Vermont

We're finding quite a lot to do in the area. So much, in fact, that we're realizing we won't have time to see it all between trips to Boston, Christie's work schedule, and trying to keep up with necessary school work. We get a stretch of days off from time to time though, and the last one was spent in Anneville, PA with our dear friends, the Foleys. I didn't take many pictures or videos at all because I wanted to just enjoy the time we had without trying to document everything. It was great to see them, and we all hope to live closer to each other at some point so it can be a more common occurrence. We always have lots of laughs, good conversation, and great food. It was also fun to touch base with many of our other friends from the INCH homeschool group that we'd not seen since we left Danville in September of last year.

We've also been to Billing's Farm in Woodstock, VT and explored a bit. We're loving these quaint little New England towns and Woodstock was beautiful as we went just after a light snow. Mountains and frozen lakes everywhere. We got to get up close and personal with the livestock, learn how butter is made, walk through a 200 year old farm house, do laundry the old fashioned way, and saw a short presentation of how the whole cow/milk thing works.

The main cattle barn

The boys got to pet the calves. As usual I can never catch
Brennan in a picture.

Checking out the old timey butter boxes

She walked them through the entire process of doing laundry using
some old handkerchiefs. LOTS of hard work involved here.

Lunch was at a hole in the wall local place, Mountain Creamery. Known around town for it's ice cream, it also boasts fresh-from-the-farm chicken, turkey, and pork dishes. Brennan's clam chowder was the best we'd ever tasted (HIGH praise as everyone but Rich is very particular about clam chowder). The food was so incredible that we would have hung around for dinner except they only do breakfast and lunch. We've talked about making the hour trip back to Woodstock just to eat here again. 

The Yankee Bookshop claims to be the oldest running bookstore
in the U.S. It was pretty modern in a mom 'n pop way, but great vibe.
Wish there were more of these around still.

On the one hour drive between Lebanon (where we are) and
Woodstock, VT. The ski tourism is down because there's
been so little snow this year.

Other than that, we're enjoying our time here. The boys are making a lot of progress in math right now - Brennan just started a 2nd grade book and Rich is edging his way into pre-algebra. Brennan is reading quite a bit and always full of stories for books he's working on. We hope to have physical copies of the book he wrote for NaNoWriMo back in November in the next month or so. They have both started writing their own short pieces for piano which was completely their own idea, but it's giving us the chance to work on music theory and arrangement a little bit. We're also excited that we obtained a bunch of used/free Dungeons and Dragons resources online so the boys and I can start playing. It's something we've talked about doing for quite a while and it will be a huge boost to their math application, not to mention their imaginations. I enjoyed D&D greatly when I was in junior high school, but have never gotten back to it until now. 

We're off to Boston Thursday for some tests and consultations. Hopefully we'll be able to start looking at some towns outside of Boston for a more semi-permanent place to live until after my heart transplant. We'll keep everyone updated as that progresses as well.