7.25.16

Good Morning from Manchester By The Sea!! Our last leg of our summer adventure finds us here in our very happy place. We are here until Sunday afternoon, and then DC and HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although I am excited to get back into our "normal", we are LOVING this summer gig!!! Man, the people we have met. The foods we have tried. The goodness of God. It's just amazingly amazing. It's not always picture perfect that's for sure... but it's our real life... and it's been real and cool... and full of blessing.

Thankful for such great funny memories from Jersey. 

 Stealing all of Dave's veggie popsicles ;)

Thankful that we found a Lifetime in Jersey, one club level above our's in IL, which meant padded covered beach chairs at the pool and just fun extras throughout. It was awesome to get a mini workout in ( no sneakers for momma ;(, but flip flops do work well!!) and sun time, while kiddos played at Childcare. Win win for us all!!

Thankful for words of wisdom.

Thankful for our christian family who seriously surrounded us while we were there.

(Birthday love shown to Hannah from her friend Jayden. Dress and doll :))

Heard about this place. Had to try. Seriously carb overload and not even too amazingly tasty- but the size..... too crazy not to check off our list !

 Thankful to have spent some quality time with that awesome kid on the right. Sethie. From rocking him in Florida when he was in diapers, to planting "grape trees", and now here. Growing up ... and growing up for the Lord... love his heart. Love his seriousness for life.

Thankful for the reminders of what our country went through on 9.11. America the beautiful.

 Thankful for Harrison having playdates, and Mom Elsa time :)

Thankful for Miss Olivia. Her mom and I were besties growing up, and we are so happy that our girlies hit it off right away. Yay for technology to keep them connected!!

 Thankful for an amazing hubby who is adventurous & for a fun friend that will leave fam jam time to be our our tour guide til 1 am :)

Thankful for this girl. What an amazing 6 years. From fighting pneunmonia at 10 months, to all the boys having crushes on her now, and the in between.... she is so special... her and I often butt heads as she is quite independent and quite sure of how to do nearly every task on her own, in her time, with her methods... She is such a friendly bug when she feels like it... she makes friends super easy and love being with kids of any age. She is crafty and loves anything with an artistic flair. She has momma's sugar tooth for sure, but is working to eat healthy because "she's an athlete". I love how honest and truthful she is and I love her heart for others. I can't wait to see her bloom a little more each year. What a blessing Miss Hannah Reese Connie Hebert is.... XOXO

 (Thankful for this place. The theater at Palisades was literally all ours... on opening day of Ice Age Collision Course... we were loving it and I think Matt & I both mighta caught some zzz;s ;))

 Meet the newest B-A-B: Rosabelle

 Ended her 6th Birthday with Fro Yo with besties. XO

 #reallife

Thankful for Paul, a freshman to be in college, trusting Christ during the meetings. 

 Check that left crane out- it fell and crashed last week! Crazy right!?

Good bye Jersey!!!!

Thankful for the short 3 hour commute to GILETTE STADIUM!! Harrison got to cross it off his list. He was super excited. 

 

Birthday funds are burninnnn' in those sweet orange pockets;)

  One hour later and we were safe at Anita's... Anita was my 1st boss :) I bbsat her sweet David and Marian when I was 12. She lived 2 houses down from us in Melrose. Over 20 years later we are still friends :) Sadly, David was killed by a train,
{Read more here}
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/10/13/teen_killed_in_train_accident_in_beverly/
 . but Marian (his younger sister, who just graduated from Brandeis and works as a photographer for LL Bean) and Anita are still very dear to our hearts... and she opened her beautiful home to us... pray for Anita as she lost her 94 year old dad in Maryland yesterday too...

Thankful that while our 2 oldest attended Saugus VBS & Matt was at the drug outreach, Hudson, the best car napper ever, allowed me to relive my many awesome memories in Melrose and surrounding areas ... and a quiet stop at Mommy Cookie's grave.... 

 My dad always would water the actual stone and clean it from dust and poop... and so I did too hence the weird coloring on the H... :) Hope to update the garden there a little bit, although SUPER thankful for my aunts job in upkeeping it for us...one of my weird fears is that when people view graves they see an unkempt, non beautiful grave and think for the slightest sec that the loved one is not remembered or cared for... so it's always soooooo heavy on our hearts to make sure our parent's graves are de-weeded, pretty, and de-pooped. because they are very very missed....

Thankful for this view today. Morning dunks, and morning salt water breeze.

 While Anita has been away, her garden has flourished!! Hannah was happy to be a farmer and pick pick pick :)

 Thank you for this wisdom @teachinginstripes

XO