Week in Review: Full Swing, Full Habits, and a Full House

 Good morning from sunny New England!  This week was the kids' last full week of school, so the end is in sight (2.5 more days) and we are all ready for summer break.  We've been slowly signing up the littles for camps, mostly half-day sport camps at the high school, and for a weekly golf clinic to see if they get hooked like Andrew and Eamon are.  Eamon has been giving them some pre-lessons before the real lessons start:

Golf by the Sea

One thing about our family and sports is that we want them to try lots of new things, stay active, and learn invaluable life lessons on a team BUT we are in no way thinking they will ever become a professional (or even D1) athlete.  We don't specialize in only one sport (we think it's bad physically and mentally), we almost never do travel or club teams, and there's no pressure to be the best.  Phil and I both played multiple sports throughout our lives and still want to keep active, and that's all we hope for them too.  We've seen too many kids burn out on a sport before college.  Our hope is for them to not feel embarrassed when they are teens/young adults and their friends want to play a pickup basketball game or throw a football or go swim in the ocean.  Maybe it's due to having so many boys, but they are way more confident if they know sports rules and basics and can get in the game and keep up.  Sports are not the ultimate goal and we'd much rather that our kids focus on academics and faith.

Trying to outdo each other on the trampoline while Grandpa watches in horror

JP started his internship at Brown University's hospital and is enjoying it!  He gets to shadow with a psychiatrist, watch therapy sessions, and work with psychologists and counselors to help the children in the program by tutoring and playing outside at break times.  He said he's the only male intern and when he came back the second day, all the little boys in the program cheered to have him back to play with them.

We got a nice review online for the Cottage and they are like love letters to a small business.  Reminds me to do the same for other businesses!

Senior Events: Prom, Awards, Baccalaureate Mass and Graduation for Our Girl

It's been a whirlwind of senior events for the one and only girl in Casa Martin, and we have celebrated her to the fullest!  Starting with a Memorial Day party on my side of the family:

Grad school graduate, and 2 high school graduates this year

Then it was time for Senior Prom!  When the big boys went to prom, we bought them a suit (or they borrowed from a brother) and they took a shower, shaved and put it on.  Boom.  Ready for Prom.  It's verrrrrry different with girls, even with a girl like Maggie who is a very low-maintenance, not in the least bit vain, overall sporty girly.  But for the months leading up to Prom, there was dress shopping, jewelry shopping, shoe discussions, nail appointments, hair appointments, and flower ordering.  Her friend Raf asked her to go to prom with him, and she was very happy to have him as her date.  We couldn't take our traditional lighthouse photos because it was raining off and on, but we managed some at the house:

We were trying to come up with poses!

Week in Review: Dressing Alike, Meals for Nine and Embarrassed TV Stars

Hey June!  Nice to see ya!  We've been going crazy over here, thanks for asking, with even more craziness to come.  I like to think I can mostly keep it all together, but then I have a slip-up that keeps me humble, like my latest gym faux pas.  I forgot to pack a towel (I shower at the gym when I workout on my lunch break) but found a shawl in the back of my car that I was going to drop off to goodwill, so I used that.  Turns out decorative shawls are not very absorbent:

Declan had his middle school History Fair...

*I think I forgot to mention that he went to his first middle school dance a few weeks ago.  He's still a little boy in my mind, so this was hard to wrap my head around.  When he came home, we asked him how the dance was, and he said "It was so fun, we played soccer the whole time!"  He's still my sweet little boy :)* 

... and reported on the Ancient Olympics and dressed like a greek god.  He was not allowed to dress like an ancient Olympian because did you know they participated in the nude?  Yikes!  Andrew, Eamon and I were able to swing by the school to see his presentation:

They don't always dress alike

He got an A, but more importantly did NOT place, which is the sweet spot of history and science fairs for our family.  Phil and I took him out to dinner (you may remember we had promised him a dinner out after we had to miss his NJHS Induction) and I told him he could order whatever his heart desired, and his heart desired the biggest Shirley Temple with three cherries, and also chicken fingers and fries.

Week in Review: 24 Years, Declan's Nerves, Maggie's Awards and Dinners for Nine

Hello and Happy Friday!

Phil and I celebrated our 24th anniversary on Sunday, and I wish that I had the time to write a beautiful post about marriage and how easy he's made it to be with him longer than I've been without him...but instead I'll just say that I love my best friend/baby daddy/partner for life so much and I'm grateful to God for putting us together!  

We celebrated in bits and pieces over the weekend, because May anniversaries only add to the normal May chaos.  May I suggest y'all get married in a less busy month?  On Saturday, we drove out to Plymouth for lunch and I think Phil's face says it all when we revisited Plymouth Rock.  Plymouth Pebble is more like it.

That night, our friend Fr. Cook was filling in at our parish for the vigil Mass, and we invited him out to dinner (and ice cream, of course) with us and the kids who weren't working.  Phil and Fr. Cook shared the Fajitas for Two as if it was their anniversary:

On Sunday, we started out the day by working out, because the couple that works out together...works out together or something.

We took our annual Cottage photo on Sunday morning.  Season 4 on Anniversary 24:

Then we drove to beautiful Bristol, RI to have lunch at The Beach House.  It was a gorgeous view but very hot in the sun.  Our weather went from winter to summer it seems!

The heat was great for business at The Cottage though!  Lines all weekend long!

Week(s) in Review: A Retreat with My Bestie, Mother's Day Weekend, Mr. Stang and Season 4 of The Cottage

May is certainly May-ing hard this year, and time allotted to blog writing is on the bottom of my priorities lately. I started this post a week ago but I have to remind myself that it's not me, it's May.

I just wrapped up another semester of online teaching at Franciscan University. I had three courses and I was very happy to finish grading and submit, knowing I would not have to think about that role again until the end of August.  I also have been taking the steps to obtain my School Business Administrator license (similar to a public school Principal license, but for school Accounting/Finance) which included education requirements, passing two MTEL exams, 3 years of employment in my role, and 300 hours of an administrative apprenticeship.  I finally received that license last week!

The Ice Cream Cottage opened on May 7th for Season 4 and it was a very busy weekend and we had our busiest day EVER on Mother's Day.  Moms love their ice cream :)

Strawberry Cookie Crumble

Cotton Candy Crunch

Nutella and Strawberry parfait

Biscoff Sundae

Bermuda Cruise: From the Sea to New York and Will We Cruise Again?

We had two full days at sea for the return trip home... technically from 5pm Wednesday to 8am Saturday when we could get off the ship in New York.  Honestly those sea days are kind of a blur in my memory now but they were very relaxing and fun.  

The first sea day heading home was rocky, but the second day was perfectly calm because we were going so slow to not arrive in port too soon.  We tried to take advantage of the many events happening, like a cake decorating show with the chef and other participants (you can see the cakes set up on the deck below):

We drank our weight in frozen drinks:

It was chilly on the pool deck, but the sun felt good so it was a mix between bathing suits and sweatshirts all day!  

The little boys rode the AquaCoaster (rollercoaster waterslide) 13 times in a row on one chilly day because the sane people weren't in line.

You can take the man away from the ice cream shop, but you can't take the ice cream away from the man.  Or something like that.

I miss the salad bar with homemade (cruisemade) blue cheese dressing and mouth watering croutons.  This day had tuna as the salad bar protein - my favorite!