A Summer Recap

I haven’t been blogging as much this summer as I should have. And so, now that summer’s over, a brief recounting of some of the highlights:

A Trip to Fairport

At long last, Andrew, the girls, and I traveled to Fairport, NY, in August to visit my grandmother and aunt. The visit was long overdue, and though the drives up and back were not easy, we survived (barely, on the return trip), and were glad we went. We stayed in a suite at the Hampton Inn, and the girls did fine. Both enjoyed the free breakfast in lobby each morning—Lucia always chose a waffle, and Greta was introduced to the wondrous world of Cheerios. We played in my grandmother’s yard and on the porch and even went to a family reunion, which was unfortunately cut short by a rainstorm. I thought it would be strange to return to a place where I spent so much of my childhood with my own children in tow, but things have changed so much—the state of my aging grandmother’s house, my grandmother herself—that it seemed fitting that I’d returned changed too.

There was a TGI Friday’s across the parking lot of the hotel, so Andrew and I even got a date night (well, a date hour) for appetizers and a glass of wine while my parents stayed with the sleeping babies.

The Zoo

We’re slowly exploring all the things to do out here in New Jersey, and we’ve gone a couple of times to the local zoo. Lucia’s favorite part is the aviary, where you can buy a little birdseed-dipped popsicle stick and carry it into an aviary full of parakeets who, when you extend the stick, will hop onto it from their perch and nibble the birdseed while you ogle them (or, in Lucia’s case, try to kiss them). It is really cute.

Settling In

We’re meeting people, slowly but surely. I’ve started a playgroup for toddlers and their baby siblings and have been meeting potential new friends through that. We’ve had a couple of playdates with new friends. We’ve met people at the playground and the pool. We’re getting to know our neighbors. Nearly everyone I’ve met, with very, very few exceptions, has moved to Maplewood from Brooklyn or, less commonly, Manhattan. It’s not exactly home yet, but it’s getting there: when we got back from NH last night, Lucia even announced happily that we were back in our “regular home”—meaning this one.