Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Red

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Saturday, June 18, 2011

Summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime...

The title of this post is from some old commercial that's stuck in my heard. What was it for, Applebee's? Sincere question because I really can't remember. Maybe it was even a real song before Applebee's co-opted it. I may never know.

We just (5 days ago) got back from a lovely vacation that took us to Western Massachusetts, then to Pensacola, then back to Decatur. We went to a reunion weekend of sorts for my longtime favorite band, the Nields. It had been about ten years since I had seen them. Jason has always wanted to see them, too, and in recent years they have been recording music for children, so there's something for everybody. Even Anneliese is a fan of their song, "Red Red Robin," which is an old song written by...I'm not sure because Google is attributing it to 3-4 different people. The chorus of "Red Red Robin" is basically, "When the red red robin goes bop, bop, bopping along..." Anneliese's contribution is "bahh bahh bahhing ah-laaag!" We attended an open mike (where Nora and I sang "Red Red Robin" in a microphone, with Nerissa and her daughter!) and cookout, a children's show, and a show at the Iron Horse in Northampton. It was pure magic.

This video is from the children's concert. Dar Williams, another family favorite, was singing the lead vocal. She also sang it at the open mind. I have to say, my mind was a little blown when I heard my favorite singer and my favorite band sing my daughter's favorite song. The funny thing is, Nora was totally starstruck by Dar but not by the Nields. She thought the Nields were our friends who were also in a band. That was really cool, but at the Iron Horse concert she kept saying, "Look, there's Dar Williams! Mommy, do you see Dar Williams? Do you think we can meet her?"


Jam for the Fans was on Friday and Saturday, but from Tuesday until Friday morning, we got to spend time with friends and explore the area a little bit. I got to hang out with a really cool friend I hadn't seen in about 4 years. She has three children and Nora and Anneliese had a blast! We went to Forest Park in Springfield and explored the zoo and ate sticky frozen treats under a tree overlooking a grassy field. (Ahh!) We drove by my friend Jessie's old house in Waterbury, CT because Jason had never had a chance to see it before they moved away. We visited the Yankee Candle flagship store because hey, why not? They had fake snow that fell every 4 minutes in the Christmas area. Nora loved it so much she wanted to watch the "snow" fall all day. They had more candles than you can shake a stick at. We spent a good portion of one day at Look Park in Northampton. I wished that I lived there because the weather was so wonderful and I so want to go run/walking on the shaded paths at Look Park. We also ate a lot of ice cream because we've been told that's what you do in New England, and we sure didn't want to break any traditions.

Sunday was a looooong day, starting with waking up at 3am so that we could get to the airport for our flight out of White Plains. Then we flew to Atlanta, and there was whining by two people who wanted to ditch the next flight and just go home to our house in Decatur. (I won't tell you which two people, but only three of the four of us are fully verbal so that may narrow it down a bit.) We were on perhaps the only terminal in Hartsfield-Jackson airport that does NOT have a Starbucks--and me with a gift card burning a hole in my coffee, and wishing for coffee at 10 am (AKA my seventh hour of wakefulness). Then we hopped another plane and headed to Pensacola, where we were so happy to see our parents and our pretty pretty Prius, which was looking gross on the inside after 5 days in a pristine rental car.

After that was Jason's brother's wedding, which was really nice. We enjoyed visiting with family, including people we very rarely get to see. Nora got to know a cousin who is a year younger than she is and we all wished we had more time to visit. The next day we got up, visited with my grandmother at the assisted living, had some delicious lasagna a la my mom, and hit the road! We were so glad to see our home late Monday night.

Vacations rock, but there's something to be said for needing a vacation after the vacation!

Tomorrow is Father's Day, so happy day to my own wonderful dad and to Jason, the guy who is a wonderful dad to our awesome kids.