Long overdue update...

While Redmond and Sadie are sleeping at home this evening, I am stuck in a very nondescript Red Roof Inn in the far-reaches of the Boston area. I put Redmond and Sadie on a plane in Burlington, Vermont this morning and then drove to Boston to turn in my rental car and fly home. Unfortunately, the weather on the east coast was a mess, and most of the flights going up and down the coastline were canceled. So, I'm stuck here in a very non-walkable part of Boston, as there is a convention in town taking up all the hotel rooms, and I figured I might as well finally get around to updating my blog.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind... Last week, I attended the Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians. I stayed in a dorm in an old building on the Radcliffe side of campus. The program was quite intense with hours of homework and readings each night, but I found the material and structure of the class to be very enlightening and informative - even somewhat transformative. Last Friday, I rented a car in Cambridge and headed up to Vermont. Redmond and Sadie flew in on Saturday and we spent the week in a nice, comfy suite with a nice pool with a neat waterslide that Sadie just loved, and we had a great time visiting Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Mich in Essex Junction and Uncle David and Aunt Diane on the farm in Charlotte. Sadie chased chickens at Shelburne Farms, visited the islands of Lake Champlain, rode on a ferry, spent one night on the family farm, climbed on tractors, swam daily, and visited the Shelburne Museum. Plus, she was able to spend the week with several doting adults, and she ate up the attention.

Unfortunately, I was a dork and forgot to bring my camera battery charger, so I'm waiting for some of Aunt Sylvia's pictures to show up in the mail. I did manage to get a few pictures before the camera battery died.

Tonight, I'm adding some videos. Tomorrow morning before I head back to the airport, I'll add some pictures.... I never posted any of our beach videos, so this blog entry is a bit of a mish-mash...


At the beach, Sadie was very interested in Josh and James' kayaks... Heres, she's making off with Josh's kayak...



Sadie and the other kids were tossing their shirts in the air and being generally goofy... Sadie tended to copy whatever Henry, Alex and Charlie did...



Sadie and Lila had a lot of fun playing under and over the coffee table ...




It's fun to dig little "swimming pools" for the kids...





Redmond set off some of his rockets from school....




Sadie ran laps around the wrap-around porch... She found someone's straw hat and pretended to be a cowgirl...




Here, we jump forward to Vermont. We visited the beautiful Shelburne Farms, where Sadie milked a cow and chased chickens... This poor guy looked pretty stressed....




Aunt Sylvia takes Sadie out to splash in mud puddles...




More at Shelburne Farms... Sadie has added cowboys to the list of professions with which she is preoccupied...



Gathering eggs from the nest... The chickens are not amused...




Here are a couple of clips from the class at Harvard. This is from our little mock "graduation" ceremony...




The night before our "graduation", we were treated to a traditional clam bake, complete with whole boiled lobsters... Half of us had absolutely no idea how to eat them...



I have a new Nevada Barr book waiting for me, so I think I'm going to beg off for the evening and read a bit before nodding off.. Hopefully, I'll make it home in good time tomorrow to see my family...