We bought a house!

After weeks of looking (and frustration and despair) we've finally found our dream home in Vermont! The offer just got accepted tonight. We are so excited!

So here's the specs: it's a 168-year-old cape-style farmhouse that's been totally renovated and added on to. It has three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and downstairs there's a bathroom, laundry room, living room, an open dining room / kitchen / den, and a large add-on room that we'll probably use as a playroom and a guestroom for friends. It has all original beams exposed on the ceiling and original wide plank softwood flooring on the ground. The add-on room also has exposed timber beams taken from an old barn. It's a totally beautiful bright, open, happy house, and even if it were just the house we'd be totally thrilled! But there's more . . .

Outside there are 5 acres, partly wooded and partly cleared for farming (a neighbor hays it). There are two small brooks running along each side of the property (one of which has a cute little covered bridge over it). Then we have frontage along the Dog River including a little "swimming hole" that goes as deep as 6 feet but has shallows and a little beach as well. There's a totally awesome treehouse out back that a previous owner actually wired for electricity. There are several cool old barns with slate roofs too. We're not sure what to do with the barns . . . I guess we'll just let them look decorative . . . apparently lots of people come by and photograph them in the summer time. We'll have raspberries, blueberries, apples, and pears (maybe I'll have to learn how to can fruit after all!). The university owns nearly all the land adjacent; we are next to the rugby pitch and soccer field. I can walk to work through the fields if I don't want to drive.

We'll probably take possession June 1st. We're looking for moving help if anyone wants to volunteer!

Free Pony, anyone?

We were over at the Young's Farm the other day and someone offered our kids a pony. A free pony! Now, it's true we do have a barn, and could probably move the bikes currently parked in the two stalls. It's also true that Gavin has repeatedly invited "his" cows to come visit him at his house, and the Youngs have made it clear that we're welcome to take a steer calf home any time we want. But a pony? Fortunately, Austin managed to gracefully decline before Lucy started getting any fantasies about sparkly tail gel and pony hoof-toenail polish (thanks a lot, Aunt Christina!). We really enjoy having the Youngs up the road, with cows and horses and chickens and dogs and (pretty soon) pigs for our kids to love. But the best part is that we don't have to take care of the animals ourselves!

Gavin and Lucy feeding the "Mama Cows" in their barn coats and Wellie boots.

I thought about starting Charlotte's Web again . . . Lucy loved it the first time . . . but with the piglets arriving in a few weeks that may not be such a good idea. For one thing, I'm not about to let Lucy bring home a runt to dress up and wheel around in a baby carriage, like Fern did with baby Wilbur. For another thing, the Young's pigs are going to end up as bacon, no matter how talented the local farm spiders may be. The kids haven't quite grasped that when we go McDonald's then go to visit the baby calves at the farm, they are witnessing the beginning and end of a food cycle. Maybe we should let them stay in the dark a bit longer.

Eggs on Snow

So much for a spring celebration! We bundled the kids into their snowsuits, hats, boots, and gloves for the Northfield Community Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. I needed my YakTrax to get up the icy hill to the snow mounds where the easter eggs were nestled in the snow. At least they were easy to find against the bright white background! I'm afraid my kids don't have the necessary killer instinct for true easter egg hunt success. Lucy, in the "big kids" section, couldn't decide which of the eggs she should go for, and watched the eggs disappear into the baskets of the less-indecisive. Gavin, in the "little kids" section, didn't want to take off his mittens to pick up the eggs. Actually, most of the little kids had this problem, so they eventually had to let the big kids in to get the rest of the eggs the little kids couldn't manage to pick up, or didn't want to bother with.

We've decided the best easter egg fun begins at home. We had a great time coloring and decorating eggs with Grandma on her last day with us! The kids really got into it. We knew Lucy would love it -- anything that involves color, stickers, glue dots, glitter, feathers, and googly eyes she's down with, especially if it results in a creative mess. But we were surprised how much Gavin liked it too. He was so excited to watch the eggs change color, and he loved coloring on a white egg with his crayons then seeing his egg-scribbles reappear on the colored eggs.

When the eggs were finally colored AND decorated, the family prize winners were Austin's egg frog and egg fish, Grandma's little egg man with legs and feet, and Lucy's abstract use of pom poms and googly eyes.

The "Bunny" came Sunday morning with treats and toys. Gavin got some new animals for his farm and a ball, Lucy got Enchanted, nail polish, and art supplies. The family got Hungry Hungry Hippos and we haven't had a moment of silence since. Maybe next year we'll figure out how to make it more of a religious holiday. Then again, maybe not. Hope you had a happy Easter too!

More Snow!!!!

We woke up this morning with four new inches of fluffy white snow, with 5 more inches expected by late this afternoon. Naturally, nothing stops in Vermont: school is in session, Austin and I both have to go to work, we just get to watch the snow fall from our office windows. It was quite an adventure getting the kids to their babysitter's this morning: she lives at the top of a steep dirt driveway. The partial thaw we got last week meant that the usual ice/slush/snow that coats her driveway melted a bit, then refroze in weird new peaks and valleys, which of course are now hidden under the new snow. The Elantra with its steel-studded snow tires isn't afraid of anything! We got a good running start then bounced around and slid to the top. Whew.

We're getting pretty tired of winter. Gavin has started praying to Heavenly Father to send us spring. I think this is because he knows that spring around here means MUD SEASON when all the snow melts and the saturated ground -- under snow cover since November -- emerges as a sloshy mess. This boy can't wait to put on his Wellie Boots and go wading in the mud. Little piggy of mine.

Tomorrow there is an easter egg hunt in the park: "rain, snow, mud, or shine." Any of the former three seem more likely than the latter. This is going to be interesting!

My Leprechaun

These are the Kindergarten Leprechauns from Mrs. Zeilenga's class. My particular little leprechaun is the one in the butterfly shirt.

Snowy Weekend

We spent most of the weekend digging out from yet another massive snowstorm that came through on Friday and Saturday. Fortunately, the kids haven't lost their interest in playing in the snow yet -- Lucy made a whole snow "house," despite her brother's best efforts to demolish it, while Austin and I struggled to dig the cars out. The snowbanks are now officially so high I can't throw the snow up on them anymore! Austin has to do all the shoveling now -- at least toward the end of the driveway. This despite the fact that a frontloader came by a month or so ago, took pity on us, and moved our huge driveway snowbanks elsewhere. So this is only about a month or so of new snow accumulation!

Eight more inches are expected to fall this week. I hope Mom is able to find the house when she comes to visit on Thursday!

Here's the bright side: lots of great skiing for Austin! We are also really looking forward to having company this week -- Mom is coming, and Howard will be in Boston this week so we're taking a trip to the city. And, we are told that spring is eventually coming . . . "mud season" generally starts in mid-March (as all this snow melts into impossibly saturated ground and school buses can't get through on the dirt roads) and then by early April we may see the ground again. I've forgotten what dirt looks like. I haven't seen any since November!

The new Gray Family Blog!

OK, maybe it's the cold and snow . . . maybe it's living in a small town far away from family and friends . . . but we're going to try this new way to keep in touch! Stay tuned for more.