Bruce and Em and ALL of Them: Sweet and Sour

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Sweet and Sour

My parents visited this past week from Florida. I had not seen them since December so I was really looking forward to their visit. I was especially excited for them to see our new home, considering they financially assisted us with the down payment. Of course I wanted the house to be perfect. Talk about motivation to get your home finally unpacked and clean!!!

They arrived last Tuesday and stayed for 8 days. Each boy took plenty of turns sitting on Poppy's lap being silly and playing with his mustache. Also, much time was spent talking and snuggling to Nana. We were a bit cooped up in the house because it rained nearly every single day they were here. My parents have yet to see much sunshine in New Hampshire because all three times they have visited it has either been overcast or rainy. I don't think they believe that the sun even shines in New Hampshire.

As I mentioned, it had been about almost 7 months since my last visit with mom and dad, but this visit was hard. It was hard to see my parents in pain from arthritis. It made me yearn to live close to them again. Although I don't know just how much help I would be with 4 kids to parent.

Before my parents came, my dad and I had talked about his desire to purchase some apples trees and plant them in my yard. He wanted the boys to be involved with this process because he wanted this to be something that he specifically left behind for his grandchildren after he is gone. Each year as we pick apples from our fruit trees, the boys will have a sweet memory of their poppy. As hard as this was to talk about or imagine, it was such a tender time spent with him and the boys.

Our friendly New Hampshire snake

Saturday morning, the only somewhat non-rainy day we had, the whole family went to the nursery in search of the "perfect" apple trees. We had fun. We spotted our first New Hampshire snake, which is a big deal. In Florida, snakes are everywhere. You have to be educated on which ones are poisonous and which are not. Now, what's that old riddle that most Floridians commit to memory.....“Red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black, venom they lack". Well, anyway, we are happy to know that there are no poisonous snakes native to New Hampshire (at least according to he Internet). The boys also found a little pond with lots of fish that entertained them for a bit.

The boys trying to spot the snake again!

The little fish pond

Family shot

We quickly found 2 beautiful apple trees and Zander chose a pear tree and brought them home.

Oliver loved the water plants

Our apple trees

When we got home from the nursery, we quickly ate lunch and all 4 boys were excited to plant the new trees. My heart was overjoyed to see them working hard on this project. I was proud of them and I think poppy was too. Beau and Zander worked well as a team and the three little ones "helped". We didn't have enough shovels, but apparently plastic Lacrosse sticks worked just as well.

In one of the holes, Beau came across a large rock. Of course the boys wanted to be "The" boy to remove the rock. First Will tried and then was followed by Oliver. Neither one succeeded. Then came Carter!! That boy, with little effort,was able to reach in there and pull that rock out. Beau and I have our fingers crossed that Carter will be our retirement plan!!!

This was the supervisors' section

Zander took a little break after the trees were planted

William brought me flowers....how sweet

Nana and Will time

The rest of their trip was nice. We went to Parker's Maple Barn one morning for breakfast, we had an early birthday celebration for Will, and we spent the last morning playing games. Their visit this time was sweet and sour because new sweet memories were made but sour because the thought of nana and poppy not being here anymore is hard. I guess like apples from our apple trees, we will experience many more sweet and sour moments. But for now, we will relish the sweet ones!!!