50 years, Ninoo & Papa, or, the day after Thanksgiving

First, we visited Old Hardhide after breakfasting in Ponchatoula, LA. The strawberry capital of the world. Quote from ... C13 ... very good question indeed.

"Why would Ninoo & Papa live in Hammond when Ponchatoula is the strawberry capital, has a chocolate factory, beignets, and a town alligator?"

That question is clearly unanswerable.

Anyway, Ninoo & Papa also celebrated their 50th anniversary in September, just like MeMe and Pep did. However, we weren't in Louisiana for that, so we didn't get to celebrate with them. We went to dinner, and TCR had ordered a wedding cake at Big A's suggestion. C13 and Q11 presented their gifts.

C13 drew her vision of one of Ninoo & Papa's wedding photos. I love it. We put it in a frame that WE got for our wedding from Alice and Jason, our old landlords, but had never used. And we brought it on down.

Q11 made 50 cookies, 10 of 5 sizes, and she numbered them 1-50, starting with the smallest -- no, actually starting with an engagement ring, then the smallest hearts, up trough 50 to the biggest heart.

These:

Are inside here:

And TCR & Big A got them a wedding cake:

We took photos, and everybody has red-eye. Oh well!

Thanksgiving

This year, despite my reluctance to travel on Thankgiving, the the general Thanksgiving travel ban we put in place a few years ago, we traveled to New Orleans. Of course it was wonderful, and it was nice to see family and celebrate Thanksgiving with loved ones.

Our flight time OUT of DC changed from early evening, to middle evening, to finally late evening, so we didn't get to Hammond until after midnight ... so I guess very early on Thanksgiving day?

Thanksgiving day was cool, but warmed up throughout the day. We went across the lake to Mississippi and Bay St. Louis. Q11 was coughing, and had a fever, but somebody noticed and gave her Tylenol. Within 30 minutes she was fine and when we were offered a boatride (It has warmed up some by the end of the day) she was game. I got the four cousins to sit together and got about 20 horrible photos of them. This is my favorite.

Most people don't immediately tag C13 as a speed lover, or thrill chaser, but she sat at the front of the boat encouraging speed. This is before we were going fast, back in the bayou.

Out on the Bay St. Louis and out on the Gulf (we JUSSSSST snuck out far enough into the Gulf to say we were in the Gulf) we went faster, and C13 and Q11 loved it.

It was a lovely day!

Halloween

Halloween was chilly, but Q11 went as Tinkerbell. She looks so big here!!! And then both of us. I did NOT go as Poison Ivy at her request, although I did walk around with her and her friend K11 and K's mom, E.

 C13 and her best friend M13 were weeping angels from Dr. Who. Scariest creatures ever! They took a lot of time to make these wings (then M13's dad framed them up and her mom crafted a harness to attach them to their bodies), and they found grey sheets, and voila, weeping angels!

They got a TON of candy, all of them (still eating it in December ....)

This wasn't expected

Lucy was hanging outside of her room, looking at her room, acting a little weird.

It turns out she was looking at this:

I don't know.

Teen Book Fest - ok, this time is the actual teen book fest in Boston

Saturday was the ACTUAL teen book festival. I had not been to a teen book festival.

Pep drove, MeMe sat in shotgun, I sat in the middle, and C13 & M13 sat in the way back. So, no worries on this photo, guys, I wasn't driving.

Blah blah blah teen book fest. I don't know. Ask C13 about it. Maybe she should guest blog here? C13??/

Pictures.

Waiting to be let in

Photo of all the authors on stage:

In one of the sessions:

Waiting in line to get books signed.

Meme & Pep

More picture fun. Just because C13 is smiling. You won't see this again for a week or two.

One more!

Anyway, it was a good day. We went to Cherry Hill Ice Cream this time. The portion sizes are smaller. And I got mint chocolate chip which agreed with me. The sun was setting, so the light was quite warm, but the girls got all squinty. I think they both had pumpkin spice ice cream, which was good. But not as good as mint chocolate chip.

The next morning we delayed our drive home until 8 am so we could stop at Katz's Deli in Connecticut. Turns out their mac n cheese is nothing special (did it used to be homemade? No longer. Not worth buying) but their pickles are amazing, and their sandwiches were good. Both girls had a grilled cheese on rye bread.

We got home around 4. Good weekend.

Boston Teen Book Festival, or more accurately, a long car ride then a trip into Boston

MeMe's plan has been that when her granddaughters turn 10 she takes them on a trip. Finally, at age 13 we've gotten C13 her trip, an overnight at MeMe's house and a trip to the Boston Teen Book Festival.

We planned to leave early Friday morning, missing a day of school. M13 had slept over and we decided to leave at 4:30 am,  so the girls requested I wake them at 4am, which I did. I made their tea while they got dressed, and we were in the car by 4:20. Zoom! The early morning drives are the best. the GPS indicated we'd be in Massachusetts by 11 or some insanely early hour like that. And the goal was to make it to Massachusetts on one tank of gas, so we had to drive conservatively.

Of course, we had stops along the way -- drinks, bathroom, drinks, bathroom, drinks, bathroom (you'd think we'd learn?)  -- but we were on target for a pre-noon arrival, so somewhere in Connecticut I called MeMe and asked if we could head to Boston that afternoon, and go to Faneuil Hall Marketplace/Quincy Market with the girls.  I remembered really enjoying just walking through the places as a teenager, and I thought M13 & C13 would enjoy it. MeMe said could and we would.

First thing we did when we got to the Tri-Town area was get gasoline, though. As we were driving out, C13 saw a car zoom by headed toward downtown Leomonster. "That's Pep! I think that was Pep!" I was like, "huh, maybe" but she said it was his car, his license plate holder, and it turned out he was headed for his standing lunch date with a friend; we'd just missed him.

Anyway, we arrived in Lunenburg, settled in, had a snack, and then headed back out again without Pep, since he was not home.

In the back of MeMe's car:

We drove to Alewife, parked, and took the Green Line on the T in ... it was rainy and yuck out, and we weren't QUITE right about the stop we should get off at, so we got off at Park St, which dumped us off in Boston Common, which was fine. Mum & I were both pretty confident about the direction to take, and off we went, even if we weren't EXACTLY sure of the route to take to get there.

But the first thing we passed was Old North Cemetery. We decided not to go in, but we peeped through the bars and C13 and M13 enjoyed the morbid aspect of being there.

And are just darn cute.

We kept walking, stopped for directions once, which confirmed we were headed in the correct direction (yay, us!).  M13 wanted to find the site of the Boston Massacre. We did.

We spent a few hours in Quincy Market ... Good thing Pep missed us. He would have been bored. But it was fun for me, and Mum, and the girls, too. Eventually, though, it was time to go home, and we headed back to a closer T stop. Before we got on the T at Government Place , we saw the giant steaming teapot at Starbucks. The girls loved it (ah, me, too, but I've seen it before!). This is a ROTTEN picture of M13, but sort of shows what fun they were having, which I liked.

Back on the train home, to Alewife, to Lunenburg. And ice cream at Kimballs after dinner. Mmmm. Mmmm. I say that, but I got a flavor I regretted (Coffee Heath Bar Cruch). Mistake. I couldn't eat most it. What I did laugh at, though, was Pep getting a little bit angry/annoyed at the portion sizes being so big at Kimballs. So he saved half of his ice cream for later, and proceeded to eat 2/3 of mine. Sooooo upset about the big portions. :)

My sad ice cream:

First day of school photos

This year school started AFTER Labor Day. Q11 started on the 5th, C13 on the 6th.

Yes, they have uniforms. Khaki bottoms, gold tops. Yes, I got her yellow tops. C13 claimed Q11 would be the only one in yellow, not gold. I LOOKED for gold. All OVER the place. Ok, at Old Navy. And Gap. And Land's End. But they didn't have any when I was shopping. So, I went with Land's End because I knew the shirts were soft. And yellow is close enough to gold. And not as ugly, honestly.  I hate that gold color for the uniform shirt. But the yellow is kind of nice.

C13 I didn't think I'd get a photo. But she willingly let me take a picture with Lucy Dog. She gets to wear black this year, which is nice. And she also has the nice, soft black tops from Land's End, which is how I discovered the soft tops and actually wanted to buy them for Q11. Too much dull information, I know. But I really hate those mesh-y weave type shirts, they grate on your skin. OK, they grate on my skin. Even though I'm not the one wearing them. I'm getting defensive about that yellow shirt! Here's the photo of C13!