The refinance -- from a 30 yr fixed to a 7/1 ARM -- cuts our interest rate in half and reduces our monthly mortgage payment by about $650, yippee!!

Playdate

We had a super fun playdate with my friend Sophia and her two kids, Andrew who is a year younger than Charlie and Susannah who is a year younger than Amelia. We met them at the Pinkberry in Harvard square and then walked over to a super cool playground in Cambridge commons which was basically a giant sandbox with water features, water tables and tons of sand toys in addition to swings climbing structures and slides. The kids had such a good time that we wound up staying there for a full three hours before grabbing a late lunch and heading home.

Above is a picture of the kids at Pinkberry and of Charlie, Amelia and Andrew playing at the playground.

Definitely plan on heading back there again, this time with extra changes of clothes and a couple towels :)

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We Have A Green Stripe!!

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BBQ, Boat Parade & Blueberry Picking

That pretty much sums up our weekend; I only worked a half day yesterday and we headed up to Katie & Jason's for a belated Fourth of July barbecue. Afterwards, we drove up to New Hampshire for the annual "Christmas In July" parade on the lake, which Amelia for some reason found scary, but Charlie thoroughly enjoyed. We spent the night and today we spent the day fishing and taking a boat ride to Blueberry island where the kids picked (or rather just ate) handfuls of blueberries and took a dip in the lake. It is also worth mentioning that Amelia caught her first fish this morning, but I did not have the camera handy for the evemt. Here are a bunch of picttures from the weekend:

Trying To Learn How To Charm Snakes on Youtube

(Thanks for the recorder Uncle Gordon...)

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Charlie At PetCo...

... Trying to instill in Amelia his love of reptiles...

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A Boy And His Lizard

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Rock Star

Amelia was up to her bedtime antics again tonight and this time I managed to catch some on film:

Beach Day

It was another hot day today, and since I was feeling particularly ambitious this morning, we walked to the beach and then went to Tony's Clam Shoppe for lunch, which is something of a Quincy institution. Here are some pictures:

A Break From The Heat

It's been in the 90s for the past four days in a row so Phil & Sue invited us over this afternoon with the idea that we would take the kids over to the spray ground down the street from them. On the way out, the kids went across the street to say hi to the neighbors' dog & they invited us for a swim in their new pool instead. Here's a picture of Sue with the kiddos. Thanks for a fun visit Phil & Sue!

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