Grant Wishes

field trip!

Wrapping up their section on Community Helpers, Quinn's kindergarten class took a walking field trip to the Woburn Street fire station!  Some Barrows parents had kindly chalked the pathway there with helpful words and colorful arrows, including this one "Follow the arrows to the Fire Station."Quinn checks out the first message

On the walk to the fire station, all of the students had to walk with a buddy.  Quinn and Nick held hands and were cracking each other up for most of the walk!

Two kindergarteners-in-waiting

Upon arriving at the fire station, we were thrilled to find out that the firemen and truck were headed out to an alarm!  We got to see them gear up, jump in the truck and take off.  Luckily, it was a false alarm at the Unitarian church down the street.
The whole class and a few junior firemen posed with the fire truck while waiting for the crew to return.

After returning to the station, the firemen headed out to another alarm, this time for a chimney fire.  During this second call, we continued walking on our way and stopped for a popsicle break at another kindergartener's house.  Exciting!  We arrived back at the station and had time to chat with the firemen, check out the pumper truck and see the inside of their fire station.

Quinn checked out the fire pole from the top

The boys were very excited to wear their Lanesborough Fire Department shirts and the firemen even commented on them.  It was a fun excursion that lasted for the entire school day.  By the time we arrived back at Barrows it was time for dismissal (where, on the playground, everyone ate their snack since they were STARVING and they had missed snack time...)

Capping off this exciting day, we were treated to an awesome visit by Nifer and Woody tonight!!  They were driving through Boston, heading back to Vermont after Nifer's niece's high school graduation.  We all had dinner and the boys played and played and played.  It was so nice to hang out and briefly catch up.  Wish we lived closer!

exercise

A gorgeous day for getting outside!  First walking Quinn to school, then jogging Cole to school, and later, a post-dinner walk with Nicole and Declan.  I'll take it!

Leaving Memorial Park yesterday Quinn asked Declan if he wanted to hold hands.  They walked the whole way to the car like this.  So cute!

Today's mail brought road race registrations for Tom and someone else.  Who is this?  I sure hope she shows up to run the BMC 4th of July 5k!

snacks and a hike

After dropping Quinn off at school this morning, Declan and Cole joined me for a quick Target run.  They were such good helpers while there that as we drove away from the store, a Starbucks in the shopping plaza caught my eye.  I quickly realized that it is very rare that I take special little excursions with these two, so we made a quick turn and went on a special snack excursion!

Declan picked an apple fritter and Cole wanted a scone with lovely crisscrossed frosting on top.  Both boys got big cups of water with straw tops (as Declan said "Oooh!  COLD!") and we settled into a comfy booth to enjoy the goodies and take in the scenery.  They were enthralled with all of the hustle and bustle (Declan kept commenting on the "noise" whenever the coffee machines would whir to life) and thorougly enjoyed the yummy snacks.  Cole must have thanked me a half dozen times between the store and the car for such a fun surprise!  The boys were awesome and so polite and made quick friends with the Starbucks cashiers such that we even scored a free blueberry scone.  So it was an order mistake...it was free nonetheless!

We wrapped up the day with a fun adventure hike in the town forest with the La Francesca clan.  We fended off bugs and ticks with large amounts of DEET and had a really nice walk on the trail.  While the kiddos had fun spotting a bunny and lots of birds, we seemed to have missed the other wildlife we heard about after wrapping up our walk, including turtles, swans and a mother coyote with new babies to feed.  Eee!  Luckily, we made it out safe and sound and no worse for the wear.  We had tired but happy trekkers at the end of the hike and we have plans to do it again once Ms. Coyote is no longer taking up residence there.

the intrepid explorers head in

Declan had the best seat in the house

Big kid serious talk on the trail

blooms

So nice to come back to bushes in full bloom!  Check out the weigela and knock out roses!

fore!

Unpacking from our fun weekend getaway, I discovered that our camera still had pictures on it from Saturday's outing...  Quinn and Cole got their first taste of mini-golf, Pittsfield-style!  We headed over to Baker's Golf (mem'ries!) to try out mini-golf before diving in for Quinn's birthday in a couple of weeks.

They were huge fans of everything they experienced at Baker's -- picking a brightly colored ball, having awesome putters, checking out all of the obstacles along the course, watching fun vehicles drive by on Route 7.  Quinn even got an amazing hole in one!  Definitely a fun excursion for Memorial Day weekend.

With his hat backwards, Quinn was all business

The team watches a pro in action

Tom and I ran the Finnegan 5k in Lee this morning.  While it was hotter and muggier than expected for an early morning race, it was still really fun to do this event together.